"Yeah, I'm on my way. Be there soon," Jin said before the call and taking a right at the next stoplight on his way to Yoongi's apartment.

Due to the injuries Jungkook had sustained from the accident, it had been decided that the best course of action upon his release from the hospital was to have him stay with Yoongi for the time being. Yoongi had an extra bedroom after all, and his apartment building had an elevator close to his room for easy access. That of course left Yoongi to play the role of full-time babysitter, which was both exacerbated and ameliorated by the fact that Jungkook apparently never seemed to leave his room.

Jin had picked up on Yoongi's frustration from many a terse phone call, and he'd decided that the best thing to do would be to get Jungkook out of the apartment for a day. That would hopefully give Yoongi a little time to himself, to grieve or heal (his choice, not Jin's) without needing to keep his walls up for anyone else, and it would hopefully knock a little sense into Jungkook. Yoongi's updates had been...worrying, at best.

From what Yoongi had told him, Jungkook had been insufferable. Not the before-the-accident insufferable which had really meant something along the lines of charmingly annoying. According to Yoongi, Jungkook had forced him to remove or hide any painful reminders of the brothers they'd lost, and even after Yoongi had taken down pictures and turned over photos, Jungkook still only came out of his room for food or the bathroom. He didn't want to talk to Yoongi, and he'd made it clear to Yoongi that he didn't want to talk to any professionals, either.

Hence today's mandatory field trip.

"Surprise!" Jin called out after Yoongi opened the door with an unamused glance. "Well, not as much a surprise since you knew I'd be coming, but hello!"

"Hiya," Aika greeted, poking out from behind Jin to give a small wave before extending her hand. "I'm Aika, Jin's..." She hesitated, looking over at Jin as though expecting him to fill in the blank, but he just kept up his smile.

"Special lady friend with no specific title, got it," Yoongi nodded, holding open the door wider and clearly trying to adjust his facial expression from a full scowl to just a frown (on Aika's account, of course, not Jin's). "Sorry, I didn't know anyone else was coming over or I'd have cleaned up more," Yoongi said even though the public area of the apartment was nearly spotless.

"No worries," Aika reassured, stepping around Jin since he hadn't really moved out of the threshold. "Wow, I love your appliances."

"A woman of taste," Yoongi nodded sagely before looking over at Jin, frown never leaving his face. "I like this one."

"What does he mean, 'this one'?" Aika asked while looking over at Jin, her hands landing on her hips as she blinked at him. "How many others must there have been to constitute my presence as 'this one'?"

"None!" Jin quickly assured before glaring at Yoongi. "He just- has a way with words."

That's what their dad had told teachers when he'd heard of Yoongi's threats toward his classmates, and it had worked well enough then, hadn't it?

"You're the only girlfriend Jin has dragged into my apartment," Yoongi said before quickly throwing his hands up in defense. "My apologies, special lady friend with no specific title. Sorry you're stuck with Jin." He caught Jin's glance. "Jin-hyung," he corrected after a moment, his lips twisting upward in a slight smirk as though he found this funny, as though he knew exactly how much of a good impression Jin wanted Yoongi to make on Aika.

"Eh, I coulda picked worse," Aika said with a shrug before giving Jin a fond gaze that reassured him she was joking with her nonchalance. "Although you do have better appliances than him, hands down. I refuse to cook in his kitchen."

Jin gaped, his eyebrows shooting up comically. It was still taking time for him to allow himself these brief moments of levity. Laughing had felt wrong, since the accident. Happiness had become synonymous with guilt. But he knew that he couldn't go on for the rest of his life living like he was still at the funeral. Once they'd left the funeral hall, they'd entered into the rest of their lives, lives that would undoubtedly have peaks and valleys of their own.

"My appliances are not bad," Jin protested (squawked), and the action felt like he was cleaning cobwebs off a part of his soul. Comedy still felt a bit forced, but this was an exercise he needed to do, to try and get used to laughing and joking again. If he practiced enough, maybe it would feel natural again, or at least less abnormal than it currently did. "My coffee maker just requires a little special attention, and my oven has...a few quirks."

"And let me guess, the microwave has 'character'?" Aika finished for him.

On cue, Microwave padded into the kitchen, hovering by Yoongi's side but sniffing the air and trying to figure out exactly what sort of creature Aika was and whether or not she was a threat to Yoongi, all while Jin muttered aloud, "Is this why you refuse to spend the night at my place?"

"Didn't need to hear that," Yoongi said, fixing Jin with a deadpan expression as he ran his hand over Microwave's head absentmindedly. Even though Yoongi had aged out of his epilepsy, he still had Microwave, although Jin wasn't sure if he'd have to relinquish his beloved pet to someone else in need. It was hard to imagine Yoongi without him, now.

"It's no secret that we're adults," Jin said with a roll of his eyes even though his face was heating up. He immediately pictured Jimin's reaction to conversations like his, his face blushing bright red and hands clamping over his ears, eyes averting off to the side... "Like you don't have your own nighttime adventures."

"None that I've felt like sharing with my hyung," he said, the honorific more mocking than respectful, but Jin just held his nose up a bit higher in the air.

"Who's this little guy?" Aika asked with a grin, giving Microwave a small wave but not moving forward to pet the dog, most likely because she'd seen the colorful harness he was wearing, which only seemed to raise Yoongi's opinion of her as evidenced by the thoughtful tilt to his mouth and raised eyebrow.

Microwave, as though sensing that he'd become the topic of the conversation, gave a single bark, and Aika laughed, holding her palms up as a gesture of non-threatening apology. "Sorry, who's this big guy?"

"This is Microwave," Yoongi said by way of explanation before looking down at his harness. "We usually don't leave it on at home, but we're going to head out for a walk soon and I occasionally like to fake being blind, so."

Aika nudged Jin in the side with her elbow. "Now I see where you got all your fake sympathy gambits from."

Jin gave a helpless grin. "His guilt trip game is strong, what can I say..."

"Microwave is an odd name for a dog though," Aika said, looking back at Microwave with a questioning smile. "Was that a purposeful choice? Or is that some weird naming scheme from the breeder?"

"Ah," Yoongi said, looking down as though he hadn't expected what should have come as an awfully obvious question. "I named him. Jimin had a cat named Toaster, so...it was sort of a joke between us..." His gaze flickered as his mind fragmented between reality and memories, an expression Jin knew well because he saw it in the mirror every day, so he quickly spoke up in order to let Yoongi stay in that warm place for a moment longer.

"Jimin found Toaster under our mom's house back when he, Hobi – that's Hoseok, you haven't met him yet – and Yoongi were living with her due to split custody," Jin explained. He felt bad for not telling Aika enough about his family because there was so much backstory that needed to be filled in so she didn't feel left out. "They ended up keeping her and Jimin named her-"

"Mom," Yoongi corrected pensively, still staring down at the floor with that faraway gaze. "Mom named her Toaster because we couldn't decide. Jimin wanted to name her...Serendipity, I think. No, wait, that was Hoseok. Jimin wanted to call her Calico. But we settled on Toaster in the end as a tribute to Dad's destructive appliance radius."

"Oh, I didn't know that," Jin said softly, surprised. It always came as a small shock to him when there were things he didn't know, experiences he hadn't been a part of but hadn't thought to ask about. Shaking his head slightly, he angled himself toward Aika, continuing to explain, now with his hands just as much as with his voice. "So anyway, they took her in when we were still back in high school, and they've had her ever since. Jimin was her official owner I guess, certainly her official favorite, but..." He frowned slightly, trying to remember the timeline. "She went missing for a while, right before...right before the accident, and she showed up again a few days later."

He paused, sketching an uncertain grin that he didn't quite feel as he looked over at Aika as though looking for an answer to some unspoken question. "They say that some cats just sort of have a sixth sense about..." Death, he wanted to say. "That sort of thing," he said instead, rubbing at the back of his neck. He shook his head again, feeling oddly apologetic as he pushed Jimin out of his mind. "Hobi's taking care of her now. I hope you get to meet her."

"Careful though," Yoongi said, his eyes clear again and a small smirk on his face. "She's like litmus paper for rotten personalities. If you're a bad apple, Toaster's the first to know, and she makes that knowledge public very quickly and loudly." He paused, the smirk slipping into something more sincere as far as smiles went, although it still wouldn't have qualified as a smile on anyone except Yoongi. "I don't think you have much to worry about in that department though."

"I'll keep that in mind," Aika said good-naturedly. "Sounds nifty though, owning a cat that exposes bitches." She gave a small gasp, putting a hand over her mouth, and Jin was about to tell her that she really really didn't need to watch her language around Yoongi of all people when she looked down at Microwave instead. "Sorry Mister! You didn't hear me say that."

"If he starts cussing me out tomorrow, I'm blaming you," Yoongi said with an amused huff. "Although I certainly hope he'll be a bit more creative with his expletives."

They chatted for a few more minutes before Jin and Yoongi both ended up looking at Jungkook's door and heaving a sigh in unison.

"He's not going to come out willingly," Yoongi said, resigned, and Jin looked back over to Yoongi with worried eyes.

"He didn't know we were coming over to pick him up?"

"Oh, he knows," Yoongi said, crossing his arms and glaring at the shut door as though it were a giant middle finger pointed straight at him. "He's just being difficult. That's his only mood, now."

"That sounds...difficult."

"Oh, he's just a joy to be around," Yoongi said, rolling his eyes.

Nobody said that of course he had a perfectly good reason to exercise his moping muscles because that much was obvious. Still, Jin didn't envy Yoongi's job as caretaker, and despite the odd complaint here or there, Yoongi hadn't ever tried to abdicate his responsibility for their youngest brother, so the current arrangement stuck.

"Oi," Yoongi called as he walked over to the door and rapped his knuckles against the wood. "Jungkook. Jin's here with his-" His eyes slid over to Aika. "-special lady friend. They're here to pick you up."

If Jungkook gave a reply, Jin couldn't hear it.

"Jungkook," Yoongi said again, twisting the door handle, but it didn't fully turn. "Locking the door doesn't help you when I've got a key in the other room." He waited for a response but got none. "Do I have to drag you out of there?"

A few moments later, there was a soft snick as the lock disengaged from the other side, and then the door opened inward, revealing their youngest brother. He looked like death, pale and sickly with dark bags under his eyes. For someone who'd always taken great pride in his appearance, the change was perturbing to say the least.

"You haven't been eating enough," Jin immediately accused, his jaw set and his heart aching at the sight. "I'll have to drop off some leftovers in the next day or two," he said, more to Yoongi than Jungkook.

Yoongi just shrugged as if to say he didn't think it would help any.

"Hey Jungkook," Aika said with a smile. "It's good to see you. I've missed you at work, you know. That actor you got assigned to is absolutely intolerable without you there to take him down a few pegs."

That got a small crack of a smile on Jungkook's face.

"They worked on set together," Jin quickly explained for Yoongi, who looked slightly lost. "All right, well-" Jin looked over at the clock as though they were running on a schedule even though that wasn't true. "We should probably head out. We've got a bit of a drive ahead of us." He looked over at Jungkook skeptically. "You know we're going to the beach, right?" he asked, taking in Jungkook's skinny jeans that Jin doubted had changed in the past three days along with a sweatshirt that dwarfed his too-thin frame. "You sure that's what you wanna wear?"

Jungkook just gave a small shrug, shoving his hands in his pockets. Clearly, he was less than eager to be dragged out for a field trip, and no skepticism about the appropriateness of his attire for the excursion would convince him to change.

"Allllll right then," Jin said with a nervous look toward Yoongi. He wasn't really sure how to handle sullen and sulky Jungkook. He was usually the easiest going out of all the brothers. "We'll see you later," Jin said with a small wave toward Yoongi as he more or less herded Jungkook out of Yoongi's apartment, Aika pausing to say goodbye. Then they were on their way.

--

published 09/18/22 (mm/dd/yy)

2447 words

don't worry, this won't be your average obligatory anime beach episode (:

also i have a new story out called "terminal velocity" for any voltron fans. I would really appreciate it if you gave it a read! so far i think chapter one has been viewed exactly 1 time and has 0 comments lol