BUSAN PACK || JIKOOK. ✅

10

Jimin pov

The ride to Grams' was never a short one.

With miles between us, the winding mountain roads, and the twenty thousand stop signs, it always dragged on.

Today, it was worse. She was pissed.

And while I understood I'd defied her and lied, saying I wouldn't go, I was a grown-ass man.

And yet here I was, spending the hours in the car, dreading her fury.

And the thing was, she'd never done anything in the past to make me feel this way.

The worst she had ever done while I was growing up was smack me with her dishtowel, and not even to the point where it was anything but annoying nothing like the towel whips of high school gym, that was for sure.

Yet there was a knot in my stomach like I'd never felt before.

I pulled into her drive and parked the car, half expecting her to meet me at the door.

She did not. Instead, I found her in the kitchen, slumped over, her head between her hands.

"Grams?" I took a step closer, and she snapped her head up, her eyes swollen.

Fuck. And then, as if I'd snapped her out of her state, she stood up and began hitting me with her kitchen towel, mumbling what a fool I was.

"Why did you pick now of all times to be defiant?"

she huffed then sighed then wrapped her arms around me tightly.

"I was only trying to protect you."

I hugged her back, not sure what was even happening until she stepped back and told me to sit down while she put the kettle on.

"I knew I couldn't hide it from you forever." She set two mugs on the counter.

"Apple or green?"

As if I could just let the "hide it" comment pass by unacknowledged.

"Hide what?"

"Apple or green?" she repeated.

"Apple," I conceded and watched her make the tea from my perch at the table.

I knew better than to offer to help when she was like this.

She was buying herself time to think.

She brought two steaming mugs over, set them down then reached for her cookie tin, the one that had never been empty my entire time growing up.

"You're going to think I'm mad." She popped the tin to reveal my favorites, pecan shortbread.

"I know you're mad. You hit me with a towel." I grabbed a cookie and set it beside my cup.

"You need to not make this so hard."

She side-eyed me the way only Grams could. "Remember when you found that picture of your mom, and I took away your bicycle for a week for snooping?"

Heck yeah, I remembered that.

I'd found the photo behind a cook book on the shelf and was awed by the way she sat there surrounded by wolves.

I never saw my grams as angry as she had been that day—today included.

"I do." I figured best to say as little as possible with her like this.

"I was mad because..." She rose and grabbed a book off the shelf, opening it up and pulling out the picture then setting it between us on the table, and sat down.