[Jimin's POV]
My therapist.
Not in the office. Not behind a clipboard or desk.
Just her.
Sleeves pushed up. Glasses perched loosely on her nose. A novel in one hand, the other wrapped around a ceramic mug.
She looked... calm. At peace. Almost like someone who forgot the world existed for a while.
She looked like a woman in her early thirties, not forties like I had somehow assumed during all our sessions. The authority in her voice, the way she dissected pain like a surgeon—it had aged her in my mind.
And I—
I was kind of stunned.
Before I knew it, I stood.
Walked to her table.
"Mind if I sit?"
She looked up, surprised. A slow smile touched her lips.
"Of course not."
I sat.
And for once—there were no therapy questions. No probing glances.
Just two people.
"How's your day been?" I asked.
She blinked, softly closed her book, and leaned into the moment.
Then came the silence. Easy, unburdened.
We talked.
Not about trauma. Or recovery.
Just about her favorite books.
Coffee flavors.
Why she hated whipped cream.
Why I suddenly liked it.
Then, mid-laugh, I tilted my head and blurted, "Wait—how old are you?"
Her brows rose. "Excuse me?" she said, laughing.
"I mean—you just seem so... professional. I always thought you were older. Like, late thirties or... I don't know, even forties?"
Her mouth fell open in mock offense. "Forties?! Jimin!"
My eyes widened. "No, no, no—I didn't mean it like that! I just meant... You looked so put-together. Like someone with a PhD and two lifetimes of wisdom."
She burst out laughing. "You're lucky I like you, Park Jimin."
"I'm just saying," I mumbled into my cup, cheeks flushed. "You looked... professional. Intimidatingly so."
She smirked. "And now?"
I met her eyes.
"And now... you look human."
The smile she gave me wasn't clinical. It wasn't the reassuring smile of someone paid to understand me.
It was warm. Genuine.
And for the second time that day—
I felt understood.
But this time, it didn't hurt.
I watched her laugh again. Head tilted back, hand gently covering her mouth, like she hadn't just been a mirror to my brokenness a hundred times over.
And it hit me—
Connection didn't always have to come from bleeding hearts and shared grief.
Sometimes it could come from this.
A smile across a café table.
A spontaneous joke about whipped cream.
The mutual understanding that we were both just... tired souls finding breath again.
She wasn't my therapist in that moment.
She was a woman who had probably spent years holding other people's pain.
And maybe I was a man who finally stopped wanting to be saved.
I didn't want to be a case anymore.
I didn't want to be someone's "healing project."
And yet—this?
This didn't feel like therapy.
This felt like peace.
I caught her eyes again. She was stirring her coffee now, gaze drifting to the window, then back to me.
And here I was, across from someone who didn't know my whole story.
Who wasn't asking me to retell it.
And I felt seen.
Not the kind of seen that leaves you exposed—
The kind that feels like exhale.
Like a light switch turned on inside a very dark room.
Maybe healing wasn't loud.
Maybe it wasn't in the breakdowns or the epiphanies.
Maybe it was in the quiet.
The steady.
The stillness of not having to explain yourself anymore.
***
The night was quiet.
Not haunting, not hollow—just... quiet.
Like the world finally exhaled with me.
I sat on the chair by the window, pen in hand, notebook cracked open like a familiar old friend.
Lyrics poured slowly, not rushed like before. Just... honest. No dragging weights. No ghosts tapping my shoulder.
For the first time in a long time, I was writing again.
Not from pain.
Not from anger.
Just from presence.
Then I remembered a particular call.
JungKook.
God, I missed that idiot.
We hadn't talked properly in months. Not since he dropped off the grid and ended up in Iceland.
But when I picked up the video call—it was like no time had passed.
There he was.
Grinning like a dork. Wind was tossing his hair.
Smiling wider than I'd seen in years.
"Bro, I thought you said you were flying to Ireland," I said.
He shrugged and laughed. "Switched flights last minute. Iceland called me."
Dramatic as always. Said he got hit by a grocery cart on day one.
That the woman behind it had blue eyes and no filter.
And apparently, she almost killed him.
"She's different," he said, voice dropping just a little. "The way she doesn't care who I am... It's like I finally get to breathe."
Then he panned the camera to show her walking up ahead.
Ivory.
The calm after his storm.
Poised, unaware of the weight she's lifted from his chest.
Unbothered by his fame.
Unmoved by the flash and frenzy.
Yet somehow—entirely captivating.
That call lasted three hours.
We laughed.
Talked about the past. The present. The maybe-future.
I teased him that Sayuri was still running her little anti-JK campaign, stirring drama out of air.
He rolled his eyes. "Let her. I'm not playing that game anymore."
Then he paused.
"I'll come home soon... but not yet."
And I got it.
Because for the first time, he wasn't running away.
He was healing.
Finding something real.
After we hung up, I sat there thinking.
Thinking about her.
Not Ivory.
Celine.
She wasn't like Ivory.
Not in personality. Not in energy.
God, they were night and day.
Celine.
How for so long, love had meant intensity.
Rage, heartbreak, passion, guilt, longing.
I thought about JungKook and Ivory again.
How she never needed him to explain himself to be understood.
She just knew.
But still...
There was something similar in the way they left a mark.
Something in how they changed us.
Ivory steadied JungKook.
Celine cracked me open.
Ivory was the rainbow after Kook's storm.
Celine was the hurricane within the storm.
Maybe she was meant to pass through.
To remind me, I could still feel.
Still break. Still rebuild.
I wasn't angry anymore.
Just... free.
I realized then that everything does happen for a reason.
You meet them.
You lose them.
Some stay.
Some don't.
Maybe for her, I may be the little sliver of fresh in her storm.
Not the calm.
The little break after the rain had poured.
To breathe.
Only to pour again.
I looked at the page in front of me.
JungKook found somehow, love, in a place he never expected.
Maybe I will too. Someday. That kind of special love.
Someday.
But right now, it's about me.
About healing the little cracks.
Mending the pieces still a bit off-kilter.
Learning how to stand tall again, just me.
Because enlistment's coming.
And I want to walk into it with no regrets.
No what-ifs.
Just breath.
Just music.
Little by little—
I'm coming back to life.