ᴘɪᴄᴛᴜʀᴇsǫᴜᴇ. | ᴊɪᴋᴏᴏᴋ ✔️

25 | nobody, nothing

a/n:
slight trigger warning. it's only a short part near the end, and nothing graphic but i wanted to put a note here anyway

The house is quiet and dim, as at the moment all the lights are off, rainclouds outside closing off any exterior light. Jeongguk enters the living room and takes the liberty of turning on the lamp on the small table next to the couch. It's plenty bright enough. He sits down on the cushion and, as Jimin encouraged, makes himself comfortable.

Jimin, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have any intention of doing so himself. As soon as he sits down Jeongguk can see the boy ducking into the kitchen in a concernedly hurried manner.

"Jimin?"

"Do you want something to drink?" Jimin calls into the living room. Jeongguk smiles.

"What do you have?"

"Coffee, tea, water, and apricot juice."

"...apricot juice?"

"It's my uncle's. But I kinda like it, it's not bitter like grapefruit."

Cute. "Water's fine, thank you."

He hears the refrigerator open and close, as well as a cabinet, followed by the sound of plastic cups being pushed around as though the boy is searching for one in particular. Either that, or he's just having a hard time for some other reason. Regardless, Jeongguk doesn't feel right sitting around while Jimin does things for him, however small those things might be. So he stands up and makes his way to the kitchen.

There he finds the boy in the process of re-stacking a bunch of plastic, colored cups and putting them back into an overhead cabinet. Jimin then closes the cabinet and picks up the water pitcher on the counter and starts to pour the contents into one of the cups he had taken down.

"Can I help?"

On the contrary, Jeongguk does the opposite. His quiet, innocent question startles Jimin, who apparently didn't notice the other entering the kitchen, and as a result knocks over the cup half-filled with water - filled with nothing now. The water spills onto the counter and floor.

"I'm sorry, Jimin-"

"No, no, I-..." The boy stares at the floor like it's the ocean and he's knee-deep. "I'll take care of it, you can go sit down-"

"Well, I'm helping you clean this up now," Jeongguk counters, scanning the kitchen in search of something to clean up the small mess. He soon spots a roll of paper towels beside the sink and grabs them.

Jimin snatches them away. "It's fine," he blurts out. "I've already troubled you-"

"You haven't."

Jeongguk takes the paper towels back in a much more gentle manner - he's relieved Jimin doesn't yank them away - and kneels beside the puddle of water on the kitchen floor. He lays down a few towels, lets them soak up the water, then uses one more to wipe away the excess.

"And voilà." He stands back and hands the paper towel roll to Jimin. "You can clean up what's on the counter. Shared effort."

"I'm sorry..."

"I'm the one who made you spill it. No apologies necessary."

Jimin pouts, his expression low-spirited as he cleans up the spill on the counter, then refills the cup more carefully this time. Jeongguk accepts it gratefully.

But if he's honest with himself, he feels low-spirited as well. Jimin looks so tired. Like he could collapse at any moment, but he's refusing to let himself. Jeongguk can only hope it's not because the boy is currently a "host" and doesn't want to look bad in front of his only guest.