Chapter Text
Age 5. Winter, Busan
Jimin remembers how snow tasted. Like cold water with a hint of sadness. How it numbed his tongue until he couldn’t tell where warmth used to be.
The park felt too big that day, too empty, the silence pressing against his ears like hands cupped over them. His boots crunched softly over the fresh layer of snow, but even that sound seemed to disappear before it reached him. He stood still, mittens clutched to his chest, watching his mother’s coat flare like a bright red flag as she turned toward the row of trees.
“Stay here. I’ll be back.”
Her voice had cracks in it, like the ice spreading under the monkey bars. But she smiled. Small, shaky, like the effort of it hurt, and Jimin, who was seven and believed in promises, nodded and said, “Okay, eomma.”
He stayed.
The first hour was fine. He told himself it was a game, like hide and seek. His mother was good at hiding, but he was patient. He knew she’d come back when she wanted to be found.
When his fingers started to tingle from the cold, he curled them into fists inside the oversized gloves she’d slipped onto his hands that morning. She’ll be back soon.
By the second hour, Jimin started talking to himself.
“Maybe she’s watching me,” he whispered, glancing around. “Maybe she’s checking how good I am at waiting.”
He stood straighter. Stayed quiet. Stayed still.
The wind hissed through the empty swings, rocking them back and forth like they were waiting for something too. The sound made his chest feel small, like he couldn’t take a full breath. He kicked at the snow piling up around his boots, his eyes darting to the trees again. Any minute now. She’ll come back any minute.
But the park grew darker, the red coat long gone.
Jimin’s legs hurt from standing. He sat down on the bench, snow creeping through his pants and chilling his skin, but he didn’t move. Moving would mean he didn’t believe her anymore.
“Stay here,” he whispered, voice wobbling. “I’ll be back.”
She had said it. She had promised.
When the woman found him, Jimin didn’t cry.
She smelled like soup and perfume, her scarf wrapped twice around her neck so only her eyes showed. Kind eyes. She brushed the snow off his shoulders with gentle, hurried hands, speaking in a voice that reminded him of bedtime stories.
“Oh, sweetheart. Where’s your mom?”
Jimin opened his mouth, but no words came. The wind had stolen them, carried them away like snowflakes.
“Let’s get you warm, okay?” she murmured, wrapping an arm around him. Her jacket was warm where his cheek rested against it.
Jimin let her take him.
The police station was bright and too loud, with people asking questions he didn’t know how to answer. Where did she go? What did she look like? Was there anyone he could call?
His lips wouldn’t move, cracked and silent like the ice outside.
Age 19. Winter, Seoul
It still feels like waiting.
Even now, even here, with the heater pushing warmth into the small room and no bench beneath him, Jimin sits cross-legged by the window, watching snowflakes stick to the glass. The cold curls under the door and around his ankles like it remembers him.
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
He doesn’t remember her face anymore. The red coat, yes. The way her voice wavered, soft and brittle like frost-covered glass. But her face is gone, the edges blurring when he tries to pull it from the dark corners of his memory.
Sometimes he wonders if he made it up. If the red was something else, something dangerous, and his mind turned it into something easier to bear.
The snow always brings her back.
When it falls, soft and slow, Jimin can almost feel it again, that tiny spark of hope, so quiet and fragile he didn’t know it was there until it broke. He leans his forehead against the window, the cold biting back, and closes his eyes.
Maybe it’s why he leaves first. Always. Before anyone has the chance to look at him and say, “I’ll be back,” knowing they won’t be.