Chapter Text
"People change for one of two reasons: They have learned a lot, or they have been hurt too many times."
All it takes is one event to push you over the edge and break your sanity. One event to change who you are completely. One damn event to make you a monster.
He was sick of it. Sick of being treated as if he were trash. Taehyung never did anything about it and usually took the name calling, rude remarks, and how people would 'accidentally' bump into him harshly while he was in the hallway.
But now he had no choice. He knew he had to change who he was or else he wouldn't survive in the place he was being sent to.
Taehyung didn't have time to change his hair color back into a natural color and he really hoped that no one would give him shit for his purple hair anymore. He decided to change his name to V so that he didn't have to remember crybaby Taehyung.
No one knew of his pathetic past so it was an easy way to start over and do what he wished he could have done before. Taehyung let people walk all over him and all it did was get him into deep shit. He took the blame for something he didn't do.
And now that's why he was sitting in the back of some kind of vehicle being transported into a private facility where mostly rebellious students go. Students who have done wrong in their own schools. Students who got into major trouble.
Taehyung knew he wasn't going to fit in or belong. He never did anyways. He was always the weird one out. The boy who had no friends to rely on. Despite changing his attitude and name, he knew the outcome would still be the same. No one wanted to befriend a loser.
He didn't care. V would never care about something like that. (More like he tried to convince himself that he didn't give a shit even though he still kind of did. ) V knew that being nice would just get people walking all over you, making you do things you would never want to do. He knew very well because of his past.
Taehyung would never try to poison a teacher but he admitted that he did just because he didn't want to get pushed around and bullied more.
Taehyung almost banged his head on the back of the vehicle when it came to an abrupt stop. (What the fuck, driver?) He sighed to himself and ran a hand through his hair, trying to get a hold of himself.
Yeah, he almost pissed himself when door opened but he was just fine and dandy.
"This is your stop, kid. Up and out." He examined the man standing before him, quickly and carefully getting out of the vehicle.
Taehyung stared at the building in front of him, biting his lip at how there was a huge fucking gate around the place. (Guess they really don't want visitors.) After standing there and staring at the building like a complete idiot, the older man coughed a bit which made Taehyung snap out of it completely.
"This is the facility, if it wasn't obvious enough. You will be staying here for the meantime due to insubordination. Here you will be taught how to act properly. Do you have any questions?"
Taehyung was known for asking stupid questions and even if he changed his name and attitude, that most likely wasn't going to go away. "Why are we in the middle of nowhere?"
"To prevent rebellious kids like you from escaping the facility. Any more questions?" Taehyung was about to deny being rebellious but then remembered of what he didn't do and decided to keep his mouth shut. No one would believe him if he said he didn't do anything anyways. He shook his head no and that earned him a half-assed smile. "Good, follow me then."
Following the man into the facility made his palms sweaty. He had no idea what he was getting himself into. The facility itself wasn't too bad though, he pictured it to be more gross looking but he could definitely settle for this. Sure, they could use a bit more light since the place is dark as all hell minus the few lights here and there (some of which were flickering on and off which freaked the fuck out of Taehyung) but nonetheless, it was alright.
The one thing that really made him nervous was the random by-passers that happened to stare at him as he walked by. They probably knew that he was new (because really, it was that damn obvious) and they just couldn't help but stare.
Taehyung didn't know if they wanted to kill him or not but he really didn't want to find out.
Since he wasn't paying attention, when the man stopped walking, Taehyung ended up smacking right into his back. He mumbled an apology before stepping back a bit. The man didn't seem bothered by it and completely disregarded it. "Anyways, this is the place where staff work. There's a nurse over there, God forbid you'd need one, and the main office over there, just in case." Taehyung just nodded to indicate that he was somewhat listening. "Follow me and we'll get you your new uniform."
Taehyung didn't mind wearing a uniform and judging by what the by-passers were wearing, it didn't seem that ugly.
After getting his size measured by a random lady who he swear came out of nowhere, he got three uniforms to keep. They made him try it on in the staff bathroom, which looked neat, and Taehyung could admit that he didn't look too bad. The pants were a bit tight on him and probably made his ass stand out more than it should but he didn't really care. The only thing he really cared about was how much people would make fun of him for purple hair.
When he came out, the man was gone and the lady gave him a warm welcome. "I'm Mrs. Lee, I am the nurse of the school. Mr. Nam had something else to attend to so I will be explaining everything else. Your name is?"
Taehyung looked at the floor. "V. My name is V."
Mrs. Lee didn't seem to question why his name was just a letter and kept her signature smile plastered onto her face. "Well, welcome to the facility, V. I know filling out paper work can be suckish but if you would help me out, that would be great. The only files they sent us were your grades which weren't bad at all, may I add."
"What kind of paper work?"
"We need to know basic information about you and why you were sent here to the facility," She replied, motioning for him to sit down. Once he sat down, Mrs. Lee started asking him questions. "What is your real name and may I have your age?"
Of course they would need to know his real name (though Taehyung figured his name would have been on the damn grade paper they somehow sent them). "My name is Kim Taehyung and I'm 17, almost 18."
"Taehyung is a nice name, much better than V if I say so myself." Taehyung wanted to snap at her but he stayed silent. She wasn't trying to offend him. (Or maybe she was, who knows). "Any hobbies? Or sports?"
Raising an eyebrow, he scratched his head. "Why do you need to know that?" It's not like that's even important, Taehyung thought to himself. Mrs. Lee just shrugged and waited for him to answer. "I don't have any hobbies and I never participated in anything."
He watched as she scribbled down what he was saying and sighed a bit, wanting this all to be over. "Now, on to the main question: Why are you here?"
Taehyung sat there silently debating if he should say that he was falsely accused for trying to poison a teacher or not. He remembered that in this place, no one would believe his innocence. "I put hand sanitizer in a teacher's drink and tried to poison them," he ended up blurting it out without really thinking about how she'd react.
Putting the clipboard down onto the table, she stared at him like he had just flipped her off. "You tried to poison a teacher?"
"I, um, no? I mean yes. Maybe. I don't know." Taehyung always blurted out stupid shit when he felt nervous and right now, he was in the middle of a panic attack of some sort. He ended up yanking at his own hair to compose himself and calmly looked back at her. "I mean, yeah, I tried to poison a teacher."
Mrs. Lee raised an eyebrow but slowly nodded while writing down whatever she was writing down. Taehyung didn't want to really look. "Well, V, you're lucky that they sent you here and not to jail. Actually, I'm very surprised they issued you here if you tried to poison a teacher."
Taehyung really wanted to scream that he didn't do it. Especially because of the look she was giving him that made him felt small as hell. "I- well, she didn't die?"
"Are you asking me or telling me that?"
"Telling?"
Mrs. Lee sighed and shook her head, standing up from her seat. "Never mind, I'll get you issued into the files and find you a room. You won't have a roommate so don't worry about it. I hope I don't see you in my office too much, Kim Taehyung. It's a shame because you seem like a very smart kid too based on your grades."
The last thing she said hit Taehyung like a brick. He was always a good student in school, getting good grades on everything, trying his best, even going for some honor classes. He almost seemed like a goody two-shoes. Almost. Now, he probably will never be looked at the same, especially by his mother. His mother was so angry and disappointed, she didn't even say goodbye to him when they dragged him out of his own house.
"Well V, just a little more and you can go wander around. The facility tries to give as much freedom as we can, we let you choose your own schedule minus the required class that we choose for you depending on what got you dumped in here."
"Oh great, I get to take a class on how not to poison teachers. Sounds like fun," Taehyung shocked himself with his own comeback. He usually never talked back to anyone.
"Taehyung," Mrs. Lee replied with a stern voice. "Now is not the time for your sarcastic jokes." Taehyung mumbled a 'sorry' before letting Mrs. Lee continue. "As I said, you will be forced to choose courses that you find interesting. We are more interested in what you want to focus on, rather than high school which teaches students mostly nonsense they will never remember. Choose four courses to get you started off, we will discuss your required course after."
Taehyung examined the paper he got with all of the course names. He wanted to get kind of excited because he's always wanted to be either an artist or an author. They didn't provide any art classes, which kind of made sense, but they did provide several courses for literature. "I want these."
Mrs. Lee did look quite surprised at his choices. "You're into literature? A kid like you doesn't seem to be very interested in that."
Taehyung shrugged, trying not to break his V image within the first hour of arriving. That would blow (and not in a good way). "I just find it better than the other crap on there."
Mrs. Lee didn't look convinced but gave the O.K. for him to attend those classes (though, Taehyung couldn't help but wonder why the hell the nurse was doing all of this). "Now as I mentioned, we have a class that you are forced to take. We are forcing you to take the behavioral class. I would say anger management class but you don't seem to have anger issues."
"That's because I don't have anger issues." Taehyung never used to get angry, he would always try to act nice. Even to the people who put him through hell. "Aren't those two the same thing though?"
"Not exactly. Behavioral class is more like a discussion group. There will be a supervisor in the room and you will discuss what you did, and why you did it. Anger management classes are for the more aggressive students who we know will throw fits. Despite the few comments, you seem very calm and collected so there is no need for you to attend a class that is pointless to you. Though, if you act up, you maybe be transferred to that class."
Taehyung came to the conclusion that this place didn't seem too bad. But he knew that would probably change when he actually had to leave this office. "Uh, when do I get my schedule-thing?"
"Don't worry about that until next week. First, you should get comfortable with the place, you will probably be here for awhile." Mrs. Lee placed a key with the number 129 on the tag on the table. "That's your room number. Get yourself settled in and don't forget to come by next week to receive your schedule."
Taehyung took the key and stood up, grabbing the backpack he was provided that contained his uniforms and shyly looked at the floor. "I don't really know my way around and I get lost pretty easily."
Mrs. Lee was nice enough to show Taehyung where his room is and he quickly shut himself in his room, throwing the backpack on the floor. Taehyung knew that he had to get his act together. It's been not even a day and he's already failing at being V. "Mean, you have to look mean. God dammit, Taehyung. Why do you suck at all of this?"
Just remember what they did to you every single day. How they humiliated you in the hallways, harassed you even during class, blamed you for something you didn't do.
"Ah, fuck my life." Taehyung said to no one in particular while letting himself flop down onto his new bed.