Jungkook managed to meander around strings of confused party goers as they openly eyed a limp Yoona, flung over his shoulder like a particularly stylish burlap sack.

“She’s had a little too much to drink,” he explained breezily as he passed by his former chemistry lab partner, who was quick to laugh and hold his hand out for a fist bump.

Jungkook shot the ignorant man a simmering glare and nudged his way past into the study room. Shutting the door behind him with a flick of his foot, he half wondered if Yoona had passed out in the middle of their brief journey.

Panic began to course through his veins at the prospect of Yugyeom hearing about this and possibly misunderstanding the situation.

“Yoona?” He called out warily as he quickly made his way towards the armchair by the window. “Yoona?” His voice had a touch more desperation to it, and it certainly sounded unfamiliar enough on his tongue to make him question why he wasn’t feeling relieved that she had finally stopped screeching.

“Did you seriously just pass out on me?” He groaned as he dropped the limp woman onto the cushion, watching in slowly dawning horror as she lay slumped in on herself. “Oh my god, are you dead?” He knelt down, wincing at the pops of protest from his bones, and peered from under the curtain of hair framing her face to see if she truly was unconscious. “Kiddo?”

“YOU SON OF A !”

The amount of strength the she-devil had packed behind her punch, aimed wonderfully at his nose, left Jungkook floored.

No, he was literally on the floor.

Clutching his nose and at the sharp throbs of pain pulsating in waves from his cartilage, he glared venomously up at the seething woman on the armchair.

Was... was he smelling colour?

“What is wrong with you?” He hissed as he checked his fingers to see if he was bleeding. After a few thorough swipes under his nose to make sure there was no blood, he stood up and pointed at Yoona accusingly. “You ungrateful brat! I just saved you from making the worst mistake of your life and this is how you thank me?”

“Well then I should have been there to stop you from making the worst mistake of your life!” Yoona rallied back as she hopped to her feet and whacked his finger away from her face.

Blinking in confusion as he tried to remember any mistakes he had made recently, all Jungkook could conjure at the moment was a less than intelligent, “what?”

“Mistake as in going to the wrong salon,” she fumed as she pinned her gaze on his brown tresses, “because that haircut is an abomination. Seriously, where did you get it cut? Coconuts R Us?”

“Leave my haircut alone!” He bit back as his hands unwittingly flew up to pet his hair self-consciously. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his hair! She was just jealous that it was way silkier than the mop on her head. “I was saving you from ghosts, you fool! Do you like being in danger?”

Yoona had been in the middle of pulling the hem of her skirt down to stop it from riding up when she stilled. “Ghosts?” She echoed dubiously. She straightened to peer up at him in faux confusion. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he scoffed as he crossed his arms and squinted his eyes at her, almost accusingly. “I saw you at the lake.”

Yoona had to fight hard to dislodge the frog in the throat, her tongue refusing to cooperate to form intelligible words as she took a step back. The back of her knees bumped the seat of the armchair as she struggled to make sense of this. How did Jungkook know?

“How?” Was what she finally managed to filter out from the turbulent mess in her head.

“Surprise,” Jungkook deadpanned in boredom as he scrubbed a palm up and down his face. “I can see ghosts just as clearly as you can. And I’m pretty sure you know that you’re being haunted.”

What he had expected was for Yoona to fling a barrage of questions his way. What he got instead was an “oh my god, you can’t tell Yugyeom.”

Unsure if he had heard her correctly or not, Jungkook blinked in surprise and raised a brow in question. “I tell you that I can see ghosts and that you’re being haunted, and the first thing you worry about is Yugyeom finding out?”

Yoona nodded fervently as she tried her best to explain without giving in to the urge to toss Jungkook out of the nearest window. “You have no idea how much I regret telling my mother about this.” She began to count the list off her fingers, “just to start off, I was sent for daily counselling, extra sermons at church, and group religion sessions every week.”

But those hardly mattered when compared to the way her mother had looked at her with such rapt attention. No, not that’s not right. She had looked at Yoona as if she was out of her mind, as if she had given birth to a future mental patient. Her husband had whispered in her ear that Yoona was just acting out, craving for the attention that she so desperately needed. Her mother had believed him over her own daughter, and that was something Yoona would never forgive the wretched woman for.

She would not repeat the mistake with Yugyeom. She refused to have him look at her like she was anything other than his normal, baby sister.

Yoona lunged forward to capture Jungkook’s hands in her own. She must have startled the man because he looked embarrassed at jerking back in surprise. “Please,” she begged after painstakingly swallowing her waning pride, “please don’t tell Yugyeom. I’ll do whatever you want, as long as you don’t tell him.”

Jungkook furrowed his brow down at the pleading woman, extremely disgruntled at her appeal. Did she really think that lowly of him? Low enough to beg from the guy she hated the most?

“Yoona-”

“Tell me what?”

Both Jungkook and Yoona sprang apart, hands snapping away from each other as if singed by an electric fence. Their gazes swung in sync to see Yugyeom and BamBam, standing side by side at the threshold.

“Uh,” Yoona struggled as Yugyeom’s curious gaze volleyed to and fro from his sister to his best friend. “He was... that is... uh...”

Jungkook could practically see the engine in Yoona’s head sputter to a stop as she processed how to get out of the situation without having to point blank lie to her brother.

“That she has a crush on me,” Jungkook answered breezily. He could almost feel the temperature in the room drop by several degrees as Yoona craned her neck at a glacial pace to glar