Pretty | Yoonmin (DISCONTINUED)

forty nine

It seemed that lunch would be a quiet affair. So far, the only sounds to pierce the heavy laden atmosphere that had befallen them
shortly after everyone had taken their seats was the clash of silverware against the edges of white ceramic plates and glass cups, and the exhaling breath of sleepy yawns and quivering huffs still drowsy from much needed sleep. Jimin sat beside Yoongi, who picked tiredly at the food on his plate with vaguely distant irises fixed upon the floral centerpiece, seeming only mildly aware of the wad of food tucked into the corner of his cheek. He somewhat mirrored Jungkook, who seemed just as distant, yet slightly more aware of the other's presence.

Jungkook sat high strung with invisible threads hiking his shoulders up to his ears, dragging his thin, ghostly body towards the ceiling as if to take him to the sky. His presence was floaty, like yesterday, like honey clouds suffused into his weak heart, and cotton replacing aching tissue as if to numb the stinging pain of the night before and soothe the bruised ring around his rib cage from the sickened heaving. Hoseok held Jungkook's fingers beneath the table, tethering him to the ground with an earthly touch, hot sunbeam skin searing through numbed flesh, and Taehyung's gaze darted between Yoongi and Jungkook like he wasn't quite sure who he should be looking at.

Jimin debated reaching for Yoongi's tiny knee beneath the table top...simply to bring him back to them, but Yoongi didn't seem completely gone. It seemed more as though he were sorting through clouded thoughts obscured by their own illogical meaning, picking apart mangled ideas and attempting to understand them, which he supposed was okay so long as those ideas didn't inflate into big balloons an carry Yoongi away.

Besides, Jin seemed to be aware of the slightly awkward situation, if the knowing glances he kept shooting Yoongi were anything to go by. Jimin wondered if anything of importance had happened last night while Jimin was caring for Jungkook, if maybe Jin had seen something Jimin had missed. Though it would make sense if he had caught onto something that Jimin's frantic eyes had passed over considering Jin was Yoongi's best friend since childhood, Jimin's shoulders sunk under the weight of some unknown burden.

It was stupid, but just like that morning, Jimin's mind mocked him with fantasies of his own arms around Yoongi's petite frame, of Jimin being able to effortlessly read the collage of mystery hidden within the detailed features of Yoongi's face and understand exactly what it was Yoongi needed from him like Jin did.

"Yoongi hyung," Taehyung hummed in a faintly gravelly syrup tone, dragging Jimin from his ludicrous imaginings. Yoongi floated back to the present, and Jimin watched his consciousness settle back against the tangible seams of reality. "This place is beautiful. Is this your house?"

Yoongi's soft throat bobbed with a harsh swallow, and the lily pink petal of his velvet lips puckered in a slightly wrinkled blossom.

No, he signed leisurely. It's really my grandmother's house.

"Really?" Tae breathed a tiny little gasp. Jimin stifled a small giggle at the back of his throat. "Where is she? Is she here? Can we meet her?"

"Taehyung loves old people." Hobi hurried to explain, feigning an irritated eye roll, but Jimin knew that Hoseok had always found those little tidbits of Taehyung personality to be adorably quirky.

"Old people are just so cute," Taehyung laughed as gentle as the misty morning, and Jungkook smiled an unobtrusive cornflower blue smile, scattered and pale as the sky stretched thin as dry white cotton and blotted azure powder. "Is she here? I'd love to meet her."

Jimin turned to Yoongi, truly curious for he had known nothing of the house being Yoongi's grandmother's, and had heard nothing of the woman herself. But Yoongi looked odd. His eyes, usually so strangely dark it left Jimin gasping from the intensity, the heat compacted within a single umber look, they were blank. Blank like someone had taken a wet wipe to the surface of his glossy irises and wiped the sheen of complex ideation and mismatched feeling from the hot pools and left only the frigid vacancy of dulled color. His small, small shoulders were drawn too tight over his tiny milk chest, collapsing upon a butterfly wing crafted rib cage and heavy at the edges of his chained heart. He was too tense. Jimin wasn't sure if anyone but Jin had noticed, because Yoongi truly was good at hiding such things. But Jimin had seen those eyes turn upon him with the warmth of twin blood orange suns and the raw vulnerability of devoted honeysuckle trust, had felt those shoulders beneath his hands and the curve of his back beneath his palm when he tucked Yoongi's trembling form against his chest, and he knew something was off here. Though unable to understand everything Yoongi did and thought, he knew enough to see some tender nerve had been touched on.