| Returning The Favour || Yoonmin |

Ch23 ~ Happiness is a choice...

Shortly after dinner, Yoongi and Jimin proceeded to go back upstairs and freshen up before they retired to bed. They had entered the in-suite bathroom and proceeded to brush their teeth. Yoongi observed the younger boy, watching the way he stuck his tongue out as he smeared tooth paste on the bristles of his blue toothbrush. He felt his heart flutter as he brushed his own teeth in the mirror, eyes still trained on the angel faced boy so content with everything in life. He wondered how that was possible, for the younger boy to look at the state in which he was living – or barely living – and still have a smile on his face to compensate for all the wrong that had surfaced in his life. Jimin was a teenager with no home, barely any food prior to his first meeting with Jin and he didn't even possess the pleasures most teenagers indulged in fully, most days of the week. Yoongi knew that he couldn't live without the comfort of his headphones, his mobile device and his laptop since all his compositions were contained within the files of the electronic miracle of music production. And yet – Jimin had no problem finding fun in brushing his teeth whenever he could.

"Jimin?" Yoongi beckoned quietly, the curiosity in his voice evident as he spat the contents of his mouth out in the sink.

"Mhmm?" Jimin hummed in response, eyes flickering toward his older friend.

"I have a question."

Jimin spat the formerly white tooth paste into the sink, white bubbly substance soon disappearing down the drain as Yoongi turned on the tap. "what is it hyung?" he queried as he filled a plastic cup with cold tap water and rinsed out his mouth.

"I was just thinking about your living situation..." Yoongi scratched the back of his head nervously as he filled his own plastic condiment. "...are you happy with the way you live right now?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Jimin answered with a question, gobsmacked the older boy had even asked his happiness of a life someone had given him willingly.

"Well..." Yoongi started. "...you don't really live anywhere, you get jobs in odd places to live for another day, your daily pleasures seem non-existent and the you don't eat too much because you don't have a choice..." Yoongi felt the impact of his words hit his chest, the heaviness making way for an ache beneath his ribcage. "...how are you happy?"

"Happiness is a choice people make for themselves." Jimin answered simply. "Don't you agree? Only we, as in ourselves, can make us happy. The kind of life I have now isn't perfect, by any means, but I am grateful for what I have. I have a body that functions well enough for me to walk around and work, I have a heart that beats like anyone else's, I'm cute," Yoongi scoffed at that one – uncharacteristic of Jimin to point out an objective part of his appearance. "You don't agree?" He looked almost insecure.

"I didn't say you weren't." he looked away, the blush in his cheeks palpable as he smiled at nothing in particular. "But yeah sure, you're cute." Yoongi couldn't argue with the fact that yes, Jimin was adorable.

"My point is," Jimin reached for a towel hung on the back of the bathroom door. "being happy isn't a matter of how much you have, it's a choice whether you want to feel that way or not."

"No, it's not." Yoongi contended. "No matter how you look at it, if something like death hits someone you love, what are you going to do? Choose to be cheerful and happy instead of mourning their death?" a pause as he wiped his face clean of water and left-over toothpaste. "No matter how you want to feel, there are always events and things that happen in life that will impact your emotions in a way you won't be able to control."

"But you wouldn't feel like that forever," Jimin's voice was muffled in his towel, but audible still. "sure you'll have to mourn that death and grieve it for however long you need to in order to grow," he paused. "but life's too short to be worrying about dreadful things like death and sorrow. It should be lived to the fullest." He threw the towel over his shoulder and opened the door to the bathroom so he could make an exit. Yoongi followed. "besides, if say your mother died," Jimin looked up for a brief moment and uttered a "God forbid," under his breath. "she wouldn't want you to be brooding her death every passing minute of your life, right? She'd want you to be happy for yourself and everyone else in your life. You can't be unhappy because of one bad thing because there are so many things to be happy about."

"Why are you like this?" Yoongi asked as he followed Jimin down the hall, another question that baffled him about this angel faced boy. He was barely seventeen and he knew more about being happy than half the therapists in Hoseok's clinic. "How can you be happy even without all the primary pleasures most people have? Like a home."

"because I choose to be." Jimin answered, throwing his towel on the bed. "I have plenty of things to be grateful for. There are people kind enough to let me stay at their homes and eat there!" he gestured to the person following him into Yoongi's room. "by choice, might I add."

"but–" Yoongi almost couldn't argue anymore, hard as he tried Jimin was correct, in every respect of the word. "you barely have any food to feed yourself, people probably harass you out there and you just choose to turn a blind eye to their abuse?"

"I choose to believe I can be the bigger person in those situations." Jimin plopped down on the bed. "the streets are a tough place to end up hyung, it changes a person's perspective."

"Jimin..." the older boy muttered, another question on his tongue. "...Jimin how did you end up on the streets?" this is what baffled Yoongi the most. Someone like Jimin wasn't meant for that kind of life, someone as kind and selfless as the angel sat on his bed wasn't meant for a life of homelessness. Who, in their right mind would throw out someone so pure and vulnerable? So young. "did someone kick you out of your home?" he was sitting next to him on the bed now, Jimin's expression hadn't shifted at all. "Was someone abusing you? Cuz we can call the police about things like that. We can report it and you could go home to someone who loves you."

"Hyung..." Jimin smiled, almost as if he was deaf to the morbidity of the question. "...I was sent here. No one kicked me out of anywhere."

"What? Sent here?" Yoongi's confusion overflowed as a new bunch of questions accumulated in his brain. "What do you mean you were sent here? By who?"

"I was sent here." Jimin talked like it was obvious. "I was sent here to take care of something."

"You lost me." Yoongi completely shut down at this point, his former sense of curiosity evaporating as more and more questions popped into his mind.

"I was sent by God." Jimin smiled. Yoongi's face deflated as the creator of the universe escaped Jimin's plump lips. "God has a plan and he sent me here to help as a part of his plan." Yoongi mentally face palmed as his mental capacity drained some more. He didn't peg Jimin as the religious type, never even thought of it. If Yoongi believed in God, he would probably have been headed to hell with all the promiscuity the old man up in the clouds was made to witness. A lot of his songs were filled with profanity and erotic slurs in the lyrics too, so he was definitely seeing Satan, horns and all.

Questions reeled in his mind, staring the younger boy down with narrowed eyes and his eyebrows knitted together. Questions he didn't have the energy to find the answers to like he had before. "I give up. I'll ask you when I have the energy." Jimin giggled as he shuffled himself into the covers, Yoongi following suit just as soon as he massaged the stress away from his temples.

"Good night hyung..."