Jinkook | Our Journey

22.

*Jungkook's POV*

The evening passed slowly, at first.

It was probably because I was on the edge of my seat, walking on eggshells, afraid to say the wrong thing or hit a nerve. And no one made any effort to relieve me of the tension either, apart form the little pats of encouragement I got from both Jimin and Jin every so often. But even those didn't help much, because if Jin's dad noticed, a death-glare soon followed.

So it was kind of rough to begin with.

I sat on the left hand side of the dinner table, next to Yoongi. Jin sat across from me with Jimin, and Jin's parents sat on either end of the table. As we ate our starter - salad - the conversant was strained and heavy; Jin's dad barely bothering to grunt his replies, my plate being taken away while the fork was halfway towards my mouth and so on.

But by desert, things were lighter. Easier.

Jimin was telling us the stories of his many, many jobs and how he'd gotten fired from all of them. The laughter and conversation turned from polite to real.

"I honestly don't think that was my fault. Like, there should've been a sign or something."

"Jimin, it's common sense. You can't stick icing to cake with glue." Yoongi told him,  eyebrows raised as Jimin told us about how he'd gotten kicked out of his job at a cake shop.

"But how else was it supposed to stick? I only used a little glue, anyway. I don't know why the manager freaked out like that," he sniffed, and then crossed his arms in annoyance when everyone at the table started to laugh. And things were okay again. Like they were before they had found out about Jin and I.

As I ate my ice cream, my eyes darted towards Jin. I'd been very careful to look or talk to him as little as possible, and he had done the same with me. I guess you could say we were trying to ease his parents into the idea of us together. Dinner together was a starting point. No need to push it. But as everyone seemed to be too engrossed in their desert or involved in a conversation, I watched him.

Jin was turned to the side, listening to Yoongi speak about his asshole of a history lecturer.

He scooped some of the melted ice cream into his spoon, raising it, sucking it clean, then repeating.

Around his four spoonfuls, and several labored breaths - from me - later, he seemed to sense I was watching him, and he turned forward. He waved at me, curling each of his fingers, one by one.

My eyes flashed quickly to the other members of the family, and luckily, only Jimin had noticed us, rolling his eyes as he looked away again. I looked back at Jin, and the corners of his mouth were lifted in a lazy smile.

"Hi." he whispered.

"Hey," I murmured back.

He took another spoon of the sweet desert, the nearly completed melted liquid dripping a little, onto his lip. Holding my gaze, his tongue darted out and licked it off, his eyes flickering closed as he savored the taste.

My hand clenched by my side.

This was by no means the end of our troubles. It was a start, sure, but there was so much to do. My parents had already started to plan my return to New York next month, so I could spend the summer here and start another job there in September. I wasn't sure how they'd take it if I told them that things seemed to be okay now.