NOTICE: ONE
Warnings: whoops attempted* angst ;0 other than that, none
Song inspos: it’s ok if you forget me, Astrid S (but imagine the exact opposite of what she sings) & mess it up, Gracie Abrams :’)
Word count: 1,500+
Summary: Jimin notices way too much about you, while you don't notice nearly enough about him. He also needs to invest in some hoodies.
a/n: hi hii :) this is my first completed fic i've writen on here, or anywhere at all for that matter kaplskjjs ahh i really hope you like it. Let me know what you think, feedback is super super welcome!! there is a flashback that's written in italics, and i took ridiculously long trying to come up with a summary which i'm sTILL iffy about. i'm also new on here so let's be frens :))
______________________________________________________________
Park Jimin has never regretted something more in his life. Sure there was the time when he hadn’t listened to his mom when she told him not to climb that one tree in their backyard, which ended with him in a very itchy cast and a long scolding from his mom. Now, years later, he wished his mom had warned him before he gave you a part of him you’d never want or need; his heart.
It’s not like he didn’t know what he was getting himself into, he knew you held his heart in your small hands (even smaller than his, HA! ) and he thought he didn’t care. Oh how naive he’d been to think that.
2 months ago:
It had been exactly seven months and three days since he realized he was in love with you, his best friend of six years. You had cried in his arms over Aaron? Adam?? He couldn’t really remember who it was this time.
“Why won’t he love me?” His heart breaks as you look at him as though you really want an answer. “Why won’t any of them love me?”
His fingers twitch at your waist. He wants to scream about how much he loves you but he refrains, settling instead for a small pained smile. He doesn’t try to say anything, not trusting himself to not ask you the exact same question. Why won’t you love him? He hugs you harder into his chest as a new wave of tears rack through your body.
He was wearing the purple hoodie you’d once mentioned you loved seeing him in. It was beginning to fray on the left shoulder where you’d always lean into while you cried. Not that you’d notice anyway, but he always wore it when you called with a shaky voice and he invited you over. It felt like it was yours, same as his heart.
He didn’t know how you couldn’t see it. The way he’d drop anything and everything for you. Let you pick any version of himself, let you mould him in any way if it would get you to love him back. He’d always adored you, and somewhere along the line you’d subliminally snatched his heart.
Maybe you’d never love him the way he did you, but he had hope. His heart was big enough. No matter how long it took, how many times you unknowingly broke it, he’d always have enough left to give to you.
He watched you cry and only when you finally curled up, something between a wheeze and a snore coming from you did he speak.
“I love you, i love you forever. Promise.”
He knew you hadn’t even heard the promise he’d made to you two months ago, yet he couldn’t help but feel guilty knowing he needed to break it. His friends knew him to be very loving, very selfless, he feels selfish now. He’s leaving merely to save his own heart, breaking yours (though for a totally different reason) in the process.
He’d watched as you gave your heart to different men, never once thinking to give it to him. He was never even an option for you and that hurt. You couldn’t blame him for falling for you, not when you cared so deeply for everyone continuously giving your heart no matter how many times it broke you just gave and gave. The two of you are similar in that sense.
Loving you is painful, like he’s bursting into flames and freezing at the same time. He can’t keep this up. He doesn’t know how to act around you anymore. Hugging you was never a problem, everyone knows how touchy and affectionate he is, however every hug he’s given you in the last few months, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He usually wears his heart on his sleeve, now he feels he needs to constantly check himself hoping you didn’t catch him smiling dopily in your direction.
Jimin couldn’t talk to you without wondering if something he said sounded suspiciously like an ‘i love you’. He couldn’t even listen to his favourite songs anymore, they all reminded him of you, probably because you introduced him to most of them, it hurt all the same.
Had he fallen out of line when he kissed you on the cheek days ago?
He remembers thinking he was invincible when he made that promise, thinking his heart could take it. He also remembers you saying you’d never love someone as much as Andrew? What was his name damnit?
He noticed everything about you, and frankly he was tired. He needed some time to think, to rebuild his heart. To un-notice everything.
He zips up his suitcase, the moving van would be by in a bit to pick up the remaining boxes. The daisies on his windowsill that you got him for his birthday last year are drying up, he notices with a sigh. With one last glance at the room he releases his grasp on the purple hoodie and walks out the front door.
He hasn’t answered your calls all day, and he probably wouldn’t for a while... not that you know that. You think nothing of it as you drive up to his house, eyes puffy from all the crying you’ve been doing. Alex had just called asking to take a break, something about you being too intense and you couldn’t help but replay every moment in your head wondering where you went wrong. You badly needed to rant to your support system otherwise known as Jimin, craving one of his hugs.
You don’t even notice his black Porsche missing from his driveway. And you don’t think much of it when he doesn’t answer the door, simply pulling out the spare key he gave you for moments just like this.
You do, however, notice the emptiness of his house. Where in the heck did his couch go? And why is his house so cold? Where are all the pictures of the two of you and his family that decorated his walls. You’re beginning to get frantic as you search through room after room for something, anything to make this less real. To show you he’ll be back shortly. That he didn’t just up and leave.
Whatever the reason, you’re sure you can get him to come back, or at least talk to you. “Chim?” Your voice echoes through his hallway. Your converse screech on the bare floor and you’re running down the hall to his bedroom. You’re stumbling now, eyes blurry with tears and you call out again “Jimin?” He was really gone.
You only just catch yourself before you hit the ground. You stare at the purple material that had snagged your foot. A purple hoodie lies by you on the floor. You’re sobbing.
Jimin swears the distance between his house and where he’d parked his car a block away wasn’t this long. He’s panting as he grips the door handle, stumbling inside with sweat making his recently dyed-pink hair stick to his forehead.
It was definitely rash of him to just leave the hoodie behind. It was too sentimental to just leave here to collect dust until the landlord discovered it. He missed it already. It smelt partially of you after all your cuddling sessions, and as embarrassing as it might sound, he needed it.
He jogs down the hallway, all the memories the two of you had here send a pang straight to his chest that has him tripping over his feet. That’s when he hears it. Sniffling. Someone was sniffling in his house. More curious than scared, the boy takes cautious steps past the bathroom and towards his bedroom.
His hand comes to rest over his heart, when he sees a head of long pink hair, shade identical to his save for the few bleached streaks he’d missed when the two of you had dyed each other’s hair. His fingers itch to bring you to his chest. You were crying. Because of him.
He reaches out to touch you, his first instinct being to pull you into him, but he stops in his spot when the floorboards beneath him creak. He waits for you to whip around and hug him, maybe scream at him for scaring you with his absence like that. His face scrunches up at your words.
“I can’t do this without you, why would you just leave?”
Jimin has to press a hand into his mouth to keep the sob threatening to expose him silent. Why was he not surprised. Of course you hadn’t noticed how much he’d been struggling the past few months. How his love for you far surpassed that of a best friend. He doesn’t know why he thought you might have noticed. In fact, when was the last time he’d talked to you about his problems?
Whatever fragments there are left of his heart ache. He suddenly misses his mom. Misses her scolding more than anything else, that would hurt much less than this does.
Jimin does what he knows he must.
Like most Jimin related things, you don’t notice what hoodie it is, don’t notice the frayed shoulder, and you most certainly don’t notice the boy who had come back for the hoodie backing away, quiet tears running down his face.