Seven Shots: BTS Oneshots

Liminal | PJM

It was raining the first time Jimin saw her. Not the soft drizzle that usually clung to the streets of Seoul, but a torrential downpour, as if the sky was intent on drowning the city in its sorrow. Jimin sat under the awning of an old café, knees drawn to his chest, his hood pulled low over his face as he watched the world move on without him. The noise of the city had dulled into a distant hum, a backdrop to the storm that raged both inside and out.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there—minutes, hours, days? It didn’t matter. The weight of the world pressed heavy on his chest, a constant reminder of everything he was too tired to carry. His phone buzzed in his pocket, messages piling up, invitations to parties he’d never attend, texts from friends he couldn’t bear to face.

I’ll get up soon, he told himself. Just a few more minutes.

But time stretched, the rain never letting up, and Jimin remained in his solitude, a single figure lost in the chaos of the storm. That’s when he saw her. A blur of movement at first, someone dashing through the rain without an umbrella, her hair plastered to her face, her clothes soaked to the skin. She wasn’t like the others, hunched over and running to shelter. No—she was smiling, wide and unbothered, as if the storm were a game only she knew how to play.

She skidded to a stop in front of him, her eyes catching his for the briefest moment, wide and bright, and Jimin felt something shift in the air between them. He thought she’d walk on, but instead, she dropped to a crouch, peering up at him like he was the most curious thing she’d encountered all day.

“Are you okay?” she asked, voice barely audible over the pounding rain.

Jimin blinked, taken aback by the question. He wasn’t okay, but how could she know that? He opened his mouth to respond, but the words stuck, tangled up with everything else he couldn’t say.

Her lips quirked into a smile, the kind that didn’t wait for permission. “You look like someone who could use an adventure.”

An adventure? Jimin couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought of such things. Adventures were for people who weren’t drowning in their own anxieties, for people who didn’t feel like the world was pressing down on their every breath.

“I—” His voice cracked, barely a whisper. “I don’t think that’s what I need right now.”

But she only tilted her head, rainwater dripping down her face like she was oblivious to it all. “You’d be surprised.”

Before Jimin could protest, she grabbed his hand, pulling him to his feet with surprising strength. “Come on. You look like you’ve been sitting here for hours. The rain’s not gonna kill you.”

---

True love, if Jimin ever dared to call it that, started with soaked clothes and a stranger who seemed too full of life for the world around her. Jihyun—she introduced herself with a grin as they ran through the rain, her hand never leaving his as she led him through streets he barely recognized. Jimin had stumbled through life for so long that he forgot what it felt like to be led, to be swept away by someone so alive, so fearless in the face of everything that terrified him.

The world blurred around him, raindrops clinging to his eyelashes as they stopped beneath a streetlamp, their breath mingling in the cold night air. She laughed, a sound so bright it made Jimin’s chest ache.

“See?” she said, turning to face him, her eyes alight with something Jimin couldn’t place. “Doesn’t it feel good to just let go for a moment?”

Jimin swallowed thickly, his heart pounding in a way that had nothing to do with the rain or the run. He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d been holding on—to the fear, to the anxiety, to the weight of everything—until she’d pulled him out of it, even if only for a fleeting moment.