Friendly Talk
The Outcast Club
All the Staff - Dacapo (Good Doctor OST)
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Twenty minutes later, Yura slinked out of the bedroom and softly closed the door.
“Sorry about the long wait,” she murmured quietly as Haera looked up absentmindedly. Immediately, a small smile overtook her pretty pink lips, “Is Shinbi asleep?”
“Yeah, she’s out like a light.” Yura exhaled and fell back onto the couch. Her sharp eyes scanned the room sleepily. “Where’s unnie?”
“She left.”
I'll apologize in the morning. Yura touched the back of her hand to her forehead and stared at the ceiling.
A ruffling of blankets broke her out of her trance as Haera buried herself underneath them. Yura got up to turn off the light, “Wanna go to sleep?”
“…Not really,” her voice was rather loud in the silent apartment.
Yura faltered and glanced back at her before flicking the switch and enveloping everything in darkness. A dim glow from the stove light in the kitchen kept the apartment semi-illuminated.
“...Are you still scared? About... you know...?” Yura's mind wandered towards the Eleven party.
“A little… A little lonely, a little frightened, but I’m not as scared as I would've been if I had gone home.” Yura could sense the truth in Haera’s voice. It sounded different than her voice at school. There were no tricks to it – no cutesy tone of voice. It was just… Shin Haera.
Yura’s lips pressed together in a pensive line as she peered down at Haera, who was lying on the floor. She could faintly see the dips and curves of her bare face, small blemishes and all. They were no longer covered by the thick makeup that she had already washed off.
Before she could stop herself, Yura found herself voicing her inner thoughts.
“You know, in my opinion, you look much better without makeup. You look more… innocent.”
Haera’s surprised mouth melded into a shy smile as she tugged down the blanket a little.
“You’re the first girl to tell me that.”
“First girl?” Yura inquired. “Not the first person?”
“Unfortunately, no," Haera chuckled inaudibly. "The first person to tell me that… was my boyfriend,” she admitted with flushed cheeks.
“…Boyfriend?” Now it was Yura’s turn to be stunned. “You have a boyfriend now?”
“Don’t spill the secret,” she pleaded in embarrassment.
Yura couldn’t help herself from asking the famous question: “Who?”
“Like I said, it's a secret - for now,” she pressed a finger to her lips as Yura rolled her eyes. Of course she wouldn’t tell me. Curiosity itched her brain, though.
“…He’s really different from me,” Haera said. “He stayed by my side whenever and wherever I had a panic attack like before, after the party. When I get into a fit, I can't tell the difference between who my friends and enemies are. He helped to calm me down."
Speaking of which, Jungkook was saying something similar before, Yura recalled.
“No, I mean, usually nobody can calm her down, not even me. Well, I guess, except—” Jungkook halted mid-sentence as Yura curiously stared at him. Jungkook quickly shook his head and waved it off, “Nothing. Never mind.”
Haera's voice broke through Yura's absentminded thoughts. "Even though I trust him, I don’t want to burden him, because he’s done so much for me.”
“Mmm…” Yura let out a hum of thought. She rolled onto her side, facing Haera, “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly happened?”
“I was waiting for you to ask," Haera let out a small smile as her gaze flickered towards her. "To start, I guess I should say that the parents I live with now aren’t... they aren't my real parents. My biological mom died after giving birth to me because she her health was always weak. My father… had a violent abusive streak, and because of that, I heard I had almost died in the womb because of my father’s violent acts towards my mother. They say that I was born premature because of that."
Yura closed her eyes in remorse. He hit her when her mother was pregnant?
“My father… he was terrifying. After my mother’s death, he sometimes refused to feed me, and left me alone at home for hours on end. I had to fend for myself. The psychological abuse didn’t stop there, though. One day, when I was about twelve, he came home and started… he started to…”
Haera’s fists clenched at her sides, and Yura could sense her growing paler by the minute at the mere mention of the event.
“He... touched you, didn’t he?” she whispered.
Haera was silent for a while before letting out a noise of agreement.
Oh, God, Yura couldn’t even begin to fathom what had happened next. Yura felt extreme disgust seep out from the deepest pits of her.
“Yoongi and Namjoon… They were my only friends at the time. Yoongi’s mother was a cop, and my father was eventually thrown in jail after I told the two about it. I’m not sure what happened to him from then on because I had nowhere else to go. I lived at Namjoon’s, then at Yoongi’s for a while, and kept alternating until one day, I heard that Namjoon’s neighbours showed an interest in adopting children. They eventually liked me, and adopted me.”
“Your new parents… They don't... I mean, they don't harm you, do they?” Yura cautiously asked.
Instantly, Haera shook her head. "No, never! They never even rose their voice at me, not even once. They're very kind, and treat me like their own daughter, and I'm so grateful to them. I love them a lot... If I had been lucky enough to have a normal family with normal, loving parents... Well, things would've been a lot different." She admitted.
"In this world, nothing's normal anymore," Yura said softly, and Haera smiled with a twinge of bitterness in her usually clear eyes. "You know what I mean."
"Yeah..." Yura drew in a breath and thought about a certain woman she thought she once knew. with short, cropped, dark hair, and cold, calculative eyes. "...I guess I do know what you mean."
Haera's eyes softened as she rolled over on her side to peer up at Yura, who was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. "You know - it's because I feel like their own daughter that I don't ever want to disappoint them. My adoptive mom and dad, I mean. I imagine they vaguely know about my biological parents, but I still feel the need to hide my past. I don't want to show them my weak, vulnerable side, you know? I want to be the ideal daughter for them. Someone pure and bright and energetic - a daughter they can brag about to their friends and feel truly proud of. I just... want to repay their kindness. That's why I'm really thankful to you, Yura. For taking me in today."
Yura's unreadable gaze finally met hers as she shook her head with a faint smile. "They're probably plenty proud of you already. It's already admirable that you're thinking of them this much."
The corners of Haera's lips hitched up into a faint grin.
Yura shut her eyes and tried to imagine herself in Haera's shoes. To know, deep down, that you weren't safe at home, and that someone could approach you at any time, whether you were sleeping or awake. To feel the intense doom of not being able to confide in anyone easily about it, and not knowing who to trust. And that if something did, in fact, happen, your strength alone couldn't possibly be enough to attack back.
She couldn't even begin to fathom even the tiniest bit of trauma that Haera had to go through. Before she knew it, Yura found herself sneering, “He is not a father. He's a monster.”
Haera managed a small smile, “Yeah… I said that to myself for a while. I couldn’t believe in any male, be it even Namjoon or Yoongi. I went through a period of sticking only to girls, which is how I drowned myself in makeup and tried to look pretty in order to please them. I was afraid that whomever I couldn’t please would do the same thing as my father, or at the very least, ridicule me. That’s when my boyfriend now, before he was my boyfriend, sat me down and said that I didn’t have to wear so much makeup - that he liked me for me, so I believed him, and lowered the amount.”
“But you couldn’t stop wearing it altogether," Yura stated. "Because you were afraid you wouldn’t fit in.”
Haera nodded, “Exactly. When high school rolled around… Well. Rumours broke about my father, and my past wasn’t so secret anymore. I’m sure many of the students have a faint idea of happened to me, but not one of them know the whole story. They can't know, because I haven’t told anyone else except Yoongi and Namjoon. Jungkook knows the gist of it, but…”
“…So that’s why everyone in the club is so protective of you,” Yura connected the pieces together. And so she can’t help but act like a child, because of her premature birth, and because it was due to her father that she couldn’t experience a real childhood.
A long moment of silence hung in the air as Haera grew more anxious with Yura’s response.
“Haera,” Yura finally said after a long while.
“Y-Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
Had she heard wrong? In shock, Haera rose to a seating position with the blankets still cocooned around her.
“To be honest, I saw you in the same negative light as the others in the school. I thought you were annoying for being so needy and clingy all the time, and that you were just another superficial try-hard, eager to impress everyone, and desperate for attention. I’m guilty of misjudging you when even I know how it feels to be misjudged. It . And I even more for doing that to you. I owe you an apology.”
“Yura…”
At her sudden interruption, Yura felt her ears redden, “W-What?”
Haera stared at her in awe for a few moments before she burst out into the most genuine smile she had seen on her. "You're the first to apologize to me like that."
Yura softened.
“Err…I know this might be really weird for you, but can I… hug you?”
Embarrassed by the looming silence, Haera quickly grew ashamed and started to laugh, “N-Never mind, I guess it’s too weird to ask… It's just that I felt so touched, and I wasn't sure what to do... Sorry, forget I even said that.”
Yura pondered over it as Haera sank back down into her pillow, “Goodnight—” she stopped when Yura sheepishly scratched the side of her head with a shy, pondering grimace.
“…Come on, then.” She gruffly said.
Haera didn’t have to be told twice. With glimmering eyes, she jumped into Yura’s embrace and hugged her tightly, making Yura choke, “H-Haera—'O-Oi, I c-can’t b-breathe…”
“Thank you...Yura.” Yura could hear the tears choking Haera up.
Yura felt her awkwardly tense body relax. “For what?”
“For many things... For believing me, for saving me at the party, and most of all, for helping me,"
Yura let out a smile that she couldn't suppress any longer. “Isn’t that what a friend does?”
“…Friend?” Haera perked up, and Yura could see the tears welled up in her eyes. “W-We’re really friends? You mean it?” she blubbered.
Oh, not this again, Yura frowned and flicked her forehead. “Ouch!” she yelped.
“Listen, I don't invite just anyone over to stay, so keep that in mind.” Yura muttered, and Haera couldn’t help but beam widely at that.
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Ahh, the beauty of friendship! ;_;
So I binge-watched both Good Doctor and Tomorrow Cantabile in three days altogether and I'm pooped and upset that there weren't more romantic scenes like what the heck but they were both good so I guess that's okay. xD
Double update for you lovelies! :)
-muzikmaster.
[The Outcast Club] Well damn guys, I just updated. I kept you all waiting, didn't I? Hope you guys enjoy, and I'll be working on some more updates soon!
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