#jsjisneknxjs too soft

[galaxygukk]

tomorrow in tokyo

◣ 2 HEAVEN LETS UP ◥

genre: slice of life, romance, friendship, soulmate au type shit, college au

pairing: park jimin x oc (erika)

summary: in which park jimin is a lost soul in tokyo, and a certain girl pushes him through her heart and the city with an exasperated huff and a humoring smile. or “16:34, 11th November 2019. Remember it.”

a/n: jimin is pretty.

The air is still

For a second. One long, aching second, I want to ask this boy who he is. Why he came to the door of a young girl with a heart half-broken and more snacks than feelings at this point in her life. But the wind is swift enough to blow his silvery strands across his forehead and make his blue jacket rustle and let his sincerity shake me to my core.

He doesn’t sound like he said it for a dare. A joke. He sounds like what I feel when I tell Neha that I wouldn’t know how to breathe properly without her. All softness and genuine words that come out in a whoosh of air that could look like stardust.

“Erika.”

The boy’s eyes crinkle at the corners like paper of a dissatisfied writer. Except there’s nothing dissatisfying about it, and I’m no writer. His fingers travel to his face and he pinches his mask between two small fingers laden with simple silver rings. He pulls it down to rest over his chin, revealing a face I’m sure will haunt my dreams the next few weeks.

“Jimin.”

He steps forward, the tiniest step possible, and towers over me. He sighs. It’s a wistful one.

“I was in love with the idea of you. Now it’s just you. All you.”

I hardly understand, but I trust by the shake in his voice that he does. My heart doesn’t skip beats or gallop like romance novels say hearts do when you’re met with something that could change your world. Jimin’s does. I can hear it with the whistle of the wind and the huffs of his breath over my head, making music I could use as a lullaby.

“How?” I ask, voice barely a whisper.

How what? I ask myself. How he fell in love with me? How he even knows me? How he knows where I live? How I’m accepting this so easily?

“I saw you crying across the road from here. On the way up to your apartment, you stayed by your door for a full hour and cried and cried and you were so, so beautiful. I wanted nothing more than to take you home with me and give you a life laden with gold. I couldn’t sleep thinking about you. Didn’t even realize I was awake because I dreamt with my eyes open. I... I don’t know if that’s love but I want to love you. I want to, so much.”

Now my heart picks up. I tilt my head to meet his eyes, and there’s a flush over his cheeks and the very tip of his nose. My feet are cold from the outside air but Jimin’s body, which had stepped most of the way into the doorway, shelters me from the rest of the discomfort out of my blankets and my couch.

This could be a ploy. He could be a serial killer or an Asian Ted Bundy. He could only be saying things like this, things that make my stomach erupt in a swarm of sparrows flying together in the sunrise sky, only to rob me of everything I have and leave.

Or. He could not.

I think back to the day he’s talking about. The day I left a park bench in quick strides and broke down in sobs on the train back home. Dear god, I was such a mess.

“Jimin,” I try his name on my tongue. Is that even his real name? “That was the day a man broke me.”

“Then let me fix you.”

His eyelashes flutter as his eyes slip closed. “Fuck it all if I sound like a madman. An insensitive prick trying to make a move on a vulnerable girl— but this feeling? It’s not leaving. I can’t do a fucking thing anymore without thinking about the girl hiding behind the succulents on her windowsill.”

I look at him then. Really do. How the long strands of his silver hair catch onto the ends of his pretty eyelashes. How I can see myself reflected in the rich hazel of his almond eyes. How his cheeks fluff upwards to his eyes with the slightest bit of a smile and his tiny crooked tooth hiding behind pillowy lips naturally coloured like pink roses bathed in a dusky hue.

He’s breathtaking.

He continues. “Erika.” My name rolls off his tongue like honey. “I could be the disappointment of your life or the best thing that’s happened to you. For all the connotations my old-man hair gives off, I’m a person of black or white.” I glance at his gray hair again. “There’s no in between and right now it’s either give us a chance or lose the chance of a lifetime.” I don’t realize he’s stepped closer until one of his hands takes my fingers into his palm and the metal of his rings is cool against my skin. “Love at first sight? That shit happens. Who would’ve thought?”

I smile, because I don’t quite know what to say or what to do or what to think. Our fingers are intertwined now, and I’m quite sure that it’s the gentle squeeze he gives me and the warmth of his fingers that pulls me out of my reverie.

“You talk a lot,” I note. I don’t add that I do too— usually. Not right now. What am I supposed to say now?

Jimin smiles, accentuating just how handsome of a face he has behind straight white teeth save for that little imperfection in the front that I seem to find so endearing in my head. He looks like he wants to say more, but doesn’t quite know how to phrase is, with the apparent shift in his nervous hazel eyes and locked jaw.

My heart beats at a mile a minute when I pull my hand back from his and set my palm against his cheek. Soft skin and softer eyes. I can hear his breath hitch under the unrelenting wind, like my hand evoked a sudden full stop in his running thoughts.

“Are you serious about this?” I ask gently, channeling the soothing voice Neha uses to coax me into seeing reason when I’m being impulsive. It dwells on me that standing here in front of Jimin, I am everything that is not what I usually am— calm and reserved and overall quiet. His words shut off any semblance of foolery I’ve had in me and emptied me out of unhealthy coping mechanisms until I’m just a shell of feelings and thoughts that don’t leave unless I drink them away.

Jimin nods, one step short of vigorously. “I don’t know if it’s love or curiosity. But it has something to do with you,” he says, sounding exhilarated in a way that makes me smile wider.

Give it a try, Erika, I say to myself.

“You’re kind of an idiot for not approaching me like a normal human being and taking me out and making me fall in love with you,” I chastise lightheartedly. “But what do you want to do now?”

Jimin is nervous. He’s a pretty boy, but the way his emotions display so clearly over his face makes him that much more stunning to look at. I notice that despite his distinctly asian features, all this time he’d been speaking in English, without a trace of an accent.

“I want to know more about you. Little things that could make me love you more, put a person behind the heart I seemed to have taken a liking towards,” Jimin says shyly. I huff a small laugh.

“This could very much just be some type of spur-of-the-moment confession. Just interest and not love. I could be the most boring person you’d ever met,” I tell Jimin earnestly, eyes wide and feeling somewhat hopeful that no, he won’t care. He’s willing to give it a try. Still.

He takes a step back from me and opens his arms wide, blue jacket that’s too big for his lithe frame rustling in the breeze, and he grins a roguish grin that makes my insides churn not unpleasantly. What was God thinking making someone like him?

“Fuck it,” Jimin says with a smile. Crude words from the sweetest pair of lips I could imagine.

Within a second, I’m returning his grin.

“Does... Does this look too hippie?” Neha asks me, words only a rush of breath as she gestures to the flowy semi-translucent dress you’d only find in Barbados-themed magazines. It’s a bit odd for a date out in Tokyo in fall, but it suits her.

“Neha, you’re a hippie,” I remind her lightheartedly. A pout forms on her lips at my response but she turns back to inspect herself in her antique mirror nonetheless. She smooths down the sides of her dress over the curves of her waist wordlessly, as though thinking more about something more pressing than her dress.

“I think he’ll like it...?” She says, almost to herself.

“Wear what you like, dummy,” I say.

I’ve never seen Neha like this, truth be told. She’s always quiet confidence and so self-accepting— seeing her get nervous about something as trivial as her looks (which are top tier either way, if I do say so myself) makes me honestly wonder how special this date really is for her. How special the guy is for her.

She’s only ever been in one other relationship that I know of before this. It was with an older man who bought her coffee every morning and took her to dates in restaurants neither of us could pronounce the names of. Sugar daddy type but younger than the usual one. That seemed to be her cup of tea— young but accomplished and financially stable, someone who treated her like the princess she is because all she ever does is give to others.

But he was married, and Neha was heartbroken.

I imagine this one must be similar to that. Probably polished to the boot and showing up everywhere in tailored suits and a black Lambo. Hopefully not married this time.

I push myself off her bed and wrap my arms around her arm, looking at her reflection in the mirror. The turquoise beads around her neck and the blinding white of her dress makes her skin look more like honey than ever. She’s a beauty. “You look stunning, Neha,” I say earnestly, grinning from ear to ear. “Damn, how do you manage going out in public with a troll like me?” I joke.

Neha tuts in a chastising voice. “You’re no troll, Eri. You overshadow anything a lost soul could call beautiful. It’s about time you realize it too.”

I haven’t told her about Jimin yet— if I had I’d joke about how he’d seen me for everything good that I’m not already. Lately it’s been less my thoughts that keep me up late into the night, and more Jimin playing twenty questions with me at 1am over text.

I shake my head. “I’m gonna go make myself a sandwich. You want?”

Neha grimaces. “I don’t think I’d be able to stomach it with all the nerves, but thank you for the offer. Eat well.”

With a light tap on her head, I make my way to the kitchen and rummage though the fridge for everything edible I can slap between two slices of bread. In the midst of spreading mayo over some leftover chicken from the roast Neha made last night, my phone dings in my pocket.

My heart is in my throat when I fish it out of my jeans and open the screen. It’s Jimin. Asking me to meet up with him later today.

Oh god.

Besides the first day a few days ago, we hadn’t seen each other again physically. It was all text. And now, the potential of meeting him again sees to be unreal. I was half sure that I was texting no one and that the first meeting was just a figment of my half-assed imagination desperate for some semblance of love in my life.

I’m about to thumb out a reply when the doorbell rings. Neha swears in the other room.

I grin widely, throwing my phone on the counter and reaching for the door before Neha has a chance to get it, ready to make yet another posh man uncomfortable about his gelled hair.

I pull the door open, smile still wide and proud, but stop short.

Because in the doorway, is a man nothing like I’d ever imagined would catch Neha’s attention. So big, with shoulders the span of my forearms and arms twice the size of mine. He’s well and close to six-feet tall and built to the bone, so much so that the simple white v-neck he sports can hardly leave anything to the imagination. His hair is dark and long enough to look artfully messy, like he’d run his fingers through the stands to ruffle it a million times on the way here.

And wow, he’s pretty.

But what surprises me the most are the tattoos. They creep down his hands from under the cuff of his dark gray jacket and wrap around his exposed collarbone. There’s a small flower printed onto the delicate arch of his cheekbone under shadowy, round eyes.

“Uhm, hi,” he says shyly. I catch the tips of his ears turn a steady shade of pink under his dark hair. His voice is soft, sweet in contrast to his intimidating appearance.

“Hi,” I say. “Who are you?”

The boy — man? — flushes again and brings up a hand to ruffle his locks nervously. He gives me a small smile that’s equal parts cute and unnerving. How is his face so different from the rest of him?

“Uh, actually I’m here for ... Neha? My name’s—“

“Jeongguk.”

We both turn simultaneously to see Neha standing there, hands clasped together in front of her and hair done in a pretty updo that makes her face look all the more magnificent. She looks positively exhilarated at the sight of the man in the door, eyes as wide as her smile.

I step back from the door as she comes forward hurriedly, arms spread out. Jeongguk accepts her embrace happily, lips spread in a grin that gives him the semblance of a bunny. His arms wrap around her small waist almost without a thought, pressing her to him as his face buries itself in her neck. Neha laughs sweetly and runs her fingers through his hair.

It feels like an invasion of privacy to watch how they cling to each other, so I return to the kitchen without a word. How long have they known each other to hold on like that?

Neha is the one to pull away first, although with great amount of effort. My heart is fluttery in a way that tells me I’m happy and nervous for her, for the bright stars in her hazel eyes and the wide smile adorning her face. One of her arms stays around “Jeongguk’s” shoulder while the other tucks back strands of hair behind her ear delicately.

“Erika,” she says happily, “this is Jeongguk, my boyfriend. He’s from Korea.”

“Oh wow,” I say. Boyfriend. Already? “It’s great to meet you, Jeongguk!” And it is, to some extent. “I’m Erika. You planning to take good care of Neha while u kidnap her for the day?” My tone is joking, playful, but I give him a steady stare that has his brow furrowing slightly. Yet there’s understanding in his eyes.

“Sure will, ma’am,” he grins roguishly. It makes him look more like a boyish college dropout than ever.

Neha steps over to me and gives me a quick, tight hug. She smells like honey and coconuts, but there’s something new under her natural scent— perfume? “I’ll be back by midnight,” she promises. “Don’t stay up too late and eat something healthy, okay?”

I roll my eyes, muttering a little “yes, mom” under my breath. She chuckles and presses a kiss to the tip of my nose. “I love you, Eri.”

I return her soft words with similar ones of my own and watch her leave our quaint shared apartment, hand in hand with a boy who throws me a pleasant smile and mouths “thank you” for god knows what. But I’m glad he did, because I deserve to be thanked.

Jimin calls me for the first time ever. It’s been a week since the day I read his texts about wanting to meet up, and just hadn’t found the courage or the right words to reply or— say anything, actually.

My heart runs a whole circuit in my chest, pressing discomfortingly against my rib cage as I pick up my phone with unsteady fingers and pause my episode of Brooklyn 99 haltingly.

I stare at his name. The letters seem to mesh together and deform after a few seconds, and that is when I swallow my fears and swipe my thumb across the screen.

I say nothing.

Jimin breathes a sigh on the other end after a time. Then, finally,

“Hey.”

“Hi,” I reply, voice barely a whisper.

A second pases. Then two.

“What are doing right now?” Jimin asks. His voice is low and soothing, the type of tone you would use when you’re beckoning a small creature in the woods your way, afraid it’ll flee with the slightest loud sound. There’s some rustling on his end, as though he’s busying himself with something other than the lack of my response.

“Nothing much.” Dear god, I am bland. “...You?”

There is a laugh; slightly exasperated. “I’m actually at a skating rink right now. I know this is really sudden and all but— you don’t think you could come down here, could you?” he asks in a tone so hopeful I pull the phone away from my ear, press a hand to my heart and inhale deeply.

“Right now?” I ask incredulously.

“If you can, yeah.”

I look up at the time— the infamous clock above the stove reads ten to 9.

“Aren’t all the skating rinks supposed to be closed now? It’s a Sunday,” I point out, but nevertheless I am pushing my blankets aside and escaping into my room to change out of my bright yellow pajamas into something more agreeable with the breezy weather outside.

“Actually, I have the keys to this one, so we should be okay.” There’s a sound similar to a Velcro strap opening. “Does this mean you’re actually coming?”

He’s hopeful again.

I smile to myself. “Sure thing. Text me the address, I’ll be there in ten.”