Pairing : Jimin x female reader
Genre : Eventual Romance, Childhood friends to lovers, Slow burn, Healing, Found family, Mutual pining.
Warnings : Depictions of a panic attack/dissociation, Relationship breakup, Discussions of sexuality, Occasional strong language.
Description : After the possibly worst breakup of her life with the man she envisioned her future with, Julia finds herself leaning onto her childhood bestfriend, Jimin. Thus, finally leading to them finding solace in each other
“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
Disclaimer: This is a purely fictional AU. The characters in this story are fictionalized versions created solely for storytelling. Any portrayal of sexuality, relationships, or personal circumstances is entirely fictional and should not be interpreted as a statement about the real people involved. I respect Jungkook and everyone featured, regardless of their real identities. Please separate fiction from reality.
The rain against the window of their Seoul apartment sounded like the steady rhythm of a breaking heart. Kim Ara, known to the world as Julia, watched the droplets race down the glass, each one a mirror of the tear tracing a path down her own cheek.
Opposite to her on the sofa Jeon Jungkook, the golden maknae of the world famous band BTS sat almost rigid with his hands clasped so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
“I’m bisexual and i’m in love with taehyung.”, he had said, an hour ago. Those words still hung in the air feeling almost suffocating.
They shared four years together, 1461 days of them being together and envisioning a future they were so sure of.
She couldn’t say that she didn’t understood him. She did, truly. She knew the courage it took and the fear he must have battled.
She even understood that this wasn’t a rejection of her, but him finally being able to accept a larger truth about himself.
But mere understanding doesn’t stop the crack which split her world open. It didn’t even stop the ache of her hollow heart.
She couldn’t even figure out where she stood in this truth or even worse, if she even had a place in there?
Being a global pop sensation for over 8 years had left her feeling burnt out with almost no time to retrieve that spark back.
Being a trainee under hybe for 2 years before moving to America to chase her dream of becoming a pop star sounds simple enough but not when you’re just 16 and tryna navigate through all these tough decisions.
Ara was 14 when she first auditioned for BigHit entertainment, a small company nobody really knew about. She auditioned for it with her only and only bestfriend - Park Jimin.
8 year old Julia was standing in the middle of the park, trying to open a tangerine which she was failing miserably at.
“You’re doing it wrong.” A soft voice spoke from behind her.
Ara frowned and looked at the boy standing behind her,
A shy boy who was quite taller than her and had eyes which turned into crescent moons because of how hard he was smiling.
He gently took the tangerine from her hands and peeled it in one long stripe using the same technique his grandmother taught him.
Feeling proud, he handed her the tangerine back.
Ara stared at him for a few seconds before shyly muttering a small thank you.
“what’s your name?” Jimin asked.
“Hi Ara, I’m Jimin, you wanna go grab ice cream? My treat.”
Julia nodded and they both ran off.
After that day, you could basically say that they were attached to the hip.
That was the beginning of everything. They were inseparable. They’d share their snacks with each other, wait for each other after school, play in the park or even one some rare occasions, go to the sea shore together.
They both were even each other’s first audience when they finally discovered they could sing and dance.
After they both auditioned for BigHit in 2011, they made a small pact that even if one of them doesn’t get accepted, the other person would still accept the offer but deep down they both knew it was a lie.
Fortunately for them, both got selected. They began training together in the sterile white walls of the Bighit building, away from the city of Busan.
Two years later, Ara made a choice. The path to debut in a K-pop girl group felt uncertain, and an offer from an American label, one that saw her unique potential as a solo pop artist, was too good to ignore.
“Ara, it’s for the best. You’ll have so many better opportunities there.” Jimin spoke
Ara who’s head was resting on Jimin’s shoulder while they both were sitting in the practice room spoke up with a trembling voice.
“But as much as i wanna be a pop star, i still don’t want to go, everything i love is here.”
“Listen, if you don’t like it there, you can always come back and i’ll be here, waiting for you as always. We will talk everyday, i promise”
he said while tracing circles on the back of her hand.
“You won’t forget me, right?”
Jimin stopped for a second and stared at the wall infront of him. He gently took her hand and gave it two soft squeezes.
“The last thing i can ever do while living is forget you. You’re my bestfriend Ara and absolutely nothing would change that.”
Even after much consolation, Ara’s heart felt heavy.
After successfully debuting in 2015 as Julia, Ara reunited with her bestfriend and eventually became close with other members of his group as well.
Between those visits, secret eye contacts, stolen glances and some unspoken conversations, Ara and Jungkook found themselves falling for each other.
Jimin’s phone rang, the screen lighting up with the picture of a smiling face he knew better than his own. Ara.
“Jimin-ah” Ara spoke with a voice which was barely above a whisper.
Twenty years had taught them enough about each other that Jimin could recognise just from her voice that something was wrong.
“Ara, What’s wrong?” His tone was alert yet soft with concern written all over it.
She couldn’t form words and a choked sob escaped her throat.
“Are you home? Is jungkook there?”
She mananged a hum of confirmation.
“Okay Jules, Listen to me, I’m coming over.”
“No.” That was all Ara could manage to speak before another small sob left her.
“Then i’m coming outside your apartment, Come with me and we’ll go to my place. Does that sound okay?”
Ara managed to hum softly.
“Okay, i’ll be there in 5. Hang on till then for me.” Jimin said with a stern yet soft voice before hanging up.
Ara’s mind drifted back, away from the painful present and into the soft warm past, seeking comfort in the one friendship she always found solace in.
The sound of a horn outside their apartment building made Jungkook flinch but barely had any register on Ara.
She quickly stood up from her spot and grabbed her phone. She stared at him with her tear struck face before walking over to him.
“I need some time to let this all seep in. I just want you to know that i’m not mad at you. Take care of yourself Jungkook.”
Ara spoke with all the leftover courage inside her.
Jungkook stood up abruptly and gave her a soft nod.
“Take care of yourself. I hope we can be friends again soon. I’m sorry” He said with a trembling voice.
Ara walked out the apartment and found Jimin leaning against his car while staring at the watch on his wrist.
He lifted his head upon taking notice of Ara and quickly wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a steady embrace. He rested his cheek on top of her head.
She finally broke down, the sobs she’d been suppressing finally teared down from her throat.
“It’s okay, whatever it is, I’m here.” Jimin murmured into Ara’s hair.
In that moment, even though Ara’s world was falling down into crumbles, she knew that Jimin would always be her steady anchor.
After hugging for what felt like hours, they pulled apart.
Ara couldn’t even bring herself to look at Jimin, let alone explain whatever was happening.
Jimin slowly slid his hand under chin and made her look at his face while slowing wiping her tears away with his thumb.
“Let’s go home and we’ll talk” he said with the sweetest voice.
Jimin stood in the doorway of his apartment, watching Ara kick off her shoes with the violent efficiency of someone who had practiced the motion a thousand times. Which she had.
This had been her second home since she was eighteen, when her own house felt too loud, this was her peace.
"Jungkook told me tonight," Julia said, her voice strange and hollow.
She walked past him into the kitchen, opened his refrigerator without asking, and stared at the contents as if she'd never seen groceries before.
"Before dinner. The one with the reservations."
Jimin closed the door slowly.
She laughed, but it sounded like breaking glass.
She pulled out a beer, twisted off the cap with her shirt, a trick she'd learned from him.
"That he's been in love with Taehyung for the past three months.”
Three months. While Ara had been planning their anniversary trip to Napa.
While she'd been sending Jimin screenshots of winery reviews, asking his opinion on whether Jungkook would prefer the Cabernet tasting or the Pinot.
"Ara." Jimin crossed the space between them in three strides, but she held up a hand, stopping him.
"Don't do the thing where you're gentle. I can't handle gentle right now."
So he didn't. He leaned against the counter beside her, took the beer from her hand, and drank from it.
"He came out to you by telling you he was cheating?"
“Says he was confused. Says he needed to explore."
She made air quotes sharp enough to draw blood.
"Twenty-six years old and he's exploring. While I'm picking out fucking wine tours while recording songs.”
Jimin handed the beer back.
"Do you want to hate him? you’ve got plenty of capacity for hating him."
Ara looked at him then, really looked, and her eyes filled with tears she seemed angry about.
"I don't want to hate him. I just want..”
She set the beer down and pressed her palms to her eyes.
"God, Jimin. What do I want?"
"You want to not feel stupid," he said quietly.
"You want to not feel like you missed something. Like you should have known."
Her hands dropped. She stared at him.
"Twenty years, Ara. I know how your mind works."
She crumpled then, and he caught her, and they ended up on his kitchen floor
Ara had developed a habit of touching Jimin's sleeve when she talked. Just the fabric between her fingers, rolling it slightly while she told him about her day, you could call it her nervous new habit, replacing the person who used to hold her hand.
Jimin noticed. He noticed everything.
They were at their coffee shop, the one they'd been coming to since high school, where the owner still gave them "childhood friend discount" even though they were damn near thirty. Ara was stirring her latte in slow circles, not drinking it, watching the foam dissolve.
"He never asked about my stories," she said suddenly. "I'd start telling him about my mom, or that weird dream I had, or something you and I did when we were kids, and he'd just nod. Like he was always thinking about something else.”
Jimin wrapped both hands around his mug. "That's because he was falling out of love."
"yeah" He paused. "Anyways, do you still remember that one dream you had about the singing fish?"
Ara's mouth twitched. "I do. That was third grade."
"You woke me up at 6 AM to tell me. Your mom was furious."
"Worth it," she said. Then, softer: "You always remember."
"I have a system," Jimin said casually before continuing.
"File cabinets in my brain. Ara's stories, A through Z."
"Z is for the way you zoned out during that movie last month and leaned your head on my shoulder for forty-five minutes without realizing."
Ara went very still but she didn’t miss to notice how Jimin's ears turned pink.
"Comfortable," he interrupted quickly. "It was comfortable. For you. I mean. The movie was long. And your neck probably hurt. From... stress."
"From stress," she repeated.
"Anyway," Jimin said, staring into his coffee like it might save him.
"You're an idiot" she said, but she was smiling.
It started pouring when they were walking back from the cafe—sudden rain that soaked them in seconds. Jimin immediately pulled off his jacket and held it over Ara's head, but she laughed and pushed it back so it covered them both, forcing him to walk impossibly close, shoulder pressed to shoulder, sharing the small shelter of fabric.
They were both getting wet anyway. His jacket wasn't magic.
"You're shivering," he observed.
"You're warm," she countered, and stepped closer.
They stopped under a streetlight, rain drumming around them, the world reduced to the circle of yellow glow and the sound of water. Ara's hair was plastered to her cheeks. Jimin reached out without thinking and tucked a strand behind her ear, his thumb brushing her jaw.
"Sorry," he mumbled, dropping his hand.
"Sorry, I-habit. From when we were kids. You had that one curl that always stuck to your face during swim meets, and I used to-"
"I remember," she whispered.
They stood there, rain falling, breathing the same humid air. Jimin's heart was doing something dangerous in his chest. He could see the constellation of freckles on her nose that he'd known since she was eight. He could see the way she was looking at him, not the way he looked at her but something adjacent and terrifying and possible.
"Twenty years Chim," she said, "and you're still holding jackets over my head."
"Twenty years," he agreed, "and you're still letting me."
The rain kept falling. Neither of them moved to find better shelter.
A month had passed and Ara moved through her days slow, muffled, removed from herself.
She performed at the Seoul Music Awards, accepting her trophy for Best Female Solo Artist with a smile that the tabloids called "mysterious" when really it was just grief wearing different masks.
She recorded her album in the HYBE building, one floor below where BTS was preparing for their next comeback, the sound of bass bleeding through the ceiling like a second heartbeat.
She'd been staying with Jimin officially, temporarily, just until the press died down. But a month had passed, and her toothbrush had migrated to his bathroom cup, and her silk pajamas hung in his closet beside his hoodies, and still neither of them mentioned her leaving.
Tonight, they sat on his balcony in the dark, Seoul spread beneath them like a circuit board of light.
Ara had her knees drawn up to her chest, wrapped in one of his oversized sweaters that smelled like him, something woody and clean.
He sat down beside her, pressing his shoulder against hers, solid and warm, and handed her the tea he made. Their fingers brushed, lingered, and then his hand found hers in the space between them, threading their fingers together like he'd done a thousand times before.
"The label wants me to date someone," she said, not looking at him.
"For publicity. To kill the Jungkook story. They suggested San from Ateez. Nice guy and quite professional."
Jimin's hand tightened around her. He'd been growing his hair out for the comeback, and it fell across his eyes now, hiding his expression.
She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he adjusted immediately, lifting his arm to wrap around her so she could tuck herself into his side. His cheek came to rest on top of her head, his breath warm in her hair.
"I don't know." she said quietly, her thumb tracing circles on his knuckle without thinking.
"It would be easier ig, lowkey expected. Two idols and no real feelings involved."
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Easier."
The silence stretched between them, heavy with everything unsaid.
The November wind was sharp, but Ara didn't want to go inside. Inside meant sleeping in the guest room that had become hers, meant lying in the dark listening to him move around his bedroom, meant remembering the sound of his shower running and trying not to imagine him beneath it.
"Jimin," she said, and her voice came out smaller than intended.
"Do you think I'll ever stop feeling stupid?"
He turned then, finally, and his eyes in the city light were soft and sad and something else she couldn't name.
"You weren't stupid, Ara. You were brave. You loved someone. That's always brave."
"I loved the wrong someone."
"Maybe." He set his beer down.
"Or maybe you loved the right someone at the wrong time. Maybe he needed to be with you to figure out who he was. And maybe..”
He paused, choosing words like picking through broken glass.
"Maybe you needed that too. To figure out what you actually want."
She looked at him then, really looked, at the sharp line of his jaw she'd watched sharpen from boyhood, at the hands that had held her through every heartbreak since she was fifteen, at the mouth that had never once lied to her.
"What if I don't know what I want?"
"Then you take time," he said. "You have time. I'm not going anywhere."
But he was looking at her mouth when he said it, just for a second, just long enough that she felt it like a touch. And then he looked away, stood up, busied himself with gathering their empty cups.
"Bed," he said, not quite meeting her eyes. "Early schedule tomorrow. Dance practice at six."
"Right," she whispered. "Dance practice."
She followed him inside, watched him move through his apartment with the grace that had made him famous, the way he seemed to occupy space like it was music.
At the hallway that split between his bedroom and the guest room, they paused. It had become their ritual-this pause, this moment of almost?
She wanted to reach out. She wanted to thank him for the month of sanctuary, wanted to ask why his voice had sounded like stay when he'd said bed.
Instead, she turned toward the guest room, and he turned toward his, and the door clicked shut between them like a period at the end of a sentence.
December arrived with award season and the particular madness of promotional schedules.
Ara threw herself into work-variety shows, radio interviews, recording sessions that stretched until 3 AM. She told herself it was healing. She told herself she was moving on.
But every night, no matter how late, she came back to his apartment, he was there every night, waiting.
Not obviously. But just there.
Sometimes asleep on the couch with the TV still playing. Sometimes in the kitchen, making ramyeon he pretended was for himself but always made enough for two. Sometimes at the piano, working on melodies he never finished when she walked in.
she asked him one night, two weeks into December.
She was still in her stage outfit from the Mnet performance, sequined and sharp, a layer of makeup still sitting thick on her face.
Jimin looked up from the keys. He was in sweatpants and a white t-shirt, hair damp from his own late practice.
"What do you want to hear?"
"Something you wrote. Something no one's heard."
His hands hesitated above the keys. Then he began to play.
something slow and minor, something that sounded like rain on windows. It wasn't for anyone but himself, and now, her.
"What's it called?" she asked when he finished.
"'The Space Between.'" He didn't look at her.
"I wrote it when you.” He paused but then continued.
“When you started dating Jungkook."
The air left her lungs. "Jimin."
"It's not-" He closed the piano lid, stood up.
"It's not about that. Not specifically. Just about... distance. Watching someone from far away. Being close enough to touch but not touching."
"Why didn't you ever say anything?"
"Say what?" He laughed, but it was bitter.
"That I was jealous? That I wanted it to be me? You were happy, Ara. Or you seemed happy. And I'm your best friend. I'm supposed to want your happiness more than I want my own."
"No." He finally looked at her, and his eyes were fierce, burning.
"I wasn't. I died every time I saw you with him. Every time you called me to talk about your dates. Every time you sent me photos asking what I thought of his gifts. I died and came back to life and died again, and I never said a word because I was terrified that if I did, I'd lose you completely."
Ara felt her hands shaking.
She crossed the room to him, stopped just before touching distance. Close enough to see the pulse in his throat, close enough to smell the shampoo in his hair.
"What are you saying?" Her hands finding his shoulders and gripping hard.
"I'm saying-" He stopped. Swallowed.
His hands came up, not to touch her gently, but to grip her wrists where they held him, his fingers tight, almost bruising. He didn't pull her off. He just held on, his thumbs pressing into her pulse points
"I'm saying that I'm trying to be good. I'm trying to be your friend while you heal. But when you walk around my apartment in my clothes, when you fall asleep on my shoulder during movies, when you look at me like you're looking at me right now”
He released her wrists suddenly, his hands finding the piano bench on either side of him, his knuckles white.
"I'm not that good, Ara. I'm not that strong. I have twenty years of wanting you stored up, and it's breaking the dam, and if you don't want that, you need to tell me. You need to leave. Because I can't keep doing this halfway."
He shifted, his hand finding her jaw, his grip firm, his thumb pressing hard against her cheekbone-not gentle, not soft, but grounding.
Her heart was hammering so loud she was sure he could hear it. She could reach out. She could close the distance.
"I need time," she whispered.
"I'm not- I can't just jump from him to you. That wouldn't be fair. To either of us."
His hand slid down to her neck, his fingers wrapping around the back of it, his forehead dropping to hers. They stood there, breathing hard, his hand possessive and tight on her nape, her hands finding his chest and gripping his shirt.
After what felt like an eternity, he finally pulled back.
The light in his eyes had dimmed out but he nodded anyway.
He stepped back, putting space between them.
"You're right. Take the time you need. I'll be here. I'll always be here."
He walked past her to his bedroom, and she stood in his living room, shaking, wanting to call him back but not knowing how. Not knowing if she was saving their friendship or destroying it by waiting.
She avoided him for three days.
Not completely-they still shared the apartment, still passed each other in hallways, still ate breakfast in silence. But she stopped seeking him out. Stopped falling asleep on his couch. Stopped wearing his sweaters.
On the fourth day, she came home to find him packing a bag.
"Bang PD sent us to the mountains," he said, not looking up from his folding.
"Retreat. Songwriting. We'll be gone five days."
"Oh," she said, and her voice sounded small. "Okay."
He zipped the bag, stood there in the middle of his bedroom, looking lost.
"Ara, I can't keep tiptoeing around you. Either we're friends, and you treat me like a friend, or-"
"Or what?" she asked, and her voice was sharper than intended.
"Or we're what? You want me to just forget about Jungkook? To just switch lanes like nothing happened?"
"I want you to be honest. With yourself. With me. I want you to look at me and tell me you feel nothing, and I'll accept it. I'll go back to being your best friend and I'll bury this so deep you'll never have to see it again. But don't avoid me because you're scared of what might happen. That's not fair."
"Life isn't fair," she snapped.
"You think I don't know that? I gave Jungkook two years, and he was loving someone else for three months of it. I'm allowed to be scared. I'm allowed to not know what I want."
"You're allowed," he agreed.
"But I'm allowed to protect myself. And being near you while you figure it out is killing me."
He shouldered his bag, walked past her to the door. Paused with his hand on the knob.
"When I get back, either you've decided to try with me, with real honesty or you find somewhere else to stay. I can't be your halfway home anymore, Ara.”
The door clicked shut behind him, and she stood in his empty apartment, and for the first time since the breakup, she cried for someone other than Jungkook.
The five days he was gone were the longest of her life.
She tried to work. Tried to write. Tried to remember who she'd been before Jungkook, before the relationship that had slowly dimmed her light until she couldn't remember what it felt like to shine.
She sat in Jimin's apartment or well you could call it their apartment, though she'd never called it that and realized how much of herself she'd stored in him. How much of her happiness depended on his presence in the next room.
She thought about the years. About the trainee days when they'd shared everything-ramyeon, dreams, earphones on buses.
About her debut, when he'd been in the audience with flowers, crying harder than her parents.
About his first win, when she'd run onstage to hug him despite the rules, the cameras, the world watching.
About every almost-moment. The time at nineteen when they'd gotten drunk on soju and shared their first kiss.
The time at twenty-three when he'd held her hand through a fever and she'd wanted to never let go.
The thousand times they'd said "I love you" as friends, both knowing it meant more, neither brave enough to say how much more.
On the fourth night, she wrote him a letter. Old-fashioned, pen on paper, the way they used to pass notes in class.
I'm scared. Not of you. Of me. Of how much I need you. Of how empty this apartment is without you in it. Of how I've been looking for home in other people when you were here all along.
I don't want to be your halfway home either. But I need you to know that if we do this, it changes everything. There's no going back to best friends. If we break, we break completely. And I'm not sure I could survive breaking with you.
But I'm also not sure I can survive not trying.
We've waited so long. I'm tired of waiting.
She left it on his pillow. Then she went to the guest room and waited.
He came back on the fifth night, snow in his hair, cheeks flushed from the cold. She heard him pause in his bedroom, heard the paper rustle, heard him go completely still.
Then his footsteps in the hallway. A knock on her door.
"Come in," she said, and her voice barely trembled.
He opened the door slowly. The letter was in his hand.
His eyes found hers across the dim room, and she saw everything in them-the hope, the fear.
"Because I can't do almost, Ara. I can't do maybe. If we start this, I need you all in. I need you to choose me the way I've been choosing you since we were ten years old."
She stood up. Crossed the room to him. Stopped close enough that she could feel the cold radiating from his jacket, close enough to see the individual snowflakes melting in his hair.
"I'm choosing you," she whispered.
"I've always chosen you. I just didn't know how to say it."
He reached for her then, finally, his hand trembling as it cupped her cheek.
"Tell me again," he breathed.
"Tell me when you're not scared."
"I'm terrified," she admitted.
"But I'm more terrified of losing you than I am of loving you. Is that honest enough?"
"Yeah," he whispered. "That's enough. That's everything."
It wasn't like the movies. It wasn't fireworks or orchestral swells. It was better. It was the soft, inevitable collision of two people who had been moving toward each other for two decades, finally arriving. His lips were cold from outside and tasted like mint, and his hands came up to frame her face like she was something precious, something he'd been waiting to hold.
When they pulled apart, they were both shaking.
"Again," she whispered. "Kiss me again."
He did. And again. Until they were laughing against each other's mouths, until the fear dissolved into something bright and terrifying and real.
"I love you," he said, forehead pressed to hers.
"I've loved you through every album, every tour, every award show where I couldn't touch you. I've loved you when you were with other people and I hated myself for it. I love you now, when you're broken and healing and scared. I'll love you when you're whole again."
"I love you too," she said, and the words felt like coming home. "I think I've loved you since we were ten, I just didn't know what to call it. But it was always you, Park Jimin.”
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