The bass throbbed beneath Jimin's feet like a second heartbeat. Neon pink and blue lights smeared across the hazy club air, catching on the condensation of his untouched glass. His friends were loud tonight—newer ones, not the ones who knew his past. Just enough distraction to forget the date, the city, the memories.
Until he looked up.
And saw her.
Celine.
She was moving like she used to. Slow. Sure. Her hips carried their own rhythm, her hair falling like waves over bare shoulders. There were hands around her—strangers, maybe friends—but they didn't matter. Not to him.
Her eyes found him before he could look away.
They didn't smile. Neither of them.
She looked exactly the same.
And he? He felt completely different, but somehow exactly like that boy who once handed her a mixtape and pretended it wasn't for her.
"I threw a party on you..."
The song thumped behind their silence. Her lashes fluttered. Her lips parted slightly like she might say something, even across the distance. She didn't. He didn't.
There was gravity in the look. Soft, clean, painful gravity. Not regret. Not love. Just... unfinished.
She turned first. A twirl, slow and deliberate, the world catching her in motion like a scene from an old film.
He didn't follow.
Not because he didn't want to.
But because this was the kind of story that didn't restart with a chase.
It restarted with a look.
And ended in stillness.
***
Jimin leaned back in his car, the streetlights slicing shadows across his face, hands loose in his steering wheel but jaw clenched tight. The music still rang in his ears, even though the club was miles behind.
Not the bass. Not the voices.
Her.
Celine.
Still the same.
Wild. Electric. Spontaneous.
That same half-smile like she knew something the rest of the world didn't. That glint in her eyes—the one that used to warn him something reckless was coming.
God, he used to adore that look.
He remembered brushing the hair off her face just to see it better. Soft fingers against a chaotic spirit. She matched his rhythm like no one else ever had. Not perfectly—no, it was messier than that. But it fit. Like a jagged piece in the right puzzle.
And yet, he could never hold onto her long enough to feel certain.
She was always halfway out the door.
Too many flaws she kept behind a walled-up smile.
Too many silences that meant more than words.
Too many nights she stared at the ceiling beside him, lost in some thought she never let him touch.
He gave everything.
And she just... left.
One day, she disappeared like smoke, without a fight. Without a note.
Just the imprint of her laughter in his sheets and a text that never came.
He spiraled. Not publicly. Not loudly. But inward, in the quiet way heartbreak teaches you to suffer.
And tonight, there she was. At a bar. In that dress. Dancing to "Party On You" like fate was having a laugh.
His eyes had locked on her and refused to let go.
She didn't look sad. Didn't look angry.
She just looked like a ghost come back to life—and yet somehow untouched by the time that passed.
And he? He was full of what ifs.
What if she stayed?
What if she'd just said something, anything, before she ran?
What if he'd chased her? Would it have mattered?
The car slowed. His stop.
Jimin stepped out into the cool night and stood still for a long moment under the stars. The city buzzed around him—but his head was somewhere else. Still at that bar. Still watching her spin, wild and unreachable.
He whispered her name once. Like a prayer, or a curse.
Then walked away.
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Celine tipped back her drink, the ice clinking too loud against the rim, like her heart was echoing through the glass. She was laughing at some joke she barely heard, dancing to a beat she didn't feel.
And then she saw him.
Park Jimin.
Same angelic face.
Same soft, deep eyes and those lips—God, those lips.
The ones she used to trace with her thumb right before pulling him closer.
The ones that spoke her name like it meant something.
He hadn't changed.
Not in the way that mattered.
His hair still fell in messy perfection, the kind that begged her fingers to comb through. His frame was still lean and familiar, like a place her body remembered too well. And that look—the stillness in his eyes when they met hers. It cracked something open.
Her heart didn't flutter. It dropped.
Because she remembered it all.
Not the softness.
Not just the kisses, the laughter, the tangled sheets.
But the fights. The cold silences.
The ache of being the one always left behind.
He chased dreams.
She ran from reality.
Love was never real for her. Not really.
She was too unstable, too moody, too all-or-nothing. One moment she was in his arms, whispering forever. The next, she was on a flight to nowhere with a duffel bag full of impulsive decisions.
They had sex like firecrackers. Wild. Addictive.
But it was never love—not to her.
She never let it be.
Because how could she? She didn't believe she deserved love.
And Jimin... he was too golden. Too bright.
Too good.
So she disappeared.
Without a note. Without a reason.
Because if she stayed, she would've ruined him.
And now, here he was.
Looking at her like maybe—just maybe—he still cared.
And Party On You was playing. Like some cruel inside joke.
She wanted to flip off the DJ.
Scream at the sky.
Rip the night in half.
But her eyes stayed on him.
Just him.
And in that stare, in that split second of gravity, she realized something deeper than regret—
She missed him.
And it hurt.
Not because she wanted him back.
But because some part of her still wanted to believe she could have been enough.
If only she hadn't run.