VMIN / THE GUTTER

13

A subtle tension still lingers in the air as the Parks sit down to dinner, and Jia mindlessly picks at her food, faded blue hair hanging low and casting shadows across her miserable face. Kwan and Ora seem amused by the tension, giggling to each other, and Jimin can see their feet kicking at each other beneath the cream table cloth. Mihi has Myungok beside her, and is feeding her calmly, as she babbles into the phone, stopping for small moments to hum and chew.

Jimin glances at Jia, still unsure what to make of what he found in her cupboards — whilst he never truly allowed himself to imagine she and Taehyung would be together, it was bizarre to imagine what other reason she'd have them there.

It's quiet, aside from their mother's slow barking into the phone, and the twins' terrific whispers, which settles as soft sibilances to those further away. Jimin can hear the television blaring from the old living room, now converted into their father's bedroom, and Myungok is scraping her plastic fork across her plate. Mihi cuts up her own food into dregs of meat, her chopstick on a warpath as she mindlessly pounds the food without room for thought.

As soon as Jimin finishes his food, he bolts away, leaving his sister's to clear up — his mother allows it because he's partway through his final examinations and needs time to study. But, really, Jimin doesn't think he has the motivation to study, not right now, when there's a flickering shadow passing over his face. He feels as if washed up on a sunless patch of land, where his waterlogged lungs start to rot at the core, spreading their corrosion all across his innards. The grave pressure of water weighs down on him, clogs up his tissues, puffing them and decomposing them, till they've no option but to sprout up again and, like brittle water nymph plants coiling between his bones, exasperating their fresh mildew across his carcass-black lungs.

It's as if there's something hanging over him, and his imagination spirals, allows him to believe it is the ghost of Taehyung's dad, who's hand has phased through his body, and is roughly pinching at his organs. It's just about all he can think of, as he tries to read over his notes for his exams tomorrow — the fatal notion of sabotage pressing at his heart.

"Jimin." Comes his sister's voice as the door creaks open, and the shadows casting across her face seem to spawn into violet webs of disposition, as she comes to him, in a faded jumper, with her hands outstretched, baring a mug. "Mum made you tea." Jia tells him.

Jimin watches her for a short moment, unsure whether she's lulling him into a false sense of security and is going to suddenly snap her bones and jut her jaw and screech at him, or if she's genuinely being kind. Eventually, he places a bookmark in his notes and outreaches a hand to take it. "Thank you." He says back, but his voice is stiff, taut with the rife uncertainty that congeals across the thickness of the room.

She gently places it in his hand, and she doesn't meet his eye, but her hesitation is obvious, as her black nails press to her sweater and her knees bend and dip for a hollow moment.

He takes a sip of the drink, but immediately regrets it, as hot spates of the liquid ache his senses, and it burns as it collides with the back of his throat. "You just gonna stand there?" He asks her, and his tone comes across rather affable despite the intention of the words.

Jia frowns and her shoulders shake for a moment, neck seemingly wrung, as she keeps her gaze to the ground. As she palms her attentions off onto him, he sees the depths of her discomfort, and feels worse than he's felt all week. "You didn't—" She starts, but stops as soon as their eyes meet, and he seems so concerned. Gulping, her tone becomes breakable, rigid, as she forces herself to continue, "you didn't tell Taehyung about... about the pictures, did you?"