"I'm so desperate to see your face, meet me in this broken place."

[ a/n: I never added a song to any of the chapters of this story, this was intentional but now I'm gonna make an exception because this song is making me feel some deep #Jiera feels and I'd like to share them with you 💕 okay enough with my talking let's proceed ]

Jimin slowly drifted back into consciousness, his eyelids easing open against the sun beaming in his eyes.

He slowly found his way to sitting as he let his eyes take in the view. From what it looked like he was at a beach, he easily deduced as he watched how the waves rolled down and crashed onto the shore with a happy hiss.

A chill surged through him despite the warm breeze. He glanced down at his body; he was dressed in a pair of light blue jeans and a loose white sateen shirt, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

He let his eyes roam his surroundings. The beach stretched out alongside the water that seemingly had no end in sight. The sand was the softest golden hue, vivid in the brilliant light, a comforting warmth to it.

With a low grunt, Jimin got on his feet and patted his clothes. The sand shifted underneath his weight. The beach was peaceful, but there was a haunting emptiness to it. He closed his eyes and listened to the song of the waves as they crashed gently, turning into white foam.

"Jimin."

His eyes flew wide open at the mention of his name. He hadn't heard nor sensed anyone approach him yet the voice sounded like it came from right next to him.

Then he saw her. He truly saw her. The whole world slowed down. With her fingers interlocked before her, her shiny hazel hair tousled by the summer breeze. A white sundress hugging her frame and cascading down her sun-kissed thighs.

When her eyes met his, she smiled. In that moment, Jimin knew. All the beauty in the universe could not compete with her. Her eyes were simply spellbinding. The softest, most rapturous hue of caramel encircled her pupils that had now shrunk to small dots. He felt his heart clench at how disarmingly gorgeous she was, with her naturally blushed cheeks and small freckled nose.

More than anything, it was her inner beauty that truly captivated him. It radiated from within her, illuminating her skin with a soft glow. He had never felt so in love with her like right now. She stepped closer, stealing his breath away.

"You came." Aera muttered, her long eyelashes caressing her skin as she blinked multiple times.

Next thing Jimin knew, his arms were folded around her back, drawing her in closer. Without a word, she melted into his form, securing her arms around his neck as her dress grew wet from the rapidly falling salty drops. Jimin cried silently, a manly roughness to his tears as he buried his face in her neck. It brought him relief to have her in his arms as he cried incessantly, releasing the tension held for so long in that time they'd never get back. After so long he felt like he would die if he lost her again.

Aera couldn't speak through the sobs that forced their way up her throat. With each soft touch another tear fell. She clasped at the fabric of his shirt, pulling away just a bit so that she could look him in the eyes. In these eyes shone a gentleness, a love that was stronger than any words could describe. Her face creased and she started planting small pecks on his wet cheeks, kissing away his tears, kissing away the pain from being apart for so long...

"I love you, Jimin, I love you," she kept mumbling in between wet kisses, with each 'I love you' another petal of Jimin's iron shield against the cold reality fell, until he stood there in front of her, heart and soul bare from all the hurt and the woes.

"I love you," he said it back, voice thick with overwhelming emotion. In this moment he resembled a boy more than a man, only in front of her could he allow himself to be so fragile.

"I'm so sorry for everything," Aera's voice broke with all the misplaced guilt, the remorse eating away at her. "For keeping things away from you, for running away like that, for making you feel like I had betrayed your trust, for Yoongi, for-for..." she broke down into tears as it was Jimin's turn now to kiss her pain away.

Keeping things? Betrayal? Yoongi?

All of this seemed so far away now, like a long forgotten dream his mind had buried deep inside. It was unimportant, it was irrelevant; nothing else mattered other than her.

"I don't care," he whispered, tucking an unruly hair strand behind her ear. "I don't care angel, forget it, please stop crying about it, I don't want to see you cry," He hushed her, his thumb stroking her chin as his lips slightly grazed hers. "In fact it should be me who's apologizing to you my love, I was an asshole and I made you feel like you couldn't tell me things, that was so fucking stupid of me, I got so jealous because I love you so, so much and I'm so afraid of losing you and look what happened in the end, I lost you..."

"Jimin, you can never lose me," she sobbed, stroking his hair.

"I'm such a jerk, I blame myself for everything, such a fucking jerk," he aspirated, his head hung low as tears kept on dripping from his chin.

"No, stop, you can't keep blaming yourself Jimin, please," Aera's face screwed in despair as it was evident how much it hurt her that he put the whole blame on himself. "I don't want you to live with that kind of guilt, please Jimin, I forgive you, I can never hate you, I forgive you, do you hear me?" she kept mumbling until her words turned into incoherent croaks as she kept kissing his lips.

Jimin nodded rapidly, exhaling a little whimper.

"And you, do you forgive me?" Aera asked, taking his face in between her small palms.

"Aera, there's nothing to forgive you for..." he aspirated dejectedly.

"Jimin, do you forgive me?" she insisted, searching his eyes desperately.

He held her gaze, the air was knocked out of his lungs as he caught her teary eyes.

"Yes, yes I do," he sniffed. "I forgive you angel, there literally isn't a single thing that I wouldn't forgive you. I love you so much."

"And I love you, deeply," Aera brought her forehead to his. "Look at us both crying, we're such crybabies," she laughed through the tears, wiping her eyes with her palms.

They stood like this for some time, faces close to each other and breaths mingled together as they simply relished in each other's presence. Jimin placed his hands on her waist, drawing back so that she could look at her face.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"I am in here." Aera whispered, meeting his soft gaze.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Jimin questioned.

Her expression dropped. "I... I'm not really myself, Jimin. I've lost control. It hurt too much... I couldn't take it. I lost myself."

"Angel, what do you mean?"

She held her breath behind pursed lips. "I saw some things... I mean, Yoongi showed them to me. They were images of you with a girl, and you were kissing her and, I- I-," her words broke down again, overpowered by sorrowful sobs.

"Oh my god," he gasped, taking her chin in between his fingers. "You know that's not true, don't you? Please Aera, tell me you don't think that it's true!"

"I mean even if it is, I can't blame you, Jimin... I love you too much to hate you... Even if you did it, I'll still love you because that's the only thing I know how to do." She whimpered.

"Aera, that was just another trick Yoongi was playing on you!" Jimin exclaimed softly.

She raised her tear-filled eyes at him. "You mean to say it never happened?"

He looked away, overcome with suffocating guilt.

"Jimin?" Aera searched his gaze. "Jimin you can tell me, I won't hate you."

"That girl, she's a witch I begged to help me find you," he gulped. "She misunderstood my kindness for love... I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses, Aera, but she kissed me first... I pushed her away immediately, I was so shocked that I- I want to be with you and you only, you have to understand there's no one else for me, my love, no one would ever compare to you."

"Hey, shhh," she cut him off, lovingly taking his face in between her hands. "Jimin I don't care. I don't give a damn about a stupid kiss. It's nothing compared to the infinite love I have for you in my heart, nothing can ever be compared to that... I love you, do you hear me? I love you so much, don't feel guilty about something so unimportant!"

"But you do care, I know that," he said. "Don't try to hide your pain from me, my love, I know how much you try to conceal every hurt you keep inside. If you're stuck here," he gestured around them. "Then it already affected you greatly... I'm so sorry."

"I locked myself in here," Aera motioned to the desolate beach. "Because I couldn't handle the reality of being without you. But now I can't find the key and I'm stuck in my own head, Jimin... there's another part of me that has taken the wheel now and is controlling my actions. I can't even see what she's doing. It's like I've been thrown out of my own body..."

Jimin's eyebrows dipped slightly as the strings around his heart constricted. In that moment he vividly recollected the words Aera's grandmother had said to him on their encounter:

"Please make sure the darkness doesn't take her, Jimin."

But he was already too late. If what she was telling him were true, then that could only mean the darkness had already taken her... Obscure forces had claimed her consciousness and the other part of her, the real Aera, had found an escape in this oddly vivid dream.

"Are they treating you good at least?" Jimin questioned. "Yoongi and Taehyung, are they taking good care of you?"

"Yes, they are," she nodded. "Well, Yoongi is... you know. But Taehyung has been really kind and caring to me. But... they're not you, Jimin. I miss you terribly it's like someone has ripped my heart in two. I miss your love, I miss you so so much," she planted a small kiss to his cheek.

Jimin swallowed back the lump in his throat.

"Aera, there's something you need to know about Taehyung-"

"I don't want to," she cut him off softly. All of a sudden she had become sleepy, leaning her face against his palm and closing her eyes. "I'm tired... all this talking is exhausting me. I just want to enjoy this time with you."

He winced. "Okay. Yes, if that's what you want."

"Do you recognize this place?" she asked with a simper as her eyelids fluttered open.

Jimin looked around before a grin crawled its way on his lips.

"Of course I do," he replied. "It's the beach I took you to that time... where we had our first kiss."

"It was nighttime and we went skinny dipping," Aera recollected. "In my mind, this place somehow became my safe haven. When I wanted to go to a happy place, I instantly thought of this beach."

"It's really nice," Jimin commented, taking a moment to admire the scenery. "Do you wanna do it again?"

She giggled sheepishly. "I was actually waiting for you to ask that."

Both of them chuckling happily, they started taking their clothes off with haste in an unspoken competition about who's going to undress themselves first. Jimin beat her by a second as he threw his clothes on the golden sand and ran into the sea.

"Hey! Not fair, my dress is really tricky to take off!" he heard Aera complain behind him but he just laughed.

A gentle sea breeze rustled through his hair as he inhaled the salty scent of the water. Jimin turned around to see her and his breath halted in his throat as his eyes drank her in.

There was something absolutely captivating about her as she stepped in the water, the sunrays bouncing off her silky sun-kissed skin. Maybe it was because they were in a dream, but in that moment she resembled a Greek goddess more than an actual human being.

Unlike the first time they had gone to the beach, there was no shyness in the way she carried herself now. She approached him slowly, her eyes never leaving his until they were at an arm's length.

"You know," Jimin breathed. "I can never get enough of you, Lee Aera. You've bewitched me."

She chuckled, reaching out to take his hand, caressing it with her thumb.

"And you whole-heartedly own me, Park Jimin. All of me."

Both of their bodies swayed with the motion of the ocean. Jimin wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer until they were chest to chest.

Admiring the small droplets of salty water on her cheeks, he peered deeply in her eyes. Suddenly a question crept in his mind, one that made him uneasy.

"Are we ever going to be happy?" he aspirated.

Aera's smile fell for a second.

"This is what I wanted, remember? A love that moves the Universe." She smiled again.

"Yes, but I want us to be together already, Aera. Won't our suffering come to an end? Are we ever going to have our happy ending?"

"We will, if we fight for it." She uttered quietly.

"I'm so exhausted," Jimin groaned. "I want you to be by my side, but you're still so far away..."

"Shhh," she hushed him, pressing a finger to his lips. "I'm here now, aren't I?"

"But this isn't real." he looked away into the endless horizon.

"Only if we say it isn't." she said softly.

Tears welled up in Jimin's eyes again.

"Will you still love me even if I've done some horrible things?"

Her hand gravitated to push his wet hair back.

"I will always love you no matter what you do, Jimin, don't ever doubt that."

Somehow this didn't sound genuine enough for him. This kind of unconditional love wasn't realistic, at least in his mind. He grew increasingly doubtful. Would the real Aera really say this?

"Hey, look at me," she called out for him softly. "I want you to close your eyes."

"Why?"

"Just trust me and close them, love."

A little bit reluctantly, he obliged. Her arms rested on his shoulders as her hands caressed the back of his neck lovingly. He heard her take a deep breath in and hum a familiar gentle tune.

"The universe has moved for us, without missing a single thing... Our happiness was meant to be, cause you love me, and I love you..."

Jimin felt himself relax as he listened to her sweet voice. It was like he was being taken to another dimension... The voice grew more and more distant, as if she was stepping away from him.

"You're my penicillium, saving me, saving me; my angel, my world... I'm your Calico cat, here to see you; love me now, touch me now..."

By the end of the bridge, Aera's voice had become very faint and quiet. He couldn't feel her hands on him anymore.

Anxiously, Jimin's eyes snapped wide open only to see that she was gone. Frantically he whipped around as his gaze searched for her but to no avail. The next thing he thought about was to glance down into the water.

Her silhouette was hazy, but he still saw her. She looked peaceful, her features soft as if in deep slumber as she sank in deeper and deeper.

"Aera!" Jimin yelled, shooting down and desperately trying to grab her. Drops of water splashed his face as his heart beat vigorously in his chest, but his fingers clasped around inexistent hands. It was like her body wasn't even in the water, but it was a reflection of some sort.

"Jimin, it's okay..." her eyes opened and her mouth moved but he couldn't grab a hold of her. He let out cries of despair as he threw his whole body in the water, but she wasn't there anymore.

"Aera!" he screamed underwater, his heart shattering in million pieces. His head resurfaced above water again as he gasped for air. "Aera!" he kept yelling against the desolate beach.

But his cries were met with silence.

She was gone. He had lost her again. He glanced down to see that the crystal transparent water had become pitch black and thick like some sort of sticky goo. It dripped from his hands like blood. It was seeping at his skin, paralyzing him. Jimin threw his head back and shouted at the sky.

"AERA!!"

Jimin woke up screaming, covered in cold sweat. He shot up to sit in his bed, his hands clamoring to clasp onto the bed sheets. He clutched on his shirt that was drenched in sweat.

He never knew his most beautiful dream would also turn out to be his worst nightmare.

author's note:
Finally they met even if it was for a little while, my #Jiera heart was crying 😭🥺❤ I may or may not have sobbed a little while writing this