VMIN / THE GUTTER

19

A culmination of fog still spreads across the pond, and it's sequestering behind the files of apple trees Jimin must pass on his way home. It's moody and damp, and aligns itself like a panicle, all clustered together, humid. He weaves past it, and the sun is still hot across his back — making the scene of immense fog all the more unsettling.

When he gets home, all the windows are wide open; the kitchen has billowing curtains of white fluttering out in the open, and Jimin is rather thankful to see those impending flanks of summer still in full motion. Jia is sat at the table, feeding Myungok, and she's scribbling down annotations beside her sketch on a large piece of paper. Jimin glances at it as he passes her on his pursuit to the fridge, and she doesn't even look up, though it's obvious she's registered his presence.

Myungok beams at him, but before she can endeavour to say anything, Jia is shoving a baby spoon into her mouth. Jimin rolls his eyes at the display, dunking his head down in order to grasp at a can of coca cola.

"This fog is so weird." He comments, as his eyes trail up again, and he sees their small garden, coated in greenery, with unkempt flowerbeds that spill across each other, intertwining their colours together, crashing within one another like waves. The fog is thinner there, and the birds twitter over it, but there's still enough of a veil of it to make the balmy scene relatively uncanny.

Jia glances up at him. Frowns. Goes back to her drawing.

Jimin didn't really expect a reply — he was more so speaking to himself than to either of his sisters. Still, he can't deny the mist is starting to perturb him. His cola sizzles as he snaps it open and he takes a large gulp, tearing his eyes toward his sister.

"Since when do you intake unnatural sugar?" She asks, feeling his gaze upon her.

Jimin falters for a moment, and glancing down at the drink in his hand — it's true, he didn't really tend to indulge in such unhealthy foods or drinks. Alas, he's, "stressed." As he informs her, and she just shrugs, and continues to sketch lazily. He raises a brow slightly, and opens his mouth to speak.

She interrupts easily and informs him, "this is an art project. I'm not drawing your precious enemy."

He narrows his eyes again and takes another gulp. "What makes you think he's my enemy?" He raises a brow and swirls the drink around, hearing the horrendous fizzle of empty calories.

She scoffs lightly and wordlessly goes to feed Myungok some more. Jimin frowns at her, and watches her draw. He zones out and traces her sketching with his eyes, following the galloping river she unspools. It takes him a moment to realise what it is she's drawing — too mesmerised by the process, he hardly notices what the lines all configure together to create.

He doesn't notice until she adds a shock of red across the face and he gasps out, "is that dad?"

The red winds around the image of their father, wrapped across him like tethering vine, restricting him — its a tad grotesque, to see the way in which the crimson line engorges him, consumes him, and takes him for its own. Jimin despises it, yet is strangely mystified by it.

"Yes." She tells him, and she adds another splurge of shading beneath his eyes, rims them, so he looks tired and decrepit and, by all intensive purposes, a lot like a ghost.

"That's awful." Jimin says, and snatches the drawing away. "Don't show Myungok that."

Jia scowls and rises from her seat slightly. "You're not the boss of me."

Jimin bites at her, "never claimed I was." Pauses for a moment and glances at the drawing again — it's disturbing really, to see such an accurate delineation of their father, succumbed to the horrific feats of death. To see him so ghostly and spectral. He hates the way in which his mind suddenly flickers with images of Taehyung — thinks about what it must be like to see your real father like that, to see his attributes atrophied to such an extent. It terrifies him so, and he chucks the paper back on the table, upside down.