Gracie's POV

When I got home that morning, I seen my parents sitting in the living room. They looked upset. 

"Where have you been all night?!" my father screams at me and I stand there with my arms crossed.

"Out, I'm a grown woman I can stay out all night if I please"

"Not if you're living in this house!" he claims.

"I've been wanting to move out but you two won't let me!"

"How are we suppose to believe you're responsible enough to be on your own when you act like some reckless teenager?!" 

"I only act like that because I'm tired of you treating me like one!"

"Go to your room and don't come out until I'm ready to talk to you!" he points to the stares.

"I'll come out when I want to!" I declare and go up to my room, but not because he told me, because I didn't want to look at his face anymore.

Once I get up to my room, I fall onto my bed and scream, wanting them to hear me.

"The whole world probably heard you scream" Niko says as he pops up from behind my bed and scares the crap out of me, I fall out of my bed.

"Are you okay?" he asks me as he runs to help me up. 

"I'm fine" I say once I'm back on my feet, "you're in here because?" I raise an eyebrow.

"I wanted to come and surprise you, also because I wanted to apologize. I shouldn't have kissed you like that, I mean I don't even know how you feel about me, I was too caught up on my own emotions"

"It's okay" I assure him, "how'd you get in here?"

"I used that latter out there, who else used it? Some high school boys I suppose?" he makes a funny, erted face and it makes me laugh. 

"No, my best friend use to use it when I would be grounded" 

"Of course she did, that's the obvious truth" he says sarcastically.

"It's the truth" I shove him a little.

Then silence falls and we're awkwardly looking at each other.

"Soo, the kiss, was it..like...bad?" he asks and I see him turning red. 

"No it wasn't bad it's just that-" before I say anything I contemplate if I should tell him about Himchan or not. Would he tell my parents if I told him? He doesn't seem like the kind to do that... I'll keep Himchan a secret for now, "it's just that you surprised me, I thought we were just friends"

"We are friends" he states.

"So why did you kiss me?"

"I don't know. I guess for a second...I started feeling something more than us being friends" 

Right as I was about to say something my mom walked in. We all just stared at each other.

"Is he the reason you were out all night?" she whispers, then closes the door so my father couldn't hear.

"Uh...yeah...I fell asleep at his house, right Niko?"

He nods his head in agreement.

"You guys are getting so close so fast. We'll have a heir to the business in no time" she smiles and comes and sits in between us.  

"Yeah, crazy huh?" I say.

"I won't tell your father he's in here" she puts her finger over her lips signaling it's a secret. She gets up and heads for the door, then turns around and winks.

"Woooow, my mother just made it really awkward right now, I'm sorry" I tell Niko.

"It's alright, it was kind of funny" he smiles. 

After our tense attitudes towards each other loosens up a bit, we end up watching some TV. We're laughing and making comments about this movie we're watching and we're back to being how we use to act. 

My phone starts ringing and I see it's Himchan. Luckily it was a text message. He was asking me if I wanted to come over, he promised he had calmed down. I told him I was grounded and explained why and he replied back with a sad face and that he'll see me when I'm out of the jail house. I laugh a little at his message and Niko gives me a look.

"Olivia, she said something super funny right now" I lie and put my phone in my pocket. 

Soon some hours pass by and I realized my father would probably be coming into my room at anytime, to say his usual lecture that punishing me hurts him more than me, and all that stuff in that nature.

"I got invited to this party tomorrow , wanna go?" Niko asks as he climbs onto the ladder. 

"What time?"

"At nine" 

"Okay, I'll go. See you tomorrow " 

"See you tomorrow " he smiles at me and goes down the ladder. Moments later my father walks in and gives me a speech on how he was just worried about me and he didn't mean to yell, the usual. 

I apologize for making him worry and forgive him for yelling at me. 

That next day I went to go see Himchan. I met him in front of his apartment, he was off from work so we had the whole day together. 

We spent most of the day relaxing in Yongguk's apartment, watching movies and getting to know each other better. For those few hours Himchan and I had really deep conversations, all our problems were complete opposite of each other and I realized my life could be worse and I was taking advantage of what I had.

My parent's babied me and crowded me while Himchan's father abandoned them and his mother treats him bad. I get whatever I want yet I always complain and he works his of for everything he has and doesn't complain at all. We both we're brought up so differently. 

I checked the time and it was 8:45 P.M. already. I checked my phone and I had texts and calls from Niko. Right as I was about to text him back I couldn't go I was getting a call from my parents.

I told Himchan it was my parents and went outside to answer it. 

"Grace, where are you? Niko is here to take you out" my mother tells me before I could even finish my "Hello"

"I can't go"

"Why not?"

I try to think of a good reason but she starts talking before I can.

"Come home now and get dressed so he can take you out! Where are you anyway? Olivia called earlier asking for you and you weren't here"

Damn, I couldn't tell my parents about Himchan, so I had to end our lovely evening. 

I told her I'll be there in a few minutes and went back inside.

"You have to go huh?" he asked.

"How'd you know?"

"You came in here with a sad face"

I smiled at him and he smiled back. He got up from the couch and walked me to the apartment entrance.

"Wanna do something tomorrow? And I mean actually do something and not just watch movies"

"Yeah, that sounds good"

We both just stood there staring into each others eyes, then he came closer and started leaning into my face. I responded by leaning towards him until we kissed. I felt him wrap his arms around my waist and I placed my hands on his shoulders and the kiss got more passionate. We both were so into the kiss then my phone starts ringing. I ignore it at first but then it keeps going off so we stop the kiss and say our goodbyes. 

I answer the phone with an aggressive "What?" upset it ruined our wonderful kiss, 

"Woah, I just wanted to know if your were close yet?" it was Niko.

"Oh sorry. This guy just cut me off and I got upset" I lie and go back to my regular tone of voice.

"Well take you're time, I don't want you to rush" he tells me.

"Don't tell her that" I hear my mother say in the background.

"I'll be there soon" I say and we both say bye and hang up.

Once I arrive at home, my mother rushes me upstairs to get ready. She forces me to wear this long, one shoulder, dark blue dress. She tries to do my hair and make-up but I lock her out the bathroom and do it myself. I put on simple make-up and do my hair in a curly high ponytail, and side sweep my bangs. When I come out my mother isn't pleased with the little time I spent doing my hair and make-up but I ignore her comments and walk downstairs, holding my dress. 

Niko and my father are looking up at me, and I feel like it's prom all over again. I seen Niko was dressed just as fancy and he was also wearing dark blue, now I seen my mother's motives for making me wear it. 

"You look stunning" he tells me and we smile at each other.

"Thank you" 

My father brings out the camera, and now it really is like my prom night.

"Dad, stop taking pictures. You're doing too much" I hold my hand up at the lens and he puts the camera down, but takes a quick one after I bring my hand down. 

'You two have a good time" my mother tells us while we're walking out the door. We get into his car and I wave as we drive off. 

"So where is this party?" I ask Niko as I look through his music playlist.

"Just sit back and enjoy the ride" he says which makes me question where the party is.

We listen to music for the majority of the ride, but we have conversations once in a while. I noticed wherever we were going was way out of town. 

Finally we stopped in front of this huge, huge, house on this mountain. Niko got out and opened my car door for me and helped me out. I realize the really uphill walk to the house and knew me in this dress wouldn't make it so I asked Niko if he had something sharp and he hands me this swiss army knife out of his glove compartment and hands it to me. 

"Why do you-" he starts but stops once he realized I cut the slit in my dress higher. 

"That's better" I state and Niko throws the swiss army knife back into the compartment and holds his arms out for me. I loop my arm and we start walking up to the house. There must have been a lot of people here because there were a lot of cars everywhere. I watched as the valets were parking cars.

"Why didn't you get a valet to park you're car? It would have been much closer" I ask

."I don't trust anyone else driving my car'' he informs me. 

I nod and we continue up to the door. We finally reach the entrance and Niko shows him an invite to the party and we go inside. 

The house was incredibly big! And there must have been hundreds of people inside. We made our way through the crowd and to a table. Niko pulled  my chair out for me and I sat down. I didn't really know anybody but Niko knew everyone, multiple people came to our table to talk to him, he would introduce me to them. If they didn't come sit down with us, they would wave at him as they walked by.

"You're very popular I see" I comment.

"Well I am a friendly guy" 

A slow song comes on and I can tell Niko was about to ask me to dance but before he says anything this girl comes over and asks Niko to dance. He didn't really answer, the girl just pulled him onto the dance floor. I sit at the table like a loner, then I spot this buffet table and make my way towards it. 

I'm stuffing my plate full of the good food, not to mention my mouth, and then I feel someone tap my shoulder, I turn to see it's Niko.

"I thought you were dancing with that girl?" I said after I swallowed the food in my mouth. 

"I told her I only came to dance with one girl" he holds his hand out and I take it. 

We go onto the dance floor and I warn him I'm not that good at dancing, but he tells me he doesn't care. Slowly we begin to Waltz while looking into each others eyes, and I feel like there's spotlight on us and we're the only two dancing. 

As I get better at the dancing, he spins me and I step on his foot.

"You got a little too excited" I joke and he laughs. 

"You just look so beautiful I couldn't help myself" 

I can feel my face getting hot as I thanked him. The song ends and everyone claps, and Niko and I go back to our table.

While eating Niko keeps complimenting me and it makes me feel special. I was having a really good time. 

We get in one last dance, then decide to go home since everyone else was starting to. 

My feet hurt from dancing and I'm dreading the walk down to the car.

"My feet hurt" I say to Niko, hoping he would get the hint and carry me down.

"You should take your heels off" he suggests. 

"Or..you could carry me" I put on a big smile.

"How about we trade shoes?" he kicks off his dress shoes and kneels down to take my heels off for me then he puts his shoes on my feet and holds my heels for me as he walks with only socks on. 

"Why couldn't you just carry me?" 

"Because I was positive I was going to drop out while going downhill. Now would you rather me drop you or switch shoes with you"

"I'll take the second one" 

While we're walking down the mountain I trip and almost face plant into the ground when Niko grabs my hand. 

"Don't fall, I don't want you to get hurt" he remarks.

"Thanks"

I was about to let go of his hand but I didn't, I kind of liked the way it felt to hold his hand. 

Finally we get to the car and drive off. 

Once we reach home it's already three in the morning. 

"I had a good time" I say to him.

"Me too"

"We should do it again sometime" 

"Yeah that would be nice"

We awkwardly sit in the car for a moment, then I tell him "Goodnight" and get out. 

He tells me goodnight before I close the door. I'm walking to my door then I hear him yell "Wait" 

"Yes?"

"Uh..I...uh...you" he's trying to say something but just not getting it out.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" I question.

"Yeah. Uh, Gracie, I know we're good friends, but I think about you all the time, and when I'm around you I get all nervous and get those butterflies , and..what I'm basically trying to say is that I really like you and I don't want to be friends anymore. So..uh... will you be my girlfriend?"

"Huh?!"