oneshots • nctdream x aespa

far away 🐶💙

Jeno's SUV rumbles to a stop on the side of the diner. Jimin don't have to see its distinctive cobalt blue coloring or even her boyfriend face in there. She had spent too many hours riding around in that car and know that car's sounds as well as she know the nuances of Jeno's voice.

"I'm taking a break," she told her manager, walking to the back. No one's come through the door in hours and no one's about to. Not when the food tastes like it does.

Head buried in his phone as he leans on the counter, her manager grunts.

Jeno is already leaning against the hood, waiting, when Jimin step into the evening air. Orange light from the newly lit streetlamps and red from the traffic light across the street blend like paint across his face, his eyes darker with dusk shadows. His jaw is sharper, his cheekbones more defined, his hair cut short, but when Jimin look at her boyfriend, she can still see him as he was 17.

That quiet teenage boy with his earbuds who only gave a glance when she sat beside him, taking the only empty seat on the bus. Every day after, she sat with him. Jimin read, Jeno listened to his music, no talking. But it was comfortable like that. He left her in peace to read, she left him in peace to listen. Together, they formed a tiny island of peace in the chaos that is the back seat of a school bus.

Jimin didn't even know his name the day she somehow forgot not only her book, but her backup book as well. Slumped in the seat, arms folded, she was trying to not think about the boredom awaiting her when suddenly someone nudged her shoulder.

Her silent seatmate of months held out an earbud. Jimin glanced at him, catching his eye. The corner of his lips curved in a tentative smile. He looked away at her quiet thanks and turned up the volume.

It only took two months to escalate to hand-holding and texts traded beneath the blankets with the stars as their only supervision. Another three for a first kiss given and taken that tasted like perfection and the vanilla ice cream they shared. Another five for Jeno to confess in a whisper that Jimin was his meant to be with the fervor of youthful forevers. And she believed him with all the power of her 17-year-old heart.

Now, they are both a little older. A little wiser, a little jaded. Jimin's high school dreams are dreams deferred for the reality of bills needing to be paid. Her friends aren't the same, some walking out of her life and others tossed out. But what was between her and Jeno, that is unchanged.

Despite the doubters, some of her families among them, the couple are still together. Still devoted. Still determined to stick a big one to the world and make it. One day, she'll trade in the tiny apartment they currently share for the house with a yard with room for the family they both want.

Most days, that "one day" feels like it's a lifetime away. Still, as long as Jimin has Jeno with her, she'll live each of those lifetimes without complaint.

As if reading her thoughts, Jeno's lips form a smile. Her heart sinks when that smile flies away in the next second. Without asking, she knows.

"I'm sorry, Jen," she sigh softly.

He shrugs, trying to play it off like he doesn't care. As Jimin step closer, she can see his eyes. Red on the edges and wet, they betray him. He wanted this part. Hungrily. Desperately.

Working every day at the dead-end factory is poisoning him. Doing its best to turn him into a bitter old man who shakes his fist at the world for the misery it condemned him to. She watch Jeno struggle to hang onto his acting dreams every night she lay beside him. To hang onto his hope.

She never let him see, but her inability to help him breaks her heart. When she's alone in the apartment after sending him off with lunch and a kiss. Looking at their shared laptop with its search history full of casting calls that never call Jeno back, Jimin cry alone in their kitchen. He has the talent to make it big, she knows it. If only someone would give him the chance to prove it. She just wants him be happy. She wants him to live, not just survive.