Song suggestion: Daydream- Kim Sunggyu 

Chorong read the contents of the letter over and over again, crying not tears of happiness, but those of freedom. She felt relieved, and a wave of warmth crashed into her heart.

This was it.

The apology she had been waiting for, yet, never expecting. She didn't want to keep her hopes up after all.

Her mail was always filled with simply bills or random advertisments. That one letter was unaddressed, but the signature at the end of the letter gave it away. Not to mention the cute envelope and stationary.

Hugging the letter close to her chest, Chorong bitterly smiled. Thank you, Hyuna. I needed this.

Hm? Bending down, Chorong picked up an item that fell from the envelope and flipped it over.

Inside the letter, Hyuna had also included the taped up polaroid of her, Eunji, and Chorong. Underneath the picture and written in the white space of the polaroid photo were the words "Broken, won't ever be the same, but fixed."

Chorong nodded her head in agreement. Broken, and our relationship can never really go back to the way it was in the first place. But it can be fixed. The friendship won't be the same and it'll take time, but we can mend it together and heal the scars as best as possible.

"I really can't believe we're graduating soon. It really hasn't hit me yet." Eunji heaved a sigh and nudged Chorong as they walked to a classroom to hang out with the other scholarship students. "Someone seems lighter on her feet today."

"Mhm, definitely." Chorong pulled out the letter and handed it to Eunji.

Eunji smiled. "Concise and very straight-to-the-point. This definitely is Hyuna's work." 

"Hey." Hyuna appeared alongside of the two and smiled softly. "Talking about my letter I see." As she swung her arms over the two, Chorong dodged with Eunji following soon after.

"Sorry... maybe give it some time." Chorong patted Hyuna on the shoulder in apology. "You touching me has always led to some "bloodier" situations. Bad things in general."

"Oh. It's okay, I get it. Look, I don't expect you to forgive me-"

Chorong rolled her eyes. "You really think I'd let someone like you keep me down for the rest of my life? Please, don't think that highly of yourself. But, this won't end with a simple letter you know." She turned serious before continuing, her facial expression darkening.

"I'm going to be really honest with you. After all the damage you've done to me, I can't say that my psyche will completely go back to the way it used to be. It'd be ridiculous if I promised you right now and said that I've completely forgiven you. I haven't completely forgiven you, nor can I promise that I'll be able to trust you completely without having the slightest doubts run in my mind. There will always be a part of me that holds onto the past, even if you have changed as a person and treat me well in the future. I'm only human. Those are memories I can't erase and can't let go of. I'll try my best not to let them get in the way, but I hope you know that I really need time and you'll need patience. I can't dismiss that fact that you betrayed my trust and tortured me almost my entire high school life." 

Hyuna swallowed and nodded her head, unwilling to look Chorong in the eyes out of personal shame and guilt. "I understand, and like I said, I don't expect you to forgive me. I don't even hope that we'll go back to the way things were, but just know that I'll try my best to be a better person. No matter what, I accept everything you've said. I can't erase what I've done, the only thing I can do now is improve myself and change directions. I don't know how to feel anymore, honestly. I question if I've done enough to get my message across."

Chorong shook her head. "You spoke to me using your writing. That's all I needed. You went ahead and put yourself in my place, and for that, I'm already thankful. It shows your heart." She stepped closer to Hyuna, wiping her tears away. "I know."

"Thanks for the closure." Hyuna wrapped her arms around Chorong for a hug, and she willingly accepted, patting Hyuna on the back.

"Thanks for apologizing and not running away. It's okay, really. I'll be fine, and I'm pretty sure you will be too."

Hyuna heaved a sigh and wiped the rest of her tears away. "Wow, I'm crying. You guys really do bring out all of my emotions."

"Sooo are you going to keep following us or what?" Eunji jokingly poked at Hyuna. "Chorong and I still have some business matters to attend to. Graduation's just around the corner after all."

"Ahh, you scholarship kids doing a meeting of some sort? Ugh, I'm not into that anyways. Bye es!"

Eunji and Chorong could only look at each other and smirk. Bad habits are hard to break after all. 

"Wait!" Chorong wrote. , right. It doesn't work this way. She hurriedly tapped Eunji on the shoulder and pointed to her message before pointing to the distancing figure.

"HEY , WAIT!" Eunji yelled as loud as she could. Chorong slapped Eunji's arm with a loud smack, wrinkling her nose and glaring at the loud voice. 

"Who said you could yell that loud?" 

"OW, uncalled for. And hey, I got her attention at least." Eunji slyly smiled as an infuriated Hyuna speed walked over.

"What?!"

Chorong rummaged through her pocket and grabbed the polaroid photo. She pulled Hyuna's hand out and placed the photo onto her palm, folding Hyuna's fingers over it gently. 

"Here. This is yours I believe. It needs to be returned to the original owner. Walk away without turning around, without regrets." Chorong smiled. 

Hyuna gave Chorong one last light hug before turning around. As her figure distanced down the hallway, without turning around, she held out a peace sign. 

Thanks guys.

"Hey, what took you two so long?" Choa questioned as the two entered the classroom.

"Nothing," Eunji replied, "we just got caught up talking about graduation and the future. Stuff like that."

"Well, now that we're all here, I have something to say." Jungkook stood up and walked to the front of the classroom.

"Ooh, acting all cool!" Jinki joked along with the other guys.

Jungkook went along with the joke before turning serious. "I... I want us to end with a bang. Something dynamic and provoking."

Puzzled, everyone muttered amongst themselves.

"What do you mean?" Suho asked.

Jungkook scratched the back of his head and replied, "To be honest, we're graduating, and I give zero s about what will happen since we're all bound to graduate and earn our high school diplomas. What if we pulled something like we did for the school festivals, don't you think we'd leave an even more lasting impact? Like, a reversal of some sort?"

"Woah, I can't believe Jungkook, the one that hated the school festival idea the most, is suggesting we turn this place over." Jonghyun, bewildered, started to clap out of a mix of confusion and support.

Jimin smiled. "Risky, but I like the idea."

"Hmm," Bomi contemplated, "but what would we do?"

"Exactly," Mina nodded her head in agreement, "it's not like we have an opportunity to perform either. Reporters even come to our ceremonies too considering the fact that there are so many special students, how are we going to explain everything to them? We'd just get bad media coverage too. We would take the fall and we would be be labeled as the bad guys throughout it all."

"The only events that go on are really speeches. Adding on to what Mina said, if we get bad coverage, companies could blacklist us once we go job hunting after college and we'd get nowhere. My parents were already tough enough about the expulsion, I don't want them to have to be disappointed in me again." Taehyung noted. 

Namjoo nodded, her voice weak and unstable. "There's no such thing as justice, at least, not when great powers and large sums of money are involved. We always get the shorter end of the stick in every situation. It's not fair, but that's the way the world works, no?"

Seokjin tilted his head and began to his fingers on his chin.

"Wait, but the top student gets to speak, right? As far as I know, Chorong is the top student." Seokjin gave a questioning look to Chorong.

"Because I can totally speak." Chorong gave a look to Seokjin, whose ears reddened in embarrassment. 

"Sorry," he squeaked, "it was just a thought. But if you're not speaking, who is?"

Everybody sighed, tapping their fingers against the slick desks, putting their heads down, deep in though about what to do.

"Maybe," Naeun squeaked, "we should just give up on the idea. There's no leeway for us to to anything. We can't randomly spark a random outburst either."

Chanyeol's deep voice emerged through the silence and creeped throughout the classroom. "I'd hate to regret not having done anything, though. But that does seem like the only option..."

Mina bit her lip. "As long as we're graduating and we're leaving, we're okay, right?"

Naeun shook her head. "What about me and the others that aren't seniors? What about the future freshies here?"

"You know what, it was a stupid idea anyways. it, forget I ever said anything." Jungkook spoke with a slight snarl, but everyone could sense the disappointment in his tone. "Change was impossible to begin with."

"Gee, this ." Sehun kicked the chair in front of him.

A period of silence ensued before an echo of light footsteps neared the door quickly.

"Awe, why the long faces? Plans failed?" Hyuna smiled, but it wasn't the typical sly smile.

Suho rolled his eyes. "Were you listening this whole time? What do you want?"

"Well, not my fault Chorong can't speak. I was given the honors of doing so instead." Hyuna winked and strut around the classroom before standing at the front, taking position at the podium.

Hayoung felt like lunging at the arrogance. "This , why don't you prance off somewhere else and leave us alone. Don't you have better things to do, like actually prepare the speech? Or is it going to be a generic speech that you plagiarize?"

Hyuna scoffed. "With this y brain of mine, why would I need to plagiarize? Look at me, do I look generic to you?" 

Baekhyun ruffled his hair in frustration. "Just what is it you want?"

Smiling, she pointed at Chorong. "It's too bad that you can't speak, and I can."

"Enough." Suho stood up in anger.

She raised her eyebrows and continued to point at Chorong, looking directly into her eyes. "You can't speak, but I can."

Chorong widened her eyes and snapped her fingers. "That's it, that's exactly it. I can't speak, but you can." Her eyes twinkled as she smiled with hope.

A/N: It's been 3 months since I last updated to I apologize for that! I got kind of lazy writing tbh bc I have no life now (aka variety shows, youtube, dramas, movies, etc.) that I've gotten into college and I don't really need to do summer volunteering/jobs/etc LOL. Wow. I graduated high school a month ago. Aaand I got rejected off the waitlist for my #1 choice the day after my graduation. RIP. Guess it to -.- 

Please do comment about this story, I really love reading them! If not that's okay, I simply thank you for reading. ^_^