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Jimin. Rosy cheeks, dark brown eyes, and soft brown hair. Skin etched with blemishes and scars. His lips chapped from the cold and his nails chewed to relax himself. His oversized tattered shirt was ruined by the soaking wet sand and muddy shells he had been lying in only hours earlier. His unkempt brows furrowed, deep in thought, of something only he knew.
This is when he looked most beautiful. When he was unaware of the world around him. Too invested in his thoughts to care. Moments like this is when Jeongguk knew he loved him. With his nickname, Honey, that he thrusted upon him because of his soft voice, tired of calling him ‘boy’ because Jimin refused to give him his name, claiming that his name held just too much trauma for him to tell anyone. With his laugh that booms and shakes the earth as a signal to the universe that he’s happy. His smile that’s so large, the curves of his cheeks form craters like the moon, and his eyes become so small they look like the button eyes of a child’s bear.
Jeongguk wasn’t even sure if Jimin could see anymore when his smile reached that state, but that didn’t seem to matter to him. This, along with his slightly crooked front tooth that he hates so much and insists he will fix when he has the means to, but Jeongguk loves so much. He says it’s charming and adds character, when he really loves it because it adds a slight imbalance to his face, a sign he’s human too. Jimin thinks it’s an eyesore. Although Jeongguk takes everything Jimin says about himself with a grain of salt, knowing very well he is the hardest person on himself.
“What is it?” Jeongguk takes a hesitant step towards him. The ocean engulfing his feet, wrapping around him like an earthy hug.
He had never been more grateful than in this moment to be alive. To know Jimin. To see him in such a delicate state of existence. He watched him take a shaky breath. He glanced at him for a moment, only for a short second, but in that moment Jeongguk could see the pain in his eyes, the self hatred he held in his heart.
Jimin let out a dry laugh and shook his head, “Just thinking too much.”
Jeongguk knew what this meant. Thinking too much always meant contemplating existing for Jimin. When he would have bouts of self hatred, so strong, it would convince him for a while that the earth and everyone in it would never take a second glance if he were gone.
“Thinking too much about… life?”
Jimin looked at him, “You could say that.”
“Are you going to expand on that thought, or am I supposed to guess?” Jeongguk joked lightly, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Jimin would tell him what exactly was on his mind. The last thing he wanted was for him to hold these thoughts in and let them control him.
He sighed and softly said no, crouching to feel the ocean run through his hands. The sand kissing the tips of his fingers, the earth’s way of saying ‘I love you.’ His soft tufts of hair were blown forward by the wind, blocking his now tear stained face.
Jeongguk moved closer, desperate to see his eyes. To see just how much he was hurting.
“I’m scared Jeongguk,” Jimin whispered. “Why am I here? What’s the point?”
Jeongguk stayed silent, knowing if he spoke now then Jimin would stop altogether.
“I have no one here. I hate myself, Koo, how am I supposed to ever care for anyone else? Or you? If I can’t do the bare minimum of just liking myself, then I shouldn’t even be here.”
Jimin hasn’t loved himself in a long time. Jeongguk knew this much. However, he never expected the earthy eyed, soft spoken boy to care for him. At least, not in the way he did for him, because he loved him the way the ocean loved the moon, pulling its tides closer to him in hopes to kiss the light he breathes.
“Honey,” he sat next to him, pushing his choppy bangs out of his face, the moon shining on his glossy pink cheeks from the tears that wouldn’t stop. “You are so much more than what you see yourself as.”
Jimin let out a shaky exhale, his heart was sinking into his lungs and his lungs felt like they would collapse. He almost wished they would.
"It’s so hard, Jeongguk. I can’t do it. It’s too much for me.” He spoke in a hushed voice, gripping the sand beneath him, feeling the grains slip away from him. It almost felt like he was slipping away from himself. He almost couldn’t feel anything anymore. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to feel anymore. Maybe it would have been better than feeling all too much.
Jeongguk sighed, he felt hopeless in a way he had never felt before. All he wanted was for Jimin to see himself the way Jeongguk saw him. He wanted Jimin to see the stars in his own eyes. The constellations created from the scars on his face when he connected them. He wanted Jimin to hear how sweet and airy his own voice sounded. Like birds chirping in the dawn or how it reminds Jeongguk of the tides on summer nights. For Jimin to see the quirks and habits that Jeongguk finds so endearing that it makes his heart ache. The way Jimin covers his mouth when he laughs at his own jokes. When he playfully hits Jeongguk when they’re messing around. How he softly throws his head back in exasperation when Jeongguk says embarrassing things about him to locals on the boardwalk.
For Jimin to fall in love with himself the way he fell for him. For Jimin to feel his fingertips tingle like lightning when he touches himself. To take his own breath away and his head to feel like a whirlpool when he sees himself in the mirror because he just cannot believe how beautiful he is. To feel an entire forest fluttering in his stomach when he hears himself speak because his sweet velvety voice is one that’s never been more lovely. To feel every bone in his body rumble like the earth’s shaking plates when he thinks of himself. Jeongguk felt all this and more for him and if Jimin felt even an ounce of what Jeongguk felt towards him then maybe he’d have a chance. Maybe Jimin would fall in love with himself the way he deserved.
“I wish you could fall in love with yourself the way I fell for you.” Jeongguk searched for Jimin’s small hands under the ocean and held so tightly as though Jimin would be swept away. Jeongguk was beginning to think that perhaps Jimin drifted a long time ago.
Jimin sobbed a little harder at the touch.
He wanted to love the way Jeongguk loved.
Hard and full of a passion that could only be described as a snowstorm. Flurries of emotion and soft touches. Engulfing him and nipping his cheeks like sweet kisses.
Instead he hated.
He hated the way a child hates bedtime or the Winter hated Spring. Aggressive. Angry and seething. No longer seeing red but feeling like a tornado ready to destroy anything in its path because it only knows destruction and tragedy.
Maybe Jimin couldn’t love himself, but at least Jeongguk did for now and maybe that’s all he really needed.