my brother, jimin // j.jk

1

"Seohee!" I look up, hearing my name being called. As my eyes shift from the ground beneath me to what is in front of me, I notice that the person calling my name is my brother, Jimin, from beside his car. I step off of the sidewalk and into the school parking lot, towards Jimin's car. I wave to him, acknowledging his shouts, and get in the car.

"Hey, Jimin," I say, smiling.

"Hey. How was your day?" He smiles back at me.

"Great, how about you?" I reply as he pulls out his keys.

"It was good. Wanna come with me to hang out with my friends?" He asks, starting the car and pulling out of the parking spot.

"Sure. I already finished my homework, so I'm free." We drive out of the parking lot.

"Good, we're going to the mall."

As Jimin drives, we continue to talk, soon arriving at the mall. After he parks the car, Jimin pulls out his phone, tapping onto a group chat with his friends. He types a few words, presses the send button, receives a message, and repeats this several times. Within a few minutes, he slides his phone back into his pocket, turning to me before speaking.

"Looks like we're the first ones here," he sighs lightly. "Seokjin and Namjoon had to clean a classroom because Namjoon broke some stuff; Yoongi had a short basketball practice; Hoseok had to help his mother with some chores; Taehyung went to go 'tend to his stuffies'; and Jeongguk forgot to bring clothes to change into after school ended, so he had to go home to change."

"Oh okay. Wait, did you say that Taehyung had to 'tend to his stuffies'? As in, those exact words?" Jimin nods as a response. "Wow okay. How many stuffies does he have then?"

"A lot," is Jimin's reply.

A few minutes later, we see a familiar car park beside ours. Jeongguk waves at us from inside his car, to which we wave back, smiling. He points to a bench in front of the building, basically asking us to go sit there with him. Jimin looks at me for an answer; I shrug and give a small 'sure'. We get out of the car, an action which Jeongguk isn't far behind to mimic, and walk over to the bench, sitting down. I sit on one side of the bench while Jeongguk sits on the other side, Jimin in the middle of us. I yawn, causing a chain reaction of yawns to come from all of us.

"Dang it, Seohee, you just had to start it. You just had to yawn," Jeongguk said jokingly between yawns, to which I laugh.

"It isn't my fault, really," I yawn again. "Okay, maybe slightly."

"It's all your fault, burn the witch!" Jimin says, pointing at me with a smile. We all laugh.

After a soft sigh, I look up to the sky. I hadn't noticed how beautiful it looks today, until now. It's a bright (yet still very light) blue — a color that I can only describe as soft — with very few clouds to cover the brilliance described. The clouds themselves are a bright white, without even a tint of grey. Ethereal. That's how you could describe this moment. It's so peaceful, so beautiful; unreal. We all sat there for a few minutes, without speaking. Eventually, I notice that they were also staring at the sky, peaceful and relaxed expressions on their faces. This moment feels so delicate, as if a single breath or sigh or even any light noise could completely shatter it. But that's exactly what happened.

"Yah, you just had to break the damn shelves," Seokjin complains to Namjoon. I hadn't noticed that the two had arrived, and, by the surprised looks on Jimin and Jeongguk's faces, they hadn't realized either. Namjoon hung his head in shame at Seokjin's statement, and I used this moment of silence to notice that their car was right beside Jeongguk's, and somehow I didn't even know that they had parked. I guess that's what happens when you don't pay attention to your surroundings like that.

"Sorry," Namjoon said softly to Seokjin before turning to the three of us still sitting on the bench and speaking a bit louder. "And sorry to you guys for making you wait."

"It's no problem," we all said in unison before briefly staring at each other and laughing.

"We have to wait for the others to arrive anyway, so it's fine," Jimin explains.

"Oh," Namjoon begins, "If you say so." I glance over at Seokjin, seeing that he still looks a bit angry, probably because he had to help Namjoon clean even though he did nothing wrong. The two boys soon sit down on the concrete in front of the bench we are sitting on, facing us.

Eventually, Hoseok arrives, then Yoongi, then finally Taehyung.

"'Tending to your stuffies' sure takes a while, huh?" Jimin says to Taehyung, using air quotes for the first part of the sentence.

"Well," Taehyung starts, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment, "There are a lot of them... and... you know..." His voice trails off as he failed to find an explanation that would seem somewhat logical.

"It's okay, I was only joking," Jimin says, reaching to ruffle Taehyung's hair, smiling.

"Are we gonna walk inside the mall or just sit here all day?" Jeongguk asks.

"Oh," Jimin laughs, "Yeah, let's go inside now."

"Coffee shop?" Hoseok asks, predicting where we will be going based upon past experience. As a response, he sees heads nodding 'yes'.

—

Seokjin: 17 years old
Yoongi: 17 years old
Hoseok: 17 years old
Namjoon: 17 years old
Jimin: 17 years old
Taehyung: 17 years old

Jeongguk: 16 years old
Seohee: 16 years old