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Maple

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬; October arrives like a memory you try to forget every forsaken year—burnt orange and gold-leaf nostalgia, making you ache for something you can't quite name. Seven years since you left your hometown, and now you're back, walking streets that remember you better than you remember yourself. But Maple is a nickname a boy once gave you, and in being remembered through it, you remember someone else.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠; park jimin x f!reader

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭; 3.2k ➜ drabble

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞; childhood friends to...?, angst, fluff, bittersweet, autumn

𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: pg-13

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: angst, unresolved feelings, bittersweet ending, dad!jimin, child present (jimin's son), emotional yearning

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: okay so i need to talk about this one because it genuinely has me in a chokehold and i can't stop thinking about the layers here. this piece was written for @k-vanity’s autumn event where we got an autumn playlist and i was breathtakingly inspired by RM’s "come back to me" which—if you know the song, if you've FELT that song—you know it's about that specific ache of yearning for something new while desperately wanting to cling to what's familiar. it's about not fitting into the conventional blueprint of life, about those liminal spaces between who you were and who you're becoming, about spring being hope but also being something that haunts you because it represents all the possibilities you didn't choose. and THEN i got forest as my nature prompt from @thebtswritersclub’s event and suddenly everything clicked into place because—forests are ROOT systems, right? they're about things that grow deep underground, connections you can't see but that keep trees alive even when they're cut down. so… i started thinking about autumn and forests and this idea of returning to a place that remembers you, where the trees literally hold your history in their rings, where you can't escape the person you used to be because the LAND remembers even if you've tried to forget. and i thought about what it would feel like to run into your childhood best friend—the one you maybe loved, maybe didn't let yourself love, maybe loved but left anyway because staying felt like staying small.

also yes lmao i made him BLONDE because listen. blonde jimin? autumn jimin? jimin with honey-gold hair that looks like sunlight through leaves? i can't stop thinking about how he'd look standing in october light with a kid on his hip and that complicated expression that says "i chose to stay and i'm happy but i still wonder about the version of us that could have existed if you'd stayed too."

the dad jimin of it all is what really destroys me though. because there's something so devastating about reconnecting with someone and feeling that old pull, that old chemistry, that sense of "oh we could just slip back into this so easily"—and then reality arrives in the form of a two-year-old calling him dada and suddenly you're remembering that seven years is a LONG time. people build entire lives in seven years. they become parents. they put down roots (ha, see what i did there with the forest metaphor?) that go deeper than childhood friendship ever could. i wanted to play with the symbolism of maple trees specifically because they're the ones that BLAZE in autumn, you know? they're the ones that save all their color for the ending, that burn brightest right before they go dormant. and there's something about that—about brief, brilliant, devastating beauty—that felt right for this story about a reunion that lasts one perfect hour before life intervenes and reminds you that some things are meant to stay memories. and if you know me and know my nicknames… yeah. just yeah.

plus weaving it with "come back to me"'s themes of that push-pull between transformation and familiarity? between wanting to be someone new and missing who you were when life felt simpler? GOD. i'm so soft about this one. if you've ever gone home and run into someone from your past and felt that weird time-slip thing where you're simultaneously seventeen and thirty, where you remember who you were and can't reconcile it with who you are—this one's for you. if you've ever wondered about the road not taken, the person you didn't become, the life you didn't choose—this one's for you too.

♡ tell me about your maple trees, your root systems, your bitter-sweet almosts. let's be sad about autumn together 🍂

listen to the song whilst reading! hurts better <3

October arrives like a memory you try to forget every forsaken year—burnt orange and gold-leaf nostalgia, making you ache for something you can’t quite name.

You’re home.

Not home-home, because you haven’t lived here in seven years, but the house where you grew up, where your mother still keeps your childhood bedroom exactly as you left it, like a museum exhibit of the person you used to be.

The visit is obligatory—Thanksgiving prep, she’d said on the phone, though it’s only mid-October and you both know she just wants to see you, to make sure you’re eating enough, sleeping enough, not working yourself into the ground in that city apartment she’s never seen but worries about constantly.

So you’re walking down Birch Street at four in the afternoon, hands shoved deep in your jacket pockets, watching the way the slanted sunlight turns everything amber and wistful.

The street earned its name honestly—birch trees line both sides, their white bark peeling like old paint, standing sentinel among the maples and oaks that have grown thick enough over the years to form a canopy overhead.

It’s almost like walking through a forest corridor, the way the branches interweave above you, filtering the autumn light into something golden and dappled.

The neighborhood is somehow exactly the same and completely different—the Jones’ house is painted a new color, the corner store is now a yoga studio, but the crooked mailbox you used to jump over is still crooked in exactly the same way.

Beyond the houses, you can see the edge of Miller’s Woods—that stretch of forest you and your friends used to disappear into for hours when you were mere kids, coming home with leaf litter in your hair and dirt under your nails.

And as you walk, you think about nothing and everything.

About the emails you should be answering.

About whether you should’ve brought better shoes.

About how strange it is that time passes differently here, slower, like the clocks run on a separate frequency than the ones in your real life. Like the trees themselves breathe at a different pace, deep and patient, marking time in rings rather than seconds.

And then you hear it.

“Maple?”

The nickname hits you square in the chest.

No one’s called you that in years. Not since—

You turn, and there he is.

Park Jimin looks like autumn made human.

His hair is blonde now—not the brassy artificial kind, but the sort of pale honey-gold that catches the fading light and turns it into something almost ethereal, like sun filtering through a birch grove.

He’s wearing a burnt orange sweater that shouldn’t work on anyone, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and there’s a moment where you forget how to breathe properly because he looks like every October you’ve ever missed, all wrapped up in a smile that hasn’t changed at all.

“Holy shit,” you say, eloquent as ever, and his smile gets wider.

“Language,” he teases, and it’s the same cadence, the same gentle mockery he used when you were thirteen and learning to swear like you’d invented it.

He moves toward you, and you meet him halfway, and suddenly you’re hugging and he smells like laundry detergent and something warm, something that makes you think of cinnamon and comfort and the way things used to be. Something earthy, too—like he’s been walking through fallen leaves, like he’s been breathing forest air.

When you pull back, you’re both grinning like idiots.

“Your hair,” you say, reaching up without thinking to touch the blonde strands. They’re soft, shorter than he used to wear it. “When did this happen?”

“Few months ago.”

He runs a hand through it self-consciously, and you remember that gesture—the way he’d always touch his hair when he was pleased about something but trying not to show it.

“Needed a change. You know how it is.”

You do. God, you do.

You’d cut your own hair in a bathroom at two AM after a breakup last spring, so you understand completely the kind of desperate transformation that comes with needing to see a different person in the mirror.

“It looks good,” you say, and mean it, because he looks like the concept of a perfect rainy afternoon. “You look good.”

“You too,” he says, and there’s something in his voice—a warmth, a weight—that makes your stomach flutter in a way you thought you’d outgrown. “Really good. City life must be treating you well.”

“It’s treating me busy,” you say, falling into step beside him as you start walking without discussing where you’re going.

It’s instinctive, really, this rhythm.

You used to walk this neighborhood for hours, aimless and endless, talking about nothing and everything until the streetlights came on and your parents started calling.

More often than not, you’d end up in the woods, following deer paths through the underbrush, sitting on fallen logs while the world went quiet around you.

“But yeah. It’s good. Different,” you conclude.

“I bet.” There’s something wistful in the way he says it, like he’s imagining a life he didn’t choose. “I can’t imagine you here anymore. You always seemed like you were meant for somewhere bigger.”

The compliment sits warm in your chest. “You could’ve come too, you know. Could still come.”

“Maybe,” he says, noncommittal, and there’s a story there you don’t know how to ask about. “I like it here, though. It’s simple. Quiet.”

You glance at him, at the way the afternoon sun rays catch in his hair, turns his profile into something almost painterly.

The lattice of branches above scatters shadow and gold across his face, as if the forest itself were painting him, mottled in light.

He’s beautiful in that way he’s always been beautiful—not in a way that demands attention, but in a way that rewards it when you look closely enough. The soft slope of his nose, the gentle curve of his mouth, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he’s amused by something.

“Remember when we used to race our bikes down Jones’ Hill?” you ask, because you can’t say the other things you’re thinking. “You ate shit that one time and blamed it on a rock.”

He laughs, full and genuine, and the sound does something to your ribcage. “It was a rock. And you laughed so hard you threw up.”

“I did not throw up—”

“You absolutely did. All over Mrs. Jones’ petunias. She made you apologize to the flowers.”

The memory surfaces fully formed, and suddenly you’re both laughing, that easy uncontrollable kind of laughter that bends you double, that makes your stomach hurt in the best way.

When you finally catch your breath, you’re standing in front of what used to be the old arcade, now an antique shop with lace curtains and a CLOSED sign in the window.

Without meaning to, you’ve been walking toward the edge of the neighborhood, toward where the houses give way to the woods.

You can see the trailhead from here, that gap between the trees that leads to all your childhood haunts.

“God, we spent so much time there,” Jimin says, nodding toward the shop. His voice has gone soft, nostalgic. “You were so competitive about that racing game. What was it called?”

“Daytona,” you say. “And I wasn’t competitive, I was just better than you.”

“You cheated.”

“I did not.”

He bumps your shoulder with his, gentle and familiar, and the casual touch sends electricity down your spine.

This is dangerous, you think, this easy comfort, this slipping back into old rhythms like you never left.

Like seven years is nothing.

Like you didn’t leave without saying goodbye because goodbyes felt too permanent and you were too much of a coward to admit you were running from something that felt too big to name.

Like you didn’t leave him standing in the woods that last summer, backlit by green leaves and golden sun, saying your name like a question you refused to answer.

“I missed this,” Jimin says quietly, and when you look at him, he’s already looking at you; eyes the color of tree bark in shadow. “Missed you.”

Your heart is a fist in your throat. “I missed you too.”

It’s the truth.

You’d forgotten how much until right now, until this moment, until his presence reminded you that there are people who knew you before you became whoever you’re trying to be now.

People who remember the embarrassing haircut in middle school and the time you cried over a B+ and the way you used to wear his hoodies because they were warmer than yours, because they smelled like safety.

People who knew you when you were still wild, still willing to disappear into the forest for hours, still rooted to this place.

“Why Maple?” you ask suddenly, the question emerging before you can stop it. “You never told me why you started calling me that.”

Jimin’s quiet for a moment, considering.

When he speaks, his voice is careful, like he’s kindling a fond memory.

“Your last name’s kind of a mouthful. And I don’t know… you reminded me of maple trees. Tough bark, sweet center. The kind of tree that’s beautiful in autumn when everything’s dying but they’re just…” He gestures vaguely, searching for words. “On fire, you know? Like they saved all their best color for the ending. And maples—they’re part of the forest but they’re never just background. You can’t miss them. Especially not in October.”

He pauses, looking toward the woods, then back at you.

“We used to walk through Miller’s Woods and you’d always stop under the biggest maple. Remember? Said it made you feel like you were in a cathedral. All that red and gold overhead, filtering the light. You’d just… stand there. Like you were part of it.”

Something hot and sharp lodges behind your sternum.

“That’s…”

You don’t know how to finish the sentence.

Beautiful? Devastating? Too much?

“I’m not that interesting.”

“You are.” He says it simply, factually. “You always were. You just never believed me.”

Something pulls at your heart, roots digging deep.

You should say something.

You should tell him that you used to write his name in the margins of your notebooks, that you memorized the exact shade of his eyes (brown, warm, with flecks of amber when the light hit them right, like sun through forest canopy), that when you left it felt like being uprooted, like leaving part of yourself buried in the soil of this place, tangled up with him.

But before you can formulate any of that into words, there’s a sound—high-pitched, delighted, distinctly child-shaped.

“Dada!”

You both turn, and there’s a little boy running toward you—toward Jimin—on unsteady toddler legs, arms outstretched, face split in a gummy smile.

He can’t be more than two, wearing a tiny denim jacket and light-up sneakers, blonde hair (the same color as Jimin’s, you note with a strange detached clarity) falling into his eyes. There are leaves stuck to his jacket, like he’s been playing in a pile of them.

Jimin’s entire face transforms. Softens into something so openly adoring it makes your chest constrict.

He crouches down, catching the boy easily, swinging him up into his arms the way someone who does this every day would.

“There’s my guy,” Jimin says, and his voice is different now—warmer, fuller, saturated with a kind of love you’ve never heard from him before. “Did you have fun with grandma?”

The boy nods enthusiastically, babbling something incomprehensible about leaves and trees, and Jimin laughs, bouncing him slightly on his hip.

An older woman appears behind the child, walking at a more sedate pace, and she waves at Jimin with the fond exasperation of a grandmother who’s just spent an hour being climbed on.

She seems to be carrying a small bag from what you can tell, probably full of the treasures her grandson collected—acorns, interesting rocks, particularly pretty leaves.

“Wore himself out at the park,” she calls. “He’s all yours now.”

“Thanks, mom,” Jimin calls back, and then he turns to you—something weighing his expression in what you might recognize as apology, maybe, or resignation.“Sorry. This is—this is Noah.”

The boy peeks at you from where his face is half-buried in Jimin’s shoulder, one curious eye visible, and offers a tiny wave.

A small oak leaf is caught in his blonde hair.

You wave back automatically, your smile feeling stiff and strange on your face. “Hi, Noah.”

You feel like something within you has shattered like dropped glass and you’re standing in the aftermath trying to pretend you don’t feel the sharp edges cutting into the confines of your soul.

“He’s beautiful,” you manage, because he is. Because it’s the thing you’re supposed to say.

“Yeah,” Jimin says softly, pressing a kiss to the top of Noah’s head. “Yeah, he is.”

There’s a pause, and it’s excruciating.

You should ask questions. Should say something appropriate like “How old is he?” or “What’s his favorite toy?”

But you can’t make your mouth form the words because you’re too busy recalibrating everything, too busy feeling stupid for the hope that had been building in your chest like a seedling trying to grow in depleted soil.

Of course he has a child. Of course he has a whole life you know nothing about.

Seven years is a long time.

People grow up, build families, put down roots that go deeper than childhood friendship, become someone you don’t recognize anymore.

“I should—” you start, gesturing vaguely back the way you came. “My mom’s probably wondering where I am.”

“Right. Yeah.” Jimin shifts Noah to his other hip, and the boy immediately starts playing with the collar of his sweater, still babbling happily about his adventure. “It was really good seeing you, Maple. Really.”

“You too,” you say, and you mean it even though it hurts. “Take care of yourself, Jimin.”

You start to turn away, but his voice stops you.

“Hey.”

You look back.

He’s standing in the golden afternoon light, holding his son, the forest rising dark and dense behind him, looking at you with something complicated in his eyes.

He looks like he belongs here, rooted to this place in a way you never let yourself be.

He looks like someone who chose to stay and grew into himself because of it.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he says. “If you’re in town. You know where to find me.”

You nod, not trusting yourself to speak, and then you’re walking away, back toward your parents’ house, back toward the temporary safety of your childhood bedroom and your mother’s inevitable questions about whether you’ve met anyone nice in the city.

Behind you, you can hear Noah’s bright chatter, Jimin’s low murmured responses, the sound of their footsteps heading in the opposite direction, probably toward the woods for one more walk before dinner, before bath time, before all the routines of a life you’re not part of.

You don’t let yourself look back.

You keep walking, hands shoved deep in your pockets, watching the way the leaves skitter across the sidewalk in the October breeze.

The trees overhead sway slightly, branches creaking, and you think about root systems—how some trees in a forest are connected underground, sharing nutrients and information, how you can cut one down and the others will keep its stump alive for years, feeding it through their linked roots because that’s what growing together means.

Everything seems to flutter in shades of amber and dying light, sun lowering in the sky now.

In a few weeks, these trees will be bare—skeletal, honest, all secrets visible. But right now they’re perfect. Brilliant and blazing and temporary.

Jimin was right about maple trees. They save all their best color for the ending.

By the time you reach your parents’ driveway, the ache in your chest has settled into something bearable.

Something that might be more manageable to carry.

Just another autumn memory, beautiful and bittersweet, the kind of thing that will hurt less with time.

Or at least that’s what you tell yourself.

Your mother’s in the kitchen when you walk in, and she looks up from the vegetables she’s chopping, takes one look at your face, and frowns.

“You alright, honey?”

“Yeah,” you say, and it’s almost true. “Just tired. Long walk.”

She eyes you suspiciously but doesn’t push. “Well, dinner’s in an hour. Go rest if you need to.”

You nod, heading for the stairs, and as you climb toward your old room, you catch sight of yourself in the hallway mirror.

Same face, same person, but somehow you look different.

Like you’ve aged years in the span of an hour.

In your room, you sink onto the bed—the same bed you’ve had since you were fifteen, with the same faded comforter—and stare at the ceiling.

The glow-in-the-dark stars you stuck up there in eighth grade are still visible, though they don’t glow anymore. Just faint outlines of what used to shine.

Jimin’s smile won’t leave you. The way he said your nickname, the warmth of his hand on your shoulder. The sound of his son calling him ‘dada’. The way he looked standing there with the forest behind him, more at home than you’ve felt anywhere in seven years.

What he said about maple trees, and how it’s true that they burn bright and beautiful before the long winter. How they’re most visible when they’re dying back, when they’re preparing to go dormant. How next spring they’ll bud again, green and new, but right now they’re just burning, burning, burning.

And you think that maybe some things are meant to stay in the past.

Maybe some people are meant to be memories, not futures.

Maybe the city was the right choice after all, because here—here everything aches with what could have been, what might have been, what will never be.

Here the trees know you, remember you, and that makes it worse somehow.

Makes it harder to pretend you’re someone new.

Makes it harder to forget.

Or maybe to remember.

𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐫: @anitalerina

cr: @jungkoode 2025.

do not translate or repost.