Chapter Text
“Do you ever think about how you got here?” Jimin asks, one hand busy gently stroking his cat’s ear, chin resting in the other hand as he stares out of the window, watching people pass by.
“Jennie dropped me off.” Jungkook responds, stacking clean plates in the cabinet.
“Shut up,” Jimin laughs, “you know that’s not what I meant.”
“You mean like how we got to this very moment?” Taehyung asks, sitting on the floor, fabrics and ribbons and assorted embellishments surrounding them as they remain hard at work on their next project.
“Yeah,” Jimin turns his focus back to the people in the apartment rather than down on the sidewalk, “like how did everything end up with us all here, at this moment in time, together? What led to you sitting on my floor, working on a project? Yoongi being in the shower? Jungkookie stacking our plates?”
“Tae is a workaholic, Yoongi is a clean freak, and I’m hungry so I’m unloading your dishes so I can eat dinner when Father Kim gets here.” Jungkook shuts the dishwasher, smirking in satisfaction at his antagonistic nature.
“You really are the worst.” Tae cranes their neck to turn and glare at him; Jungkook shrugs and rounds the counter to join them in the living room.
“I’m just spitting facts.” Jungkook smiles.
“When is everyone supposed to be here, anyway? I should probably get this cleaned up before they get here.” Taehyung sighs and rubs their forehead, looking lost in the sea of supplies around them.
“Soon, I think,” Jimin pats his cat’s butt until she begrudgingly crawls from his lap, only to hop back into his lap when he joins Taehyung on the floor, sitting pretzel style and collecting the scraps of fabric sitting outside of Taehyung’s reach, “Namjoon hasn’t texted them yet, though.”
“He won’t,” Yoongi shuffles through the living room, “he’ll forget.”
“Good point,” Taehyung nods, fixated on picking up the impossibly small buttons scattered at their feet, “should someone text Hobi?”
“On it!” Jungkook pulls his phone from his pocket.
“He’s only useful when it’s something he already wanted to do.” Jimin observes, dangling a ribbon in front of his cat’s face. She bats at it, catches it, and Yoongi promptly yanks it away.
“I thought we banned ribbon,” He holds it tight in his fist and heads toward the kitchen trash, “unless you want to spend another night obsessively watching her and then crying all day in the vet’s office—“
“Hey! It was scary!” Jimin pouts.
“Exactly, I’m not having any of us deal with this again. So that’s why this ,” Yoongi looks at him with wide, comically serious eyes, and drops it ceremoniously into the trash can, “needs to go in here and never enter this house again, because I’m not reliving the Christmas Cat Catastrophe.”
“You could have just said Christmas Cat-astrophe.” Namjoon emerges from the bedroom, hair sticking up at all angles, sleep ruffled.
“No, I couldn’t,” Yoongi regards him flatly, “and I wouldn’t.”
“Good of you to join us,” Taehyung picks up scraps of fabric, bundling them together in alternating colors, “your husband should be here soon.”
“It’s that late?” Namjoon blinks, then looks at his phone, “Oh. So many messages.”
“Typical,” Jimin teases, “what if there were an emergency and we needed you?”
“We’re never having Namjoon give an assist in an emergency again,” Taehyung rolls a bundle of fabric and ties it off with one of the scraps, “the last time he did, he paraded around like he stopped world war three.”
“Hey, I just woke up,” Namjoon holds his hands up defensively, “why are we attacking me and not acknowledging that I ran up and down three flights and I did that a whole four times to help?”
“First, we’re attacking you because you just woke up, at, like, 7pm—” Yoongi gestures around at Jimin and Taehyung sitting in a mess of fabric, to Jungkook wiping down the kitchen, and to the broom, rag and bottle of disinfectant he’d been using around the apartment for at least the last hour, “and also because you can’t keep reusing that story all the time.”
“What story?” Namjoon laughs, heads toward the kitchen and pulls a water bottle from the fridge, “You mean the truth ?”
Yoongi looks to Jimin and Taehyung, eyebrows raised, eyes wide and points at Namjoon standing in the kitchen. Taehyung grimaces and shakes their head, hands up in surrender. Jimin pulls his mouth into a tight line and nods, gesturing toward Namjoon with a shrug.
“And now you’re drinking my water?! In my apartment. After napping on our bed and not cleaning up your mess?”
“You can’t lean on the running story forever, Joon,” Jimin stuffs the last of the fabric into its bag, “eventually someone is going to run further than you.”
“Faster, too.” Taehyung adds.
“I thought cat-astrophe was funny, Joon.” Jungkook finally settles in on the couch.
“Thank you, Kook.” Namjoon joins him on the couch.
“If you enjoy hanging out at my house you will reevaluate.” Yoongi takes Jimin’s outstretched hand and helps him off of the floor.
“Well, I mean,” Jungkook’s eyes go wide, “he’s not, like, you funny, but—“
There’s a knock at the door and Jungkook sighs in relief at the interruption.
“Pizza!” Hoseok shouts through the door.
“I got it!” Jungkook scrambles off of the couch, Jimin promptly plops into his place and calls his cat to his lap.
“That was swift.” Taehyung laughs, sitting in the armchair.
“My house, my spot.” Jimin shrugs.
“Good evening, everyone,” Father Kim steps out of his shoes and hands a bag off to Jungkook as Hoseok squeezes past, balancing pizza boxes on one hand, “we’re finally here.”
“I was starving to death,” Jungkook slides Father Kim’s bag onto his arm and takes the boxes from Hoseok, “I could have died.”
“What a loss it would have been.” Father Kim shrugs his cardigan off and tosses it over the back of the couch as he passes by.
“I’d have missed you, Jungkookie.” Hoseok pouts, kicking off his slides.
“You all would have.” Jungkook sets the boxes on the coffee table and plops the bag on top.
“Hello, Namjoonie,” Hoseok kisses Namjoon’s ruffled hair as he passes by, “how is your day?”
“Yoongi’s being rude. Jimin’s being rude. Tae is being rude. It’s been hard.”
“You’ve been awake 10 minutes, dude.” Taehyung raises their eyebrow.
“It’s been a hard 10 minutes.” Namjoon pouts.
“It sounds rough.” Hoseok sits on the arm of the couch.
“Anyway,” Father Kim returns with dishes, “let’s eat, I’m also starving to death.”
~
“I asked this question earlier,” Jimin passes a stack of napkins around, “but do you ever think about how you got here?”
“Oh, right,” Taehyung wipes their fingers clean, “how did we all end up here together.”
“Yeah, and then Jungkook was a little shit.” Jimin smirks. Jungkook shrugs and smiles, draining the last of his soda.
“Actually, I do,” Hoseok nods, wiping his mouth, “I think about it a lot.”
“Like what led up to you finding Holy Spirit?” Father Kim starts to collect dishes.
“Yeah,” Hoseok starts stacking empty boxes, “how every choice or event got me here, one way or another.”
“That’s interesting,” Father Kim hums, “I don’t know that I’ve really put much thought into it.”
“Well, that’s because it’s your job to be there,” Namjoon heads to the pantry and pulls out a trash bag, “the rest of us showed up.”
“True,” Father Kim nods, “it started out with myself and Tae, obviously. Then Jungkookie. Then Jimin and Yoongi. Then Hoseok. Then you.”
“Jungkook was first?” Namjoon shakes open his trash bag.
“We told you that.” Yoongi replies flatly.
“Hey, I’m forgetful.” Namjoon holds the bag out for Father Kim.
“I suppose technically, Jungkookie was never as there as the rest of you,” Father Kim says thoughtfully, “but he was the first of you to come for help.”
“Number One as always.” Jungkook balls his napkin up and tosses it into Namjoon’s open bag.
“I remember the day I came to help Jinnie at Holy Spirit,” Taehyung curls up into a ball, reclines in their armchair and yawns, “I needed money for a concert and begged him to hire me.”
“Haven’t been able to get rid of you since.” Father Kim teases.
“Nah, you’re stuck with me,” Taehyung teases back, “blood. Thicker than water. You know. Besides, I think I needed it, one way or another.”
“We all did, that’s why we’re all still here together.” Yoongi stretches out on the couch. Jimin nudges him playfully with his foot.
“Go on.” He pries.
“What?”
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“You know what,” Jimin rolls his eyes, “say it.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes in return but smiles, sinking back into the couch and closing his eyes.
“You were right, I’m glad we went that day.”
Jimin puffs his chest out at the acknowledgment.
“That day, the hours before I came, it was all too much,” Jungkook shakes his head, gathering the last of the dishes for Father Kim and taking them to the kitchen, “best decision I ever made.”
“I’m glad you did, Kook.” Father Kim smiles softly at him as he takes the dishes.
“It’s funny,” Jungkook cocks his head to the side as he soaps up a sponge, “for years I couldn’t even think about that day. Now it seems so far past, it doesn’t even really phase me anymore.”
“Yeah,” Hoseok nods, “I kind of feel the same.”
“We’re not really those people anymore. We’ve grown since then.” Jimin pulls his knees up to his chest and sinks back into his pillows, propped in the corner of the couch.
“Most of us have.” Yoongi casts a glance at Namjoon.
“Hey! I’ve grown!” Namjoon squawks.
“I’m teasing,” Yoongi closes his eyes again, “mostly.”
“Yeah, mostly.” Jimin echoes.
“What did happen that day, Joon?” Jungkook asks.
“Oh, no, not me first,” Namjoon shakes his head, “someone else go.”
“Wait, we’re storytelling? The day we came to Holy Spirit? When did we decide that?” Hoseok perks up.
“Jungkookie did just now, apparently.” Father Kim shrugs, loading plates into the dishwasher.
“Rock paper scissors for first up?” Jungkook suggests.
“No, no, somehow Jungkook always wins that. Instead,” Taehyung pulls their phone from their lap, “draw straws on the app. Numbers determine order. Who wants first draw?”
They open the app, shake their phone to randomize, and pick one themselves.
“Number?” Jungkook asks from the kitchen.
“Nope, everyone pull first.” Taehyung hands the phone off to Hoseok.
“The suspense.” Jimin clutches his chest as the phone approaches him. He pulls and strains to hand it to Father Kim.
“Ah, damn it.” Father Kim sighs and hands it off to Jungkook.
“Well, we know who’s first.” Yoongi laughs.