Warning: This chapter may potentially be triggering to readers. It will contain mentions of mental illness and suicide.
Also if you're ever feeling low in life, trapped in a dark cave, just know that there's always an end and a way out. You'll soon see the bright light of the outside waiting. It'll be okay...I promise you. It'll take some time to heal and it's encouraged to get as much help that you need.
~
"Remember when you fucked her that night and left her all alone the next day?!"
Dead silence.
No one couldn't—actually, they didn't want to say anything after what Taehyung revealed to the entire party. Family couldn't process what he said. The rich Hyungs were taken aback at the shocking discovery while the younger Imuwa boys stared in fear, watching this whole thing unravel.
However, the inner circle had their hearts dropped into their stomachs as they felt penetrating throbs insides of them.
Seojoon gulped as his pupils dilated. He licked his lips before sucking them into his mouth. The man didn't think their relationship was gonna be exposed like this but with the prince, Taehyung was sure to make it happen. It wasn't the entire story but with a short few words, it told almost everything.
When Penny was younger, she dreamt of telling her family about her and Seojoon.
But not like this.
Not when she had something with Taehyung. Not when Seojoon left her and came back to talk to her. Not when everything that she kept exploded inside of her and right in front of her face.
Penny was speechless and not in a good way at all. She couldn't believe what Taehyung just said. She told him not to do anything. She didn't know whether to be angry or cry. Her heart hurt in many ways possible and all she could do was blame every man she was with.
"What the fuck did you say?" Yoongi erupted as he came in between the two.
"Oh, you didn't hear me, Hyung?" Taehyung huffed as irritation rang in his tone. "Your friend had a relationship going on with your cousin behind your back!"
"Shut up," Seojoon demanded as his cavernous voice darkened. "You have no right to put your two cents into this!"
"No, fuck you. You hurt Penny!" The prince spat back. "You slept with her after she told you she loved you and you took it back! And you expect her to come crawling back after disappearing for four years? And in front of my fucking gorgeous face?"
"I had no choice to!" Seojoon yelled.
Taehyung scoffed as he rolled his eyes, "Please, you had your chance and no—"
"Stop." A fragile breaking voice spoke softly.
The two men turned to see a sad pouting Penny standing. Her eyes glossing up as they saw a single tear escape down. Her nose flushing in pain as she felt it swelling with her miserable mucus.
"Why would you say that? How dare you?" Penny's blurry eyes stared at the prince then towards her first love. "You both had no right! I told you that this was not what I wanted!"
"Sweetheart..." "Nini..."
As tears ran down her cheeks, Penny's heels clicked across the floor as she lightly jogged out of the community center. She didn't want to show her face after that humiliation. More people, even loved ones, would look down upon her. She pushed through the exit to cry outside.
"Sweetheart!" Taehyung was about to chase after her but Jungkook pulled him back.
"Don't." Jungkook's face stayed solemn. "You've done too much tonight."
However, Seojoon started chasing after her. "Nini!"
"Seojoon, get back here!" Yoongi commanded as his rage went higher than his height. The man halted his chase to look behind him. "You need to tell me what the hell is happening?"
"But..." Seojoon shifted his gaze at the exit doors. "I need to talk to her! Please." His tone had a sense of urgency.
"Hyung, just let him go." Jimin placed a hand over his older's shoulder. "She needs to talk to him."
The unspoken words from Yoongi as he made his mouth into a line were enough for the man to leave the community center in search of Penny. Either way, Yoongi knew his friend was gonna do what he wanted no matter what he said.
Taehyung glared at the running man. Maybe it was time for them to have their talk, so he had to be less tense. He hoped that Penny was okay after this and nothing would happen between them. Still, he immediately regretted what he exposed. He hated how Penny kept it in, knowing she was still impacted by it after many years. He felt for her and wanted nothing but the absolute best. Since Seojoon was being obvious, he wanted to stop it before more destruction happened. It wasn't his place but what's done is done and there was no going back now.
Seojoon rushed through the doors and inspected the night scenery in search of the girl. She couldn't have gotten that far, considering she just left and she wore heels.
The cool breeze touched him gracefully as he strode around the center. He breathed out heavily as his heart raced. He needed to talk to hear. She needed to listen.
Then he heard soft sounds of crying resonating on the side of the building. He walked towards the noise until he found the weeping girl sitting on the lower elevated concrete rock wall fencing around the community center.
"Nini..." Seojoon called out, almost in a whisper. He went up and sat next to her at a good distance.
Surprisingly, Penny heard him through her crying. It just had to be him to come get her. She didn't want to see him. In fact, he was one of the last people she needed to see.
But at this point, she didn't care anymore. She didn't care if she was ready to talk.
She needed answers and let him leave again.
"Why are you here?" Penny finally spoke up as she stood to face the sitting man.
Seojoon lifted his eyebrow, "What do you me—"
"Why did you come back?" She asked as tears streamed down her face, makeup ruined but yet unbothered. "You left without telling me goodbye and you didn't contact back." She sobbed as she felt her heart aching in torturous pain. "You left me on my bed naked and alone. I tried calling you and you never answered. You blocked my number."
"I wrote you the letter..." He couldn't bear looking at her cry. He hated seeing her in that state.
"Saying you're leaving and you couldn't feel the same." She specified, recalling her last letter from him. "No explanation or anything. So why are you here trying to do all that you did before? Why are you here when you said you would never come back?"
He looked down at the floor and sighed, "Nini—"
"Don't 'Nini' me." The nickname that used to make her heart melt was now antagonizing and it only hurts her.
"It's hard to explain." He closed his eyes and squinted as the thoughts flooded his entire psyche. "You wouldn't understand. Come on, let's go ba—"
"What's so hard to explain? You hurt me! You always told m—"
"I wanted to die, okay?" He yelled as he stood up, towering over the crying girl before him. Penny fell silent as her bloodshot eyes widened. "I was depressed about everything here and I wanted to die."
Her lips quivered at the thought of her smiling and positive Seojoon feeling so low. It was unheard of, she never saw it in all her years with him. "W-why?"
Seojoon respired as he tried his best to say the right words without crying. He peeled his eyes open before saying, "Nini, I hated it here. Imuwa gave me terrible memories. I had nothing going on for me here." He bit the inside of his cheek, already feeling the tears bubbling his vision, as he recalled his trauma.
"My parents divorced after my brother died, I barely finished school, I couldn't even get into the university here. I was literally a deadbeat, Imuwa's Deadbeat." His voice cracked at how he never forgot his official label. "Thank goodness I still had the job at Jungkook's family store. Even if I had it, I didn't do anything."
"I even pushed people away. I'm surprised Yoongi pulled through and helped me. He suggested that I should move and I just had to say yes to it. I wanted more, I needed more than this!" Seojoon had his arms wide open and presented what he meant, the town itself.
Penny sniffed as she cried quietly, listening to his honest truth. He kept this all from her and not once did she suspect any of this. "Why didn't you tell me any of this?"
"I didn't want you to worry about me and my negativity." He replied as he tried wiping the endless waterfall on his face. "You didn't need that in your life. I didn't want you to suffer like I did."
Seojoon remembered how he felt in the past, the bottomless emotion that felt like was never gonna go away. "Nini, it hurts. Sadness hurts, and it causes you to do stupid shit. You go down in what seems like a never-ending downward spiral of despair. I couldn't get out of it. There was no escape except..." The girl gazed up at him, waiting for him to continue. "Do you remember those times Yoongi came unexpectedly before?" She slowly nodded in response.
Though he was reluctant, he needed to admit it to her. "Those times were my attempts..." His voice fell faint as he recollected the attempted events of overdosing, drowning, hanging, anything to break free. "Yoongi helped me recover when I was in the hospital. The last attempt was a week before I left...He was a real one and I begged him to not tell you."
She remembered not seeing him for the entire week until she spent the last night with him.
Penny shook her head "But you still could have to—"
"No, I couldn't!" He denied. "I never want you to experience the bad in life, I refuse. You didn't need any more of it. You've been through so much for someone so young. Penny, you're the po—"
"Do not call me that." She seethed through her teeth, interrupting him before he could say it.
He didn't finish it but sighed, "And I did so much that I'm not proud of, including what I did with you. I left you, I wasn't thinking, I felt numb. I wanted to feel something...something good to my shitty life."
Penny bit her gums as she waited for him to continue. She crossed her arms and looked down at the ground.
"When I left, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. My life felt like it had a purpose now. I got more opportunities to do so much more. For the first time, I didn't feel like a deadbeat." Seojoon proudly admitted. "I took therapy sessions, went back to school, and graduated in three years. Now I'm currently in law school and still striving."
Though she was happy for him, the same question lingered in her very mind. "Then why'd you come back?" She asked with more patience in her voice. "You achieved so much then why are you back in Imuwa?"
Seojoon stepped closer to the girl. "Even after bettering myself and growing to love the person I've become, a part of me felt empty and was missing something."
Her head went up before their crying eyes met. Seojoon carefully took her hand in his before intertwining their fingers together.
"I tried looking around to see if anything helped with the problem, but nothing seemed to work," Seojoon said as his eyes glanced at her lips then went back to her pupils. "But then, I realized something."
"A-and what did you realize?" She gulped, afraid of what he'll say.
"I was missing you in my life."
"Wha—what?"
He pulled her into his chest. Using his free hand, he ran his fingers through her dark locks as he rested his chin on the top of her head.
"Penny, I'm so sorry what I've done to you. I know I broke your heart and I've regretted it every day since. I didn't mean to, I didn't know what I was doing. I was in the dark and I felt lost. I couldn't control myself and I needed to push away before anything else happened. I couldn't hurt you any longer. I—I'm sorry." Seojoon apologized after all these years. "And I'm sorry for lying in that letter about not loving you."
He caught her breath as the waterworks kept coming. Her pupils enlarged.
"Seoj—"
"I love you, Lim Penny. I've always loved you, but I was scared. I wasn't enough for you. That's why I said it." He then grabbed her chin as he bent down. "But I'm not anymore. I came back to show you how much I'm better now, better for my friends and my family, and better for you. I love you."
Those words were something her past self would be dying to hear. But she didn't know if her current self wanted that.
For years, Seojoon came to her with an illuminating smile. He gave her so much positivity, so much reassurance in everything about her, needed her to smile at all times, but in reality, he was the one that needed all of that.
He suffered and she didn't suspect anything.
And it was because he didn't want her to know. He didn't want her to see the bad in life.
Because she was Imuwa's Poor Girl.
The man before her thought of her as the poor girl. If there was one person she hoped to never see her that way, it would be the person who she was in love with.
But she just realized that Seojoon wasn't that man.
Yet when he was, he still thought of her as the poor girl. He didn't want her to see her suffer.
No one ever wants the poor girl suffering more than she already had. No one cares if she'll understand or have awareness. What mattered is that she doesn't need to know because she's a poor little thing as it is. They're sorry for her.
Poor girl must be protected at all times. Poor girl should be pitied for all the challenges she faced. Poor girl did a good job? Poor girl deserved nothing but happiness. Poor girl this. Poor girl that. Poor girl. Poor girl. Poor girl is Penny.
Penny will always be the poor girl.
A sudden revelation struck her. It burned her insides. Her eyes welled up again but this time, she was on the verge of wailing.
Seojoon leaned into her face as he closed his eyes. Their lips brushed each other and he could feel a spark igniting up within him, but it was shattered when she pried herself away.
The man was puzzled as the pouting girl's face was completely drenched. She didn't want to bawl, at least not in front of another one who saw her as her label.
"Nini..." He reached out but she jerked her body in possession.
"Don't touch me!" She screamed as she stepped back. "Leave me alone!"
She wanted to get away from her. She needed an escape. She didn't want to be around people calling her poor girl.
So Penny ran away.
This time where she was met with unconversant stillness.