it starts with an old american movie, something jimin could barely understand at the age of five, but something she latched onto anyway. 

she looks at the way the girl with the blonde hair smiles and laughs, watches at the way the boy with the brown eyes holds her in his arms.

when she asks her father about it, he says "that's love, they're in love."

jimin falls in love with love.

she falls in love with a lot of things, and wishes to be loved back.

it's cute when she's eleven, optimistic when she's fifteen, then naive when she's eighteen.

"a love like that doesn't exist, jimin-ah."

maybe her mother tells her this so she doesn't get disappointed, so that she doesn't get her heart broken, but it doesn't deter her, doesn't convince her otherwise. 

she believes in a love so true, a love so pure, a love so whole that it's perfect.

jimin dives head first when she meets jaebum.

he's picture perfect in so many ways, older, wiser, mature, cold yet warm at the same time.

he opens up a whole new world for her, full of new feelings and unexplored paths, and she welcomes the changes with open arms.

jaebum is sweet, he is. jaebum is lovely, and caring, and kind, and looks after jimin with gentle hands.

but sometimes, sometimes he holds on too tight.

jimin has a lot of love in her heart, and a lot of heart in her love, for people she's never met, people she's met a hundred times, people she'll never see again.

jaebum knows that about her, loves that about her, but hates that about her too. 

he wants eyes that will look at him, and only him, and no matter how many times jimin says that she would never betray his trust, he doesn't seem to believe it.

jimin's first love is rocky, and uneven, but she still has hope, for her next one, or the one after that.

her mother watches after her carefully, as if worried that she would break after being separated from jaebum.

jimin herself was worried about that too, but just for a moment. she knew what she was looking for, and she knew that even though her first love was bittersweet, it was still something she would never trade for the world. 

her second love starts slower.

she meets taehyung at a cafe on a cloudy day. she's sitting by herself, drinking coffee and trying not to burn her tongue as she does so. 

taehyung was sitting across the room, also alone, and she doesn't notice him until a flash of lightning strikes outside, and she looks up.

they lock eyes in the same moment, and she lets her heart carry her all the way to his table.

at first she's a little hesitant, wondering if maybe this was a boy too pretty, too kind, for her to fall in love with.

she doesn't have to wonder for long, because just a month after they first meet each other, taehyung says it first.

"i'm in love with you."

jimin's beyond giddy, and her heart soars to some other place, some wonderful place.

their love is bright, and beautiful, like a blossoming flower.

jimin starts to think this might be, he might be the one, this might be the love she's always been dreaming of.

but that all changes, comes crashing down like a sudden downpour of rain, when she sees him with someone else. holding hands like he would hold hers, kissing their cheek like he would kiss hers, loving them like he would love her.

taehyung had too much love to give, and jimin alone wasn't able to properly hold all of it.

she doesn't blame him, not really, not deeply. 

her mother had, her father had, jae had, but jimin knew something they didn't.

she knew him, what he was like, how he loved. she knew that he didn't want to hurt her.

jimin's love, taehyung's love. in the end, those were two different things. 

but the one thing she knew was that he had loved her, that was true, and that was enough for her. enough to know that she could never really hate him.

she takes a small break after that.

doesn't look for love in every corner, every street.

she lets her heart take a breather, a moment to relax.

before long though, loves comes knocking on her door.

it's midnight, there's rain outside, jimin's listening to the sound of cars passing by. it feels just a little melancholic. 

she opens the door to jae, jae who's soaked and shaking.

"jimin," he says, "there's something i need to say."

and so she listens, listens and listens, as he talks.

he talks about himself, then about her, then about them being together, and then he talks about love. about how he's been watching her for so long, trying to find the perfect love in the wrong people.

and how he might be the right person.

there's a small tremor in her heart, trepidation, hesitation, but she takes the chance anyway.

tells him yes, that she will try her best to love him back.

they start off bumpy, and uneven, wondering how they should transition from best friends to something more, but it doesn't take them long to find their footing.

then it's natural, almost smooth, like they should've been doing this from the beginning. 

he looks at her with love in his eyes, his heart on his sleeve.

sometimes she feels she can't meet his eyes, but she smiles anyway, laughs anyway.

she kisses him and tastes cotton candy, tastes sweetness and calm, it almost feels like magic.

is this the one? is he?

.

jimin meets seungyoun.

they click almost instantly, form a bond that is already stronger than what she has with some people she's known for years.

jae watches from the sidelines, with a small, sad smile.

jimin doesn't realise it yet, doesn't think much of the sleepovers they have, of the inside jokes they share, of the looks they give each other when they think the other isn't looking.

"jimin," jae says one day, "there's something i need to say."

he lays it all out for her then, like her best friend, like the person she's loved for so long and will love for even longer.

he talks, about how he only has half her heart, about how he's sorry.

she's sorry too.

he knew from the beginning it was a gamble, but he risked it anyway, risked his heart to try and capture hers.

he ends it with a teary half smile, telling her that she shouldn't blame herself.

jimin doesn't, but hurts anyway, hurts for jae, hurts for what they were, what they could've been.

jae and seungyoun never fully meet. 

an old love goes and a new love comes.

seungyoun and jimin are giggling, late into the night, snuggled close to each other in his bed.

"jimin-ah."

"yeah?"

"i love you."

it's too dark to see it, but she smiles.

"i love you too."

that night, she wonders about her perfect love, and realises, this isn't it.

it wasn't jaebum, or taehyung, or jae, and it wouldn't be seungyoun either.

a perfect love would never come to be, it would always just be something you could dream about, fantasize about.

but this, the warmth, the comfort, the sweet, the sour, is definitely love.

and she finally understands, as she starts to drift off the sound of seungyoun snoring, that love doesn't need to be perfect to still be love, to still be good, to still be true.