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“Aria?”
To hear my name on her lips again is an odd feeling, like hearing someone famous say your name, not that she can be compared to a celebrity, but…
It’s been almost a year since I last saw her at graduation. Of course, we didn’t speak after our fall-out, and by some miracle, we were never in the same class. So, it’s safe to say that we are complete strangers.
Strangers who were once best friends.
I realize that I am just standing there in a little black dress, gaping at her like a fish, so I close my mouth and swallow the lump in my throat. How do I respond?
“I’m sorry,” I pretend to scrutinize her, planting a hand on my hip and cocking my head to one side. “Do I know you?”
It’s like the dress has possessed me, lending me a new skin, a new persona that is more ruthless and more unforgiving. Ella’s eyes widen, her glossy pink lips parted slightly, and it’s in that moment that I know I have her convinced that she has made a mistake.
“Oh – s-sorry, it’s just – you look like someone I used to – never mind,” she shakes her head, flaxen ponytail swinging and her cheeks aflush. I feel the corner of my mouth curve upwards into a smirk.
“We don’t all look the same, you know,” I almost gasp at the way the words come out, almost passive-aggressively. She releases a nervous laugh.
“I apologize again, um, carry on,” she sweeps her hands forward indicating to carry on and I watch her leave the fitting room area before wrenching the curtain shut.
Phew. I press a hand against the mirror and flick my glance to my reflection, wondering what Ella saw. With my hair twisted into a braid like this paired with this black dress…no wonder she bought my act. But I can’t help but think that a small part of her probably does know that it’s me, and that she’ll forever see me as a total bitch.
Well, at least we’ll share the same opinion on each other.
I walk out in my own clothes with the dress on my arm, instinctively searching for Taehyung. And I don’t have to look far, for he is at the counter, and my heart drops when I see who he is talking to.
“Oh, so how long have you guys been together?” the smile she wears is as fake as the earrings that dangle from her ears, but Taehyung is too busy trying on the sunglasses at the counter to notice her expression.
“Not long, but it feels like I’ve known her for a long time,” Taehyung replies as he slides off a pair of rainbow tinted aviators.
“Interesting,” Ella leans her elbows on the counter, observing Taehyung. I wonder if she has a boyfriend, since she had a few back in high school, but never stuck to one for more than a semester. If she has one, she shouldn’t be looking at him like that, and if she doesn’t, well…she still shouldn’t be looking at him like that.
I am about to walk over when her next words halt me in her tracks.
“Her name is Aria, right?”
Taehyung doesn’t even hesitate as he slides on a new pair of glasses. “How did you know?”
The smirk on her face makes me gulp. “We go way back.”
Taehyung looks at her for the first time with his sunglasses still on, raising his eyebrows. “You’re her friend?”
Ella laughs. “Best friend.”
“Really? Because Aria has never talked about you,” Taehyung puts the glasses back, looking away just as Ella’s face falls, but only by a little.
“Yeah, we used to be best friends,” she fidgets with the many rings on her fingers, looking…sad? “But then we drifted apart.”
“Why?”
“She ditched me,” Ella replies blatantly. “Left me for a bunch of new people, even though we have been friends since kinder. Sad, isn’t it?”
Taehyung frowns. “That doesn’t sound like Aria…”
“That’s because she’s lying,” I step in, dumping the dress onto the counter. Taehyung’s eyebrows are higher than usual as he watches us both, the tension palpable in the air.
“Takes one to know one,” Ella retorts, dragging the dress over to scan the tag, not taking her eyes away from mine. “I knew it was you as soon as you stepped into this store, Aria. But then you had to go and pretend you didn’t even know me, which honestly really hurt.”
She touches her heart to emphasize how hurt she is, and I can’t help but scoff.
“Oh, please. Don’t act like you haven’t been doing the exact same to me for the past seven years. I guess you finally know how it feels to be completely ignored.“
There’s a moment where we just stare at each other, eyes burning with emotion and hearts pumping at a higher pressure as we are reminded of the cold past. And then we crumble.
“Oh, my God, Aria,” Ella has a hand over her mouth as tears brim her eyes. “Oh my God.” She abandons my dress on the counter and before I can even react she pulls me into a hug that triggers an onslaught of tears that burst from my eyes, so hot and so sudden. “Aria, I’m so sorry. Like, seriously, I’ve wanted to talk to you for so long, but I…I just couldn’t, you know? And I wish I did.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, sniffling as I pull away, and sure enough, she too has tear-stained cheeks.
“No, babe, I’m sorry, because I always thought about you, and saw you around school, but I never even tried to fix everything,” she wipes her cheeks with the heels of her palms. “I don’t think we ever properly talked about it all. Like, to get closure and stuff.”
“I mean, I just assumed that you and I were too different anyway,” I admit. “Like how some people don’t work out because they change, and then they become like complete strangers…”
Ella shakes her head at my words. “No, no, I don’t think we’re that different, Aria. In fact, these days, I feel so, like, nostalgic, you know? Like, I’ve been missing the good old days when we used to pretend to be horses with Shreya and Alice,” she laughs at the memory, and I join, wiping my tears away.
“Why’d we do that? We were so weird,” I giggle, and Ella’s blue eyes sparkle.
“I know, right? I swear, I’m glad no one knows that about me,” she then adds, “Except you, of course.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing we weren’t friends in high school then,” I say, and she frowns until I finish the thought. “Because I would’ve totally told everyone about it.”
“Yeah, and you would’ve totally ruined my reputation,” Ella chortles. “But Aria, if I could do high school again…I wouldn’t care about my reputation as much, because I would have kept you by my side all the way.”
“Really?” Hearing her say those words makes me wonder if all this time, the reason she kept away from me was not because she thought I was not “cool” enough for her new social status, but because, due to an unfortunate twist of fate, we were pulled into diverging paths, perhaps to grow as individual people, or to –
“Hey, I’m so sorry to interrupt this beautiful reunion, but there’s a line of customers waiting,” Taehyung draws us back to reality, and sure enough, there are people with clothes slung over their forearms, chatting impatiently. Ella bids them all an apology as she rushes back behind the counter, and that’s when I glance at Taehyung. He watches me with a profound gaze that flickers with concern, and I give him a small smile, feeling grateful that he is here with me, for his mere presence gave me strength to face someone that I don’t think I could face alone.
“That’ll be seventy dollars, thanks,” Ella is back to customer service mode, smiling brightly. Taehyung steps forward with his wallet, pulling out a credit card.
“Is that yours?” I whisper while Ella folds the dress into a bag.
Taehyung just winks at me, and so I am left with no answer as Ella gives me the bag, saying, “I wrote my number on the receipt. We should catch up soon!”
“Sure!”
Once we’re out of the shop, Taehyung returns his arm back to its rightful place – around my shoulders. “You’re not going to contact her, are you?”
“I am! I mean, I will! Someday…” I mumble out the last bit.
“I think you should. It might be good for you.”
“I guess…”
The truth is, I don’t want Ella back in my life just yet. Yeah, we just talked again for the first time in years and shared a moment, but…I only just started to move on, and talking to her was like ripping open all the wounds that I had diligently stitched up all by myself. It seems like the more I try to run from my past, the more it keeps coming back to haunt me – literally. And it is affecting me more than I want it to.
Taehyung senses my shift in mood, and sits us down at a café table, sitting directly across from me so he can stare into my soul with his all-encompassing gaze.
“Stop,” I shield my face with a hand, turning away, but he simply leans over and gently lowers that hand down, taking it into both of his. His hands completely engulf mine, and my eyes trace the veins that protrude from his sun-kissed skin, like roads on a map, until he speaks.
“You know I really care about you, Aria,” my eyes flick up to his as my breathing comes to a temporary stop. I lose myself in the darkness of his irises, perhaps forgetting a little bit of my own darkness as he continues. “I want you to be happy. Even if it’s not all the time, I want you to have something that makes you happy. Or –”
“You make me happy, Taehyung,” I smile, and he reciprocates, biting his lip to stop the smile from spreading to its full boxy potential while I talk. “Without doing anything, just seeing you, being by your side…it makes me happy.”
“But you’re not happy right now,” Taehyung’s smile diminishes to nothing as he grows serious. “If I had known that your friend worked at that shop, I would never have let you go in, and then you wouldn’t be feeling so torn up from seeing her again. Because I could tell you didn’t want to see her, even if you guys hugged and everything…she brings you a lot of pain.”
I am astounded by his accuracy, but then again, Taehyung is an extremely observant person, despite his tendency to seem aloof half the time.
“She was my best friend since primary school,” I begin, and he nods, urging me to go on. “But then when high school came she…we drifted apart. It really hurt me, that someone so close to me could just turn their back on me so easily. So I had to make other friends, but they didn’t stay either. Every year, I had new classes, new people, until eventually, I was alone. And I don’t know if I was just really shy or really bad at making new friends but…I could never find people that I felt a connection with. Or people that I could trust. And in uni, it’s so much easier to be alone, because no one knows you anyway. And I quickly realized that it’s even harder to make friends in uni, because everyone somehow already has friends, and everyone’s either busy or just doesn’t put in the effort to care.
“You’re the first person who’s ever made an effort to care.”
Taehyung licks his lips, pulling in his bottom lip as he tenses his brow, regarding me gravely. “I feel sorry for all those people who left you, Aria,” he practically growls. “Because they missed out on being friends with such a witty, intelligent and beautiful girl with a golden heart.”
“Is that what you think of me?” I croak, feeling heat rise to my cheeks.
Taehyung grips my hands tightly. “It’s not what I think. It’s what you are.”
The tears appear so naturally that I merely blink them away, my heart overwhelmed by a burgeoning love for this twenty-year old boy. His sincerity, his devotion, his constant affection…he makes me feel like I deserve it all. And a small part of me is starting to believe that I do, especially when he comes over and wraps me into an embrace that heals my entire being, making me feel small and warm and protected.
“Thank you,” I murmur in Korean, planting a kiss on his cheek. I manage to catch the smile that graces his lips as I pull away, keeping my arms hooked around his waist. “You’re seriously the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
“I can say the same to you,” he prods my nose. “You’re the best thing in my life right now.”
“Better than Yeontan?” I gasp with fingers to my lips.
Taehyung laughs. “Yeontan may be cute and all, but my girlfriend is cuter.” To highlight his point, he presses his palms to my cheeks, squishing them and then laughing at what he just did. “Yep, definitely cuter.”
“I don’t appreciate you touching my face with your hands,” I pry his hands off my face, and he grins devilishly.
“Oh, so would you prefer if I use my lips?” he leans forward, and I lean an equal amount of distance away, shaking my head.
“Not here,” I hiss, glancing at the mother and her two young children at the next table.
He smirks. “So you do prefer my lips?”
I instantly redden, feeling flustered as I step away from him. “You need to stop that,” I point at him with a scowl, and he swoops forward, gnashing his teeth together as if he were trying to bite my finger, and I retract it back as he sniggers.
“If you’re that hungry, let’s go have lunch now,” I deadpan, and he laughs even harder.
“Okay, let’s have lunch.”
【★】
More insight into Aria’s friendship with Ella, and a deeper look into Taria’s bond 😄
I’m updating this while it’s still Jimin’s birthday in Korea so Happy Birthday to Jiminie! I love him so much and his solo songs (Serendipity + Lie) are the reason I started getting more into BTS
so this story wouldn’t be written without Jimin hehe
I hope you enjoyed this chapter! next week is my last week of classes and then I have to study for exams yayyy 🙁
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