Knowing - jikook au

Sunlight.

By the way, Jimin's an only child in this lmao should have mentioned that already probably (should also be doing my coursework, but there's a lot I should be doing hahahahahahahakillmehahahahahhaa)

~

Sunlight. Jungkook remembered the feeling of the sunlight which caressed his skin when he woke on that terrible day. It had distracted him from the lack of warmth in his arms.

"Alright, good work Jungkook, you can head home now," Eun, Jungkook's dance instructor, told the dancer, who thanked him after downing half a bottle of water and then hastily packing up to leave the dance studio. It was nearing that time of year, and the only place Jungkook wanted to be was his bed. Or rather, his sofa. Or rather, Namjoon and Taehyung's sofa. He'd been kicked out of his apartment for accidentally putting a hole in the wall, and by accidentally he meant forcefully throwing a chair at it when he was having a bit of a breakdown over a comment made to him about- about somebody. That somebody. He hadn't told the two that, though. To them, he was dog-sitting whilst they were away.

Exiting the studio, Jungkook walked swiftly down the corridor, hoping he didn't run into-

"Jungkook!" Leo.

"Hi, Leo," Jungkook mumbled in reply to the man, who smiled gently at him. Jungkook almost flinched at the amount of pity emitting from the other man's eyes.

"Jungkook, I know that you probably don't want to hear this, but it's coming up to- to that time, and I just wanted you to know that you can always find some comfort with me. I know that I remind you of- of Jimin," Jungkook did flinch, this time "But it doesn't mean that I can't be a friend to you. You know where to find me." With a gentle smile, Leo moved past the immobile boy and disappeared into the studio Jungkook had just come out of. The aforementioned stood there for about a minute, staring down the corridor, until somebody opened the door at the end of it, making Jungkook aware of how creepy he must look. Starting forward, the dancer practically ran out of the building and into the coolness of the evening, raising his arms to the air, much like- Jimin -had, a few days prior to his disappearance. God, was it really two years? Sometimes, it felt like 10. Sometimes, it felt like just yesterday. The memory of that morning was still pressed clearly into Jungkook's mind.

Jungkook didn't bother to get out of bed for a while after he woke. The bed was cold on the side in which Jimin had been lying, but this wasn't anything new - sometimes, after Jimin woke, he felt too restless to stay in bed, and Jungkook often found him curled on the sofa, either scrolling apps on his phone or watching TV. Jungkook guessed the prior, as he couldn't hear the sounds of any trashy daytime TV shows floating through the cracks of the bedroom door. Jimin may also have had a dance practice, he wasn't quite sure. Whatever conclusion he reached, he didn't find any reason to worry; usually, after days of tears, Jimin (being the soft boy that he was) tried his best to bounce back, finding reasons to smile and things to occupy himself with. He was always determined to shine through the bad moments, and it was one of the things that held Jungkook in complete adoration of his best friend.

Jungkook started to make his way back to his friend's (acquaintances, really) apartment, letting his mind get engulfed in the painful memories of that day two years ago, the memories he tried his best to bury but couldn't help but obsess over each time he closed his eyes.

He decided, finally, to crawl out of the warmth of his side of the bed, giving in to the grumble he felt in his stomach from sleeping through dinner the previous night. Jungkook stretched and left the bedroom, a yawn leaving his lips, which he barely managed to cover with a relaxed hand. As he emerged into the lounge, he checked the sofa to see it empty, concluding that Jimin must be at dance practice, and so walked past the lounge and into the small kitchen of the apartment, where he made himself a bowl of cereal and plopped into a chair. As he chewed on spoonful after spoonful, he kept his eyes focused on the dishwasher. Something was wrong - that something being the fact that a big red '0' could be seen on the little screen of the machine, indicating that the dishwasher had completed its job. What was wrong about that, is that part of Jimin's daily routine was to unpack the dishwasher. The amount of times Jungkook had watched Jimin grab a bowl and a spoon from the machine, then stop making his breakfast halfway through to unpack the rest of the clean dishes because 'it was bugging me' couldn't be counted on his fingers, because he'd need at least five hands. So, seeing the dishwasher ready to be unloaded despite Jimin already having set off for the day was unusual. Jungkook's eyes scanned the side of the kitchen where the sink was, and noticed that the spot where Jimin placed his breakfast bowl after finishing his cereal stood empty. Did Jimin not eat that morning? If so, did that mean Jimin hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime the day before, when he barely ate anything because he felt sick from crying?