| Returning The Favour || Yoonmin |

Ch30 ~ Conflict is essential

Jihoon and Jungkook had been roaming the halls of the hospital in search of something to do. Waiting for Yoongi to wake up was going to be a tedious task for two very impatient teenagers, considering they couldn't sit still for more than 5 seconds. So, in due time Jihoon had suggested they should go around the hospital and count the wards in each corridor, while also feeling peckish. Growing boys their age needed to eat, sleep late and wake up late – an excuse they had exhausted each and every time they had been told to wake up before noon on a Saturday.

Chaelin had given them money to spend at the vending machine and it was a good 30 minutes before they had returned, and by then they had found her outside Yoongi's private ward. She had her ear pressed to the door with the desperate look of curiosity in her eyes. Jihoon tried hard not to judge, or be disappointed with his mother for being nosy – but she wasn't making it easy.

"Mom?" Jihoon piped up curiously as he chewed on his snickers bar, furrowing his eyebrows at his mother's alarming position. "What are you doing?"

"SHHHH HOON!" she shooed him away as she pressed her pale cheek harder against the wood of the door. "I'M TRYING TO LISTEN!" she whisper-shouted, bringing a painted red nail to the equally bold shade of red she had applied to her lips.

"Well clearly," Jihoon said sarcastically. "but what are you listening to?" he rolled his eyes as he and Jungkook parked themselves on the chairs provided outside the ward.

"Your brother and his boyfriend are having their first fight." She smirked devilishly. Jungkook stopped chewing his cool original Doritos to grow his eyes in shocked horror.

"You're lying." Jungkook's mouth fell agape and slobbery pieces of Doritos fell from his strawberry coloured lips.

"He speaks." Chaelin teased, almost surprised since those were the only words he had vocalised in her presence. Jungkook was shocked by her boldness, the tease in her voice as she pointed out his inability to talk even in front of people he had known for years. It was a problem, Jungkook knew but what was he to do if people intimidated him? What could he do if the mere thought of striking a conversation with someone sent him more anxiety than being dangled above an active volcano?

"He isn't mute mom," Jihoon took over, visibly noticing Jungkook tense up at the mention of his voice or lack thereof.

Jihoon didn't mind that he didn't speak very much. On the contrary, he liked it. This way he could rant about each and every fucker that had annoyed him on a day to day basis and Jungkook wouldn't interrupt him even if he had been bitching about so and so's inadequate pursuit of the clarinet and the laziness in which they had related to practicing such a difficult instrument.

"but more importantly, they're fighting?" Jihoon fished a tissue from his back pocket and handed it to Jungkook, aiding his Dorito mishap.

"Seems so," Chaelin grinned, Jungkook wiped his mouth clean. "Jimin's shouting at him about the girl in the breakfast restaurant." She was almost giddy, she looked as if she was having the time of her life listening to her son get shouted at for God knows how long she'd been pressed up against Yoongi's ward. "OH MY GOD I THINK JIMIN JUST STOOD UP TO CONFRONT HIM!"

"Ok correct me if I'm wrong," Jihoon scrunched up his snickers bar wrapper and got up to throw it to the nearest bin. "but isn't fighting a bad thing?"

"Nonsense." Chaelin shook her head uncomfortably. "It's a sign of a developing relationship, without conflict there can't be progress." Chaelin recited, rather uncharacteristically. She was ditsy, disorganised and down right unable to keep her mouth shut in situations that she very obviously needed to be quiet. But, at the same time she could be incredibly wise. There were times in which Jihoon had asked himself whether he might be conversing with another person altogether, when his mother had spouted some otherworldly sentiment about the universe and all its glory. He wondered sometimes if his mother was more than one person, more than one personality.