The Story of Us | Jikook/Kookmin

38 | Bonding

Jimin POV.

- It's a mess in here, ah! *cough* *cough*

As soon as I hear Jihyun's voice from the little attic room on the upper floor of the house, I rush. He stands there waving off the dust as he coughs a couple too many times for my liking.

- Come out, you troublemaker. I told you not to go in there without a mask!

We're both exhausted from the cleaning daylong, yet we both know it'll be nice if we get all the work done today. I really can't deal with another couple days of cleaning and packing - I've been doing this for whole two weeks! I'm grateful that Jihyun is sacrificing the last day of his travel in Busan helping me out too, it would be hell of a work to do all alone. 

- Hyung, are these boxes trash or will you be needing them? -He calls out while snapping the bands of the white mask around his ears, at the same time pointing out to a stack of boxes lined up on top of each other. 

- Those... -I scratch my hair dumbfounded, a little lost in the cardboards to remember what belongs where. Everything inside the house is packaged, leaving a mess of boxes and dust to crowd the entire area - it got a little hard to keep track of the place of things. 

- It's okay. -He giggles at me mockingly and walks past me inside the attic room again. -Not like I expected you to have good memory or anything. 

My eyes widen as I shout behind his disappearing figure.

- Yah! D-did you just... diss your hyung?

I hear shuffling sounds and then comes his teasing response.

- I'm gonna be a rapper soon, hyung. I'm just practicing attitude, don't take it personal.

Attitude?

My first instinct is to snarl, but fond feelings towards my brother weigh heavier and I find myself chuckling at his silliness. He might be a rapper one day. He is pretty interested in music. 

He comes in and out of the room with stuff that he categorizes into different piles of 'necessary' and 'unnecessary' in front of the door based on his sporific judgement, where I go through the mount of notebooks that need to be sorted out in order of importance. Watching him work so determinedly while keeping a serious expression on makes me feel fuzzy inside; I wish we could spend more time together. I wish I had tried to ameliorate my relationship with him in these last three years instead of distancing myself from everyone... I mean, he was studying in Seoul anyway, but that didn't mean that I couldn't make time for us when he came back to Busan, did it? I could visit him too.

Sigh. I wasted too much time with my life.

Just as I'm contemplating my lost opportunities, the bell rings. I'm the one to attend.

- Jimin-aaaah!

- Hey, hyung!

They're no other than Jungkook and Jung-Hyun, the latter swinging a plastic of delicious smelling food behind which their self-satisfied grins greet - both bunny-like and too cute -, readying themselves to walk inside by fiddling with their shoes.

- Hi-oh, you don't have to take them out! -I politely prevent them from taking off their shoes, given the dirt on the floor from the mess inside. 

- We cames for rescue, how is you doing? -Jung-Hyun pats my shoulder playfully and walks inside, leaving me laughing behind at his unbothered comfortable attitude. After him follows Jungkook, whose arm wraps around me and pulls me in for a hug, not letting go before planting a quiet kiss on my cheek.