[A/N] I know it's been too long, sana hindi niyo pa ako nakakalimutan... pero this has been in the drafts for such a long time, ngayon ko lang uli nahanap >_<

also, if gusto niyo magbasa ng bagong gawa ko, you can join this tg channel!!!

https://t.me/+AttB9S3qga9lNjA1

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without further ado, pls enjoy this chapter, everyone! happy holidays!

Left Behind

[ Six Month Clock has stopped. ]

Minjeong can’t sleep. 

She’s currently at one of the rooms at Aling Pacing’s bed and breakfast, and Lia doesn’t even hide her glaring as she watches the girl slug through the staircase with a few of her luggage and her father’s—

I’ve broken up with her, Minjeong thinks as she feels like she’s getting stabbed around her body with how Lia’s looking at her. I’ve broken up with her and all that I can think about is going back. 

Pero hindi na pwede. 

Not when she’s already done it. 

Ever since she cried her heart out while trying to figure out what she should do to make things better for Jimin once she knew that she would have to leave, she’s felt numb. 

She’s felt nothing. 

Not when she’s breaking Jimin’s heart with her own hands, her own fingertips, her own words when she vowed to herself once upon a time that she wouldn’t do that. 

Not when she’s running away with her suitcase to that man’s house and she’s left the girl chasing after her and staying out in the sudden rainfall that seems to reflect everything that is happening. Not when she’s looking at her, annoyed, asking her cousin to get the woman home like she didn’t matter. 

Not when her friends are trying to call her, trying to know what’s up and trying to have her reverse the decision they think she made on such a whim. 

This is not a whim, pag-iisip niya, at hindi niya mapigilan na ibato ang cellphone niya sa pader, getting annoyed by anything and everything that is going on all at once. This is a sure decision.

I am sure. 

“Maaga kang gumising bukas,” Kihoon says as he opens the door to her room and finds her sitting down absentmindedly on the chaste and simple bed, unlike hers in Seulgi’s house where she could be the most comfortable she could be and the love of her life is beside her with the biggest smile and the loveliest laugh—

“Are you listening to me? We’re going to get out of this place tomorrow, and for good. You’re going to have to it up, and don’t look distracted like that when we meet with your sister tomorrow—”

“Wha—Why are we meeting my sister bukas? How dare you—”

“Everything has a consequence, Minjeong. You should have known that. Hell, your sister should have known that when she decided to tell you the truth about me.” 

Minjeong sighs, then she decides to fight. 

At least for once in her life, she decides to fight for herself and for her own.

“If you think my sister can persuade me to join you for good, then I don’t think that will work—”

“You’re going to meet your sister as the new CEO of KK Corporation, Winter. Do you know how big that is?” he says, laughing as the situation dawns on Minjeong so fast with those words, especially the reason why her father came to her in such a rush on San Lorenzo and manipulated her to go with him. 

“You er… You’re going to use me to have a hand in that company?” tanong niya, and her face contorts with horror as her father confirms her suspicion with a nod. 

“Good times are coming, Winter,” sagot ni Kihoon, at ang tanging gusto lang ni Minjeong ay ang matapos ang lahat ng ito. 

“I’ve raised you for this purpose.” 

Time seems to have stopped for Jimin who's currently drunk on booze and heartbreak and fear and worry and possibly all the negative emotions in the world resting in her heart as she locked herself in her and Minjeong’s room ever since the fallout. 

Bottles are scattered through the floor, and the only time she’s gone out of her room is to grab a week’s worth of Seulgi’s beer to drink for just a day or two. 

(Minju is worried, but Chaewon just drags her to the town’s newly built supermarket, courtesy of Jang Industries and refills the booze supply as fast as it runs out.)

(“It’s a mess,” Chaewon says, sighing as she stares at the closed off room and the closed door of the old Mayor’s Manor, now seemingly devoid of life. “Everything’s just going to be such a mess.”)

Time seems to stop, and it hasn’t resumed until Jimin realizes it. 

She does not even realize it—not until Seulgi is knocking on her door, unlocking it with a spare key she never thought she’d use, and the next thing Jimin knows is that her older sister is in her room, staring at the state of everything since she never bothered to clean. 

“What has happened to you, love?” Joohyun asks, and there is a sting in her heart when Jimin swats her hand away when she tries to reach for it. 

“Kung nandito ka para pabalikin ako sa San Lazaro, hindi ako sasama sa’yo. I’m going to stay here until Minjeong comes back. Until she comes back, dito lang ako—”

“Minjeong already left, love.” 

If Jimin thinks she has no tears left to cry anymore, then tears fall on her cheeks, and it stings as she feels like Minjeong drove another knife into her heart, killing her instantly without as much as a fight. 

“W-What do you mean she left? No. Nandyan pa siya. I… She knows I’m still here, waiting for her. We have to wait—”

“Sabi ni Chaewon, she saw Minjeong and Kihoon left three days ago. I… Hindi namin masabi sa’yo since we didn’t know how you’d react, but—”

“Where?” Jimin asks, wiping away her tears and grabbing one of the half full bottles of alcohol on her bedside, tipping it to her lips and drinking it up, much to Joohyun’s shock and worry. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Saan siya pumunta? Did Chaewon know? I’m going to go after her.” 

“You—No, you’re not going to go after her. I won’t let you go after her, Jimin. You have to see reason—”

“Reason?!” inis na sabi ni Jimin at ibinato yung bote into Joohyun’s direction, the woman barely dodging it thanks to Seulgi pulling her away as the bottle crashed and broke into the wall. 

“Kapatid mo yan, Karina! Kumalma ka muna—”

“There is no reason, Ate. She… She just left.” 

Joohyun moves forward again, much to Seulgi trying to get her out of the room, but this time Jimin does not push her away. 

“She just left! I… Ganun lang kadali, Ate. Ganun lang ba ako kadaling iwan?” 

The tears do not even stop, not when Jimin is wiping her tears and Joohyun is hugging her tight, but it does little to nothing to calm down the raging storm inside her heart. 

Jimin could not breathe—she does not breathe. 

How, when the one who gives her reason and everything else to let her live her life so happily is now gone from this town, gone from the life she thought she could live with her?

“You have to go back,” is all that Joohyun could say, for she knows she isn’t the one to answer that question. “I think… I think your time is up in this place, Jimin.”

“No… I have to stay here. The farm—”

“Ako nang bahala sa farm mo, Jimin. I’m going to take care of it, so you can go back.” 

Go back. 

It doesn’t feel real. 

It doesn’t feel like a choice that she should make. 

It doesn’t…

No. 

“P-Paano kung bumalik si Minjeong dito, Ate? What if she comes back, and she doesn’t find me here? I… I have to stay. I have to make sure na may babalikan siya dito if ever she wants to come back—”

“No,” Joohyun says, gritting her teeth as she tucked a stray hair behind her sister’s ear. 

“You… You have to stop.”

Jimin releases a shaky sighs, clutching her sister’s forearm so desperately like she’s going to break if she wouldn’t. 

“H-Help me pack, please.” 

It takes a week of settling into the new city of San Pedro, maybe a million miles away from the three cities she’s always been in before Minjeong willingly meets the people who're in charge of helping her settle into this new life she’s going to be dealt with. 

“Hello, Minjeong.” 

Imagine her surprise when the woman who’s going to be in charge of her integration to the big leagues is none