Brighter Than The Sun (HYYH Adaptation)

Part 1

Jin
Fire trickled warmth on my stretched hands. I sat by myself,the other guys were already sprawled on the holey mattress and battered sofas of this abandoned warehouse. They slept very well. A couple of times I saw Taehyung and Hoseok stirred restless. Those two are plagued with nightmares. But we never really talked about those kind of things. We knew and saw things about each other but we just didn't talk about things like that,it was one of the things that I like about hanging out with them. We all wanted to pretend that everything was okay the way it was. I shouldn't have ignore things like that.

Yoongi stirred awake rubbing his eyes. "What time is it hyung?" He asked, folding his blanket.

I checked my phone. "It's 4 a.m."
Yoongi didn't have a phone,I didn't know whether it was because he couldn't afford it like Namjoon.

He gently lifted Jungkook's head up off his lap and put the folded blanket under his head.

He got up "I have to work." He said and walked out.

After a couple steps he glanced back "Hyung,you should get some sleep too." He said with a knowingly look.

So he noticed that too. Maybe I wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep.

*****

I didn't know when exactly I fell asleep but Jungkook's voice woke me up.

"Wake up hyung, you said you got to go to church today."

I rubbed my eyes, it was already bright outside. The fire had gone out and only left ashes and some unburned logs. Jimin gathered the logs and hid them between the unfinished furnitures. This warehouse used to be a furniture factory my father owned. It closed down five years ago because the sale was poor. Now it was just our second home. A place where we could sleep when our room at home wasn't an option.

And on weekends all of us slept here. Jungkook and Jimin even went as far as dragging out Jimin's old mattress here. Half finished sofas left by angered workers who had cut abruptly from their jobs,were also our makeshift beds too.

I got up and folded my own blanket to put it on the cupboard along with other's.

I looked at Jimin and Jungkook who dragged the sofas to aligned them against the wall. There were two long sofas. I helped to drag the mattress to the side of the wall.

"Where are the others?" I asked them.

Jungkook grunted something under his breath. But it was Jimin who explained it.
"They went home. Yoongi hyung wasn't there when I woke up but Namjoon hyung had work,Hoseok hyung had dance practice and Taehyung, well.. I don't know why he left. So it's just the three of us."

"Okay, let's go get breakfast then. I have to go home and go to church too. "

It's our Sunday morning routine. Get a breakfast together. As if we weren't together 24/7 already. But secretly I like this. Before I met them I was always on my own.

We went to a convenient store nearby. It was our favorite store. The owner was a sixty something grandma but she was so cool. I didn't know why but I always found grannys were cool. Especially those who worked in the farm. They were mad strong.

I greeted her. But the kids just went straight to the food aisles. I smiled sheepishly at granny.

It was impolite for not greeting older people. But kids are kids. Their manner got forgotten when there were foods.

"It's still morning, don't eat ramyun Jungkook-ah." Jimin scolded his dongsaeng,making a fuss.

But Jungkook is Jungkook. He ignored Jimin and went straight to the water boiler and poured some water on his bowl.

Jimin grabbed a soy bar and a banana milk and I bought myself a happy size lunch box,it even had sausages on it.

We paid for ourselves and went outside to eat. The store had two big white umbrella tables outside. It had four plastic chairs on each table. But when there were seven of us we just dragged all the chairs on one table,which was not a great idea since it became so cramped. Now with just the three of us here, it somehow felt empty.

Jungkook picked up his chopsticks and ate quickly,after some bites, his noodles were gone and he slurped the remaining soup out of the bowl, I shook my head at him in disapproval, he never bothered to savor the taste of food. Jungkook looked up and met my eyes. His huge eyes just stared at me for a brief seconds and then looked at Jimin. I followed his gaze,Jimin chewed his bar quietly unaware of our gazes. Both Jungkook and I looked at him sadly, but didn't say anything. Since he joined the dance team, he restricted his intake. After a couple of months he lost his chubby cheeks, honestly I kinda missed it. And that left me with my filling brunch.

"What are you guys up to today?" I asked them making small talks.

Jimin looked up. "Probably helping my mom at the arboretum." He said. What a good kid, I thought.

And Jungkook just shrugged at me. That made us two.

*****

I got home at nine. I sneaked inside by my bedroom window.My father was no where in sight. I breathed out in relief.
After taking a shower and dressed in my church attire, the usual white shirt and black khakis, I waited in the living room for him. I guessed he wasn't at home last night either. Last night in case he went home, I locked the front door and my bed room from inside to look like I was sleeping,then got out from the bedroom window.
Turned out it was no need to do that, he was always preoccupied on Saturday nights anyway.

In cue he walked in. He held out a finger to ask me to wait a second.I got a whiff of feminine perfume on him as he walked pass by me. It hadn't even been a year since mother died,I thought.

After five minutes he was ready. In baby blue shirt and the same black pants he wore earlier. He hardly looked like forty something widower. If anything he looked like my older brother. He got that compliments like that a lot. I admitted that he was good looking,I inherited some of his good traits too. Like the full lips and nose. I basically looked like a copycat of him,but my features were softer. I didn't know whether I would look sharp like him when I grew older.

My father owned three cars. But he insisted that I would be able to drive one of them only after I got in college. If only his college choices weren't that dreamlike impossible to get in.
Sometimes he overestimated me too much.

So now yeah, he had to drive me around now that mom wasn't around to do that anymore.

Church just went by like that. I spaced out the whole time. And I caught my father yawned a couple of times. I didn't know the point of going here. We went to church because my mom was religious, but father wasn't, so wasn't I.

We drove back home in silence. We two weren't good at small talks. We hardly had any conversation since my mom died.It used to be mom who made a topic and filled in the silence.  It was her who kept our family bond.
I missed her.

*****