the wind blew her hard as she opened the front door and walked down the stairs to see kim taehyung, leaning on one of the streetlight poles, his hands shoved inside his pockets. val opened the gate that stood between them and saw that his gaze was already on her the moment the sound of the door was made.
there was awkward tension in the air as val reluctantly took small steps towards the boy in front of her. his scarf covered most of his face so only his bangs and his eyes were exposed to the cold. val too shoved her hands into her pockets and looked at the ground.
"guess i can't say 'long time no see' now, huh?" he spoke first.
val almost chuckled but judging from the tone of his voice, he wasn't in the mood to be joking around. she held up her head and nodded, not having enough courage or the right to talk to him. not after what had happened. it was too soon.
"so why i called you here was because i know how-"
before he could finish his sentence, another voice interrupted him.
"i'll take it from here, taehyung-ah. thanks."
val flinched. the new voice strangely felt familiar. as if she had known his voice for a long long time. she could see a new shadow emerge from behind taehyung and gasped with both surprise and horror when the light shone on him.
that face was the last thing she needed after all that hard work of trying to overcome her disease. that face that made her go sick to her stomach, that made her body still tremble all over, that made her knees feel weak.
"y-you remember me right? i'm park jimin."
how did park jimin know kim taehyung?
then val realized that he was in the same idol group as him. she should've noticed but she was too focused on taehyung that she blurred out everything around her. now that his face was so clear, val's throat began to constrain.
"i-i do," she managed to say.
"back when we were in high school, i still remember all the things i've done to you and i know i've been such a dick and i treated you so badly but i really wanted to redeem myself and apologize," jimin said, his eyes held warm tears.
however, a flar of anger rose inside of val as jimin finished his words. he wanted to apologize? after all he had done for 4 consecutive years? her freshmen year, her sophmore year, her junior year, and even her senior year. for 4 years, he had made her feel terrible about herself, body shamed her, threw all that junk food at her. made her into what she was today.
made her meet anna.
and now he wanted to reedeem himself? to what, make himself feel better? take off the burden? in order to live that perfect life of a kpop idol where everyone feels loved by someone?
val's hands curled into hard fists as her nails dug into the palm of her hands, enough to draw sticky blood. she gritted her teeth as her soft glance turned into a furious glare towards jimin.
"park jimin, you expect me to receive your apologies right now? right here? have you lost your mind? do you want me to remind you even more on what you did to me back then cause i still remember every single second of you terrorizing my life. turning all my friends on me, making fucking body shamming nicknames, giving me toothbrushes every birthday to choke myself. you ruined my high school years. you gave me anna when i didn't need her. now you want me to suddenly become an angel and forgive you because 'the past is the past?'"
val paused her speech, then straight up walked up to jimin, and slapped him hard on the right side of his cheek.
"i hope you consider that something even better than forgiveness. cause you are never going to get a 'i forgive you' from me. ever," val snarled, as she used all of her will to stop her from punching the crap out of the bully in front of her.
she could see park jimin trembling, still dazed from the face slap. then she dared herself to look at her hands, and saw that her own body was shaking as well.
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