I gulped as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. The flaming, long red dress clung onto my frame and draped below my knees. My hair was in a complicated ponytail and my face was caked with makeup.

The girl in front of me was someone I didn't recognize. I looked completely different with all the stuff I did to myself for the dance.

The dance was tonight and I was extremely anxious about it. Not only was Jungkoook, my supposed "enemy" for God knows how long, was my date for the dance, but I also had set my mind on confronting Taehyung tonight.

I had no idea what I was going to say to him, but all I knew is that I wanted to set things straight with him. I hated having ignoring me and no matter how this talk would go, I wanted it to end in us at least still being friends.

Taehyung is someone important, someone I held dear to me. He had been there for me and he had been the one to make me feel like I was floating on clouds.

Even if I was confused towards my feelings for him now. I wasn't sure if I still liked him the same way I used to. I knew that when he came into the room, I didn't feel those butterflies like I used to. I didn't feel myself blushing at the mere thought of him.

Shaking my head, I try to get rid of the thoughts and save them for the confrontation later tonight. It wouldn't be fair to Jungkook if I spent the entire evening thinking about another guy when it was my duty to put all my focus on him, seeing as though he was the one who has the right to my full attention.

I sighed, opening the door to my room and heading down the stairs where my parents were awaiting for me. They had wide grins plastered on their faces as they watched me go down the stairs ever so slowly.

"You look so beautiful, darling. Jungkook will probably not be able to speak once he sees you like that." My mom giggles, pulling out her camera to snap a quick picture of me.

I playfully roll my eyes and shoot a smile when she gestures me to pose for the camera. "I wouldn't go to that extent, Mom. You're exaggerating."

She winks my way and sets the camera down beside her. "Oh, I don't think I am." I stick my tongue out playfully.

The doorbell rings, and I immediately freeze in my spot. Jungkook was here.

I gulp and look at my dad who shot a smile my way before heading to the door to greet Jungkook.

"Wow, what a handsome man!" My mom gushes when she steps beside my dad to get a look at Jungkook. I bite my lip, not being able to see him seeing as though my parent's heads were blocking my view.

I hear Jungkook chuckle. "Thank you Mrs. Park. Is Miyoung ready?"

"Yes!" My parents move aside to get me into view. I purse my lips and look at Jungkook.

My mom was right, Jungkook did look stunning. He was wearing a black suit with a red bow-tie and a red rose to match my dress. His hair pulled back and parted neatly, exposing his forehead which was a rare sight.

I felt my heart pounding against my rib cage just by looking at him. Excuse me, what?

His eyes bore into mine, his mouth slightly parted as he takes in what I'm wearing. I gulp, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Is it too much?

"I— wow Miyoung, you look so beautiful." He gushes, a hint of pink staining his cheeks.

I feel the blood rushing to my cheeks as I shyly look down. "Thanks, you don't look too bad yourself."

My momm squeals. "You two are such a lovely couple! Let me take a couple of pictures of you two before you go! Miyoung, I bet you'd want this framed in your room, right?"

I glare at her. "Mom! We're gonna be late."

"A few pictures won't hurt." Jungkook says, extending his hand with a small smirk dancing on his face. I sigh and take his hand in mine, facing my mom and posing for her.

Jungkook wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer. I hesitantly wrap my arm around his waist as well, an uneasy feeling settling on my stomach. I muster out the biggest grin I could when I was taken off-guard.

Jungkook leaned down and pressed his lips to my cheek. My mom squeals again and takes the picture quickly before I shoved him off me and gave him a pointed look. "Jungkook..."

He winks at me. "We'll be going now! I'll have her home before midnight."

"Oh, don't bother!" My mom says behind us. My eyes widen and I immediately drag Jungkook out of my house, making sure to slam the door to show my parents my annoyance.

"Sorry about that..." I trail off, chuckling awkwardly as I follow him to his car.

He chuckles and opens the car door for me. Before I could get into the passenger seat, Jungkook grabs my arm and pulls me closer to him, resulting me into colliding into his chest.

"Jungkook, what are—"

"You look gorgeous, you know that right?" He whispers lowly. "It's like you want me to rip off your dress right here and now."

My eyes widen at his statement, but I replace my shock with a dry chuckle. "Calm down there Jungkook. Let's get to the dance before my mom says another vulgar thing."

I pry myself off of him and get into the passenger seat. He closes the door after me and heads to the drivers seat, setting the car in gear and heading to the dance.

I play with my fingers as we ride in silence, the faint music playing in the background. I didn't want this night to be awkward, in fact, I wanted this to be the best night of my life, and his as well. How boring would it be to be with a date who didn't say a word to you?

I clear my throat and turn to face him, getting ready to spark up a conversation when the words were caught in my throat.

He looked so... fine, and all he was doing was driving. It wasn't like I had been in the car before and I've never seen him drive, but right here in this moment, it felt like this was truly the only time I've seen him like this.

He looked so ethereal. I blink, feeling the world slowly spinning.

His head turns to look at me, catching me off-guard as I stumble in my seat to look away at him. "Enjoying the view?" He chuckles.

"Yeah," I boldly state, glancing at him to see that he was taken aback, clearly not expecting the answer. "You look good,Jungkook."

He bites his lip and focuses his view on the road. "Thanks, I put in a lot of effort for tonight."

I giggle. "Cute."

He turns to me with slightly widened eyes. "W-What?"

"Cute." I repeat, winking playfully at him.

We arrive at the school, seeing couples already going hand in hand inside the building. I gulp, feeling the nerves creep inside of me.

Before I knew it, Jungkook was already out of the car and opening the door for me. He seemed to notice my anxiousness and grabbed my arm, pulling me up and resting his arm around my waist. "Hey, you're okay. You got me, I'm not going anywhere, okay?"

By that mere sentence, I felt my nerves immediately fly out the window. I beam at him. "Okay. Let's go rock this dance off it's feet."

He chuckles and removes his arm off of my waist and holds my hand, leading me to the door. I look down at our hands and feel my insides spinning.

Our hands fit perfectly together. I hope I'm not sweating, I thought while fighting the urge to rip my hand out of his grip to wipe the sweat.

Once Jungkook hands the tickets to the people by the booth, we head on into the dance. We were greeted with a bunch of people already grinding on each other and others just plain having a good time. This whole place was a mess, and it's only been thirty minutes since the dance had started.

Well, what else would you expect out of a high-school dance?

Jungkook leads me to a table and I immediately recognize his friends with their dates. They look at us and smile brightly. "Jungkook, Miyoung! You made it!"

Jungkook hums. "Yeah. This dance got wild quickly."

"You can thank Hoseok for that." Yoongi nods in the direction of the crowd.

Hoseok was already getting down, having dancing contests with the others and hyping up the crowd. I smile at his energy and look around the dance floor to see if I could spot Taehyung.

I see him on the other side of the gym with a cup in one hand, a bored look on his face as he stared at everyone else dancing. On his other side, Jaeun was tugging at his free arm, looking like she was pleading to him.

He brushed her off and walked a couple feet away, settling himself on the wall and continuing to look at the crowd. I bite my lip and take my hand away from Jungkook's grip, heading over to Taehyung when he grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

"Where are you going?"

I sighed and looked back over to where Taehyung stood, Jaeun following him and continuing to pester him. "I need to talk with Taehyung."

"Taehyung?" Jungkook tilts his head. "What business do you have with him?"

"I hurt his feelings and I need to make things right," I say. "Please, it won't take long. I promise as soon as I fix things with him, I'm all yours for the night."

Jungkook bites the inside of my cheek as he stares at me. After a few moments of pondering, he reluctantly agrees, letting my arm go.

I turn around and march towards Taehyung, who had taken notice of me a couple feet away. He lifts his head and watches me, not acknowledging my presence.

Taehyung also looked good. He wore a dark grey suit and a black tie to compliment his ash grey hair. His hair was a bit messy like it usually was, but it still suited him well.

I stood a couple feet away from him, taking a deep breath and looking at him dead in the eye.

Jaeun scoffs. "Seriously? You again?" She clings herself onto Taehyung's arm. "Aren't you Jungkook's date? Shouldn't you be all over him instead of bothering someone else's date? God, how low can you stoop?"

Ignoring her, I put all my focus on Taehyung who hadn't stopped looking at me. "I need to talk to you."

"Didn't we already talk?" He says, a hint of harshness seeping out. "I think we already settled things."

"No we didn't," I say firmly, standing my ground. "I refuse to give up on you, on us. I refuse to let some stupid thing I did to ruin us. Please, let me talk to you."

Taehyung blinks a couple of times, any hint of anger washed away in a split second before going back to his cold demeanor. "I'll give you five minutes."

I bite back my grin and nod. "Can we go somewhere quiet?"

He nods and follows me, ignoring Jaeun's protests. We walk into the hallway and he leans against the lockers, crossing his arms over his shoulders as he stares at me with an eyebrow raised.

"So? What do you need to say?" He pushes me.

I take a deep breath and stare at him dead in the eye. "Taehyung, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for acting like such a bitch and disregarding your feelings. I'm sorry for ignoring you for something so petty and stupid. I honestly don't even know why I thought that was a good idea," I pause and look somewhere else. "I guess I was just embarrassed because the guy I liked was sitting on me in front of so many people, and I felt humiliated. But that was no reason to take it out on you when you did nothing wrong."

When Taehyung says nothing, I continue my rant. "But Taehyung, I hope this doesn't affect our friendship. I love you being by my side. I love knowing that you'll be there for me when I need a shoulder to lean on. And I hope you know that I'll be there for you as well. I really don't want to lose you as a friend. You mean so much to me and if this stupid reason is why our friendship crumbled, I don't know what I'd do with myself. I'm so sorry."

I gulp, taking another deep breath and look back at Taehyung. His stare had softened, his arms now by his side. The wall that he had put up had came tumbling down.

He took a step closer and studied my gaze. "You... liked me?"

I chuckled. "Pretty sure it was the most obvious thing ever, yeah."

"Past tense?"

I froze. "I-I don't know."

"It's because of Jungkook, right?" He says lowly.

I stay frozen. "Truth be told, I don't even know what I'm feeling anymore. Everything is just so confusing," I look at him. "But the only thing I'm sure of is that I don't want to lose you."

Taehyung gulps, taking another step closer. "I don't want to lose you either. I'm sorry for saying those rude things to you, I didn't mean it. With Jaeun there feeding my already fueling anger, it was so hard to keep my emotions together and I just burst on you. I'm sorry."

I envelop him in a hug which he immediately returns. We stay like that for a couple of more seconds before he lets go and smiles at me.

"You should probably go back to Jungkook before he turns into a mad-man looking for you. You are his date, after all." He reasons, walking me towards the door.

I laugh. "You're right. I'll save you a dance?"

"Definitely."

I head back into the gym and go to Jungkook who was sitting down at the table, sipping down his drink and laughing with his friends.

I sneak up behind him and cover his eyes with my hands. I lean my face down to his ear and whisper, "Wanna go out there and bust out some moves?"

Jungkook jumps and turns around, his eyes wide with shock. I laugh and wink at him as I walk backwards towards the dance floor, extending my hand out for him to take. "Come on!"

He immediately scrambles up and takes my hand in his, leading me to the dance floor. We start moving to the music, our bodies close together.

I laugh and wrap my arms around his neck and sway my hips with exaggeration. He chuckles and rests his hands on his waist.

The upbeat song was soon cut off and replaced with a slow song. Everyone around us had calmed down, grabbed their dates, and were already in their romantic setting.

I looked out our position, aware of what was happening. I chuckle awkwardly and look up at him to already seeing him staring at me with this unreadable emotion in his eyes.

I felt myself melting under his gaze, the butterflies in my stomach swarming inside of me as I stare at him back, refusing to break the gaze.

"You won." He says.

Taken back, I furrow my eyebrows. "What?"

"You won," He repeats. "You won in stealing my heart."

I gasp and feel my cheeks heat up. "You—what?"

He visibly gulps, his cheeks also turning a shade of pink as he refuses to look away from me. "Miyoung, do you know how much you mean to me?"

It felt like everything inside of me froze and I wasn't able to form words. The only thing came out of my mouth was a weak "Eh!"

"You mean the world to me," He starts, gulping again. "You don't know how much I want to see you smile, laugh. I want to be the one beside you forever. I want to take care of you when you're down, I want to be there for you when you're happy. I want to be there for you whatever you're going through. You make me light up by just being there. You make me feel things I've never felt before. You make my heart pound like there's no tomorrow."

He sighs and looks away for a brief second before turning back to look at me. "I've never been good at expressing my feelings, so this is a bit hard for me," He chuckles. "You've always been the only girl for me. Even though you hate me and can't seem to stand me, I can't seem to be apart from you. You're a part of me, and no matter how hard I try, you don't seem to move. And I'm okay with that. I want you to be mine. I want to be able to cherish you and show you the world."

"I love you, Park Miyoung."

🐸☕️