You walked in through the doors, looking around at the beautifully decorated gym hall. You couldn’t help but smile to yourself, despite not really being into the whole prom thing you were so glad your best friend had dragged you here. Since neither of you had  a date you had decided to go together and just have fun and, so far, the two of you had had a blast just picking out fancy gowns and doing each others’ hair and makeup.

There were already plenty of people in the hall and your friend asked you with an excited grin: “So, you wanna start by dancing or getting something to drink?”

"Let’s get a drink," You suggested, "That way we can have a look around first before killing this dance floor."

The two of you headed over to the drinks table and both grabbed a glass before proceeding to check out the pretty dresses all the girls were wearing.

"So the two of you showed up after all? I thought you girls would feel too ashamed to come to prom without a date." You felt your skin crawl at the voice coming from behind you. You didn’t need to turn around to know who it was, this guy had been making your school life miserable for over a year now.

"Don’t tell me you actually got a date, Jungkook? What girl in her right mind would want to go out with you?"

"Plenty of them, believe me. I’m here solo by choice, couldn’t pick between all my fine options." He had stepped in front of you now, a cocky smile on his face. It was true, a lot of girls seemed to like this pretty, innocent looking baby face. They hadn’t seen him sneer like you had.

"Funny how you say that yet you still end up here alone. Guess you don’t have as much game as you think." You retorted, taking your friend’s arm and beginning to drag her away from him.

"At least people like me. Not like you ugly es, nobody would come near you even if you paid them. Thought you could change people’s mind by dressing up all fancy? Well, you’re still ugly."

You felt tears stinging at your eyes from that. You didn’t really care what Jungkook thought but… it still hurt. You knew you weren’t the prettiest girl around but no one but him had ever called you ugly before. Especially now, when you’d had so much fun getting all dressed up and felt like you actually looked really pretty… now he had ruined that.

"Just leave us alone, Jungkook." Your friend said, turning to face him again.

"Come on," you muttered, "He’s not worth it." You knew at least your friend could hear your voice break but you hoped Jungkook hadn’t as you walked quickly away, towards the bathroom. You were not about to let him see you cry.

You broke down the moment the bathroom door had closed behind you. Why did he have to be so mean? What had you ever done to him? It hadn’t always been like this, he used to pretty much ignore you. Heck, back then you’d even admired him from afar. Then last year, for no reason at all, Jungkook had started teasing you at every chance he got. He didn’t usually get as cruel as he had tonight but it still hurt.

”______?” You looked up, expecting to see your friend, but instead to your horror you found Jungkook standing over you.

"Wha… g…go away!" You stuttered, quickly trying to wipe away the tears, only succeeding in smudging your mascara. "This is a girl’s bathroom, what do you think you’re doing in here?"

"I’m sorry." His smirk from before was gone, now he looked at you with… was that concern in his eyes?

"If you’re sorry then get out." You said, still trying to look like you hadn’t been crying.

"No, I mean… ______ I’m sorry I said those things. I didn’t mean them, I just…" You stared at him, shocked. Was Jungkook actually apologizing to you?

"If you didn’t mean them you shouldn’t have said them." You told him, feeling the tears slowly begin to fall again at the fresh memory of his words.

"I know," He said, reaching a hand out to you. You backed away.

"I… you must really hate me, huh?" He sounded so sad as he said that, looked so pitiful. You didn’t understand what the hell was going on.

"You think?" You snapped, anger taking over as the most easily reachable feeling to overcome the confusion. "After everything you’ve done to me, making my life miserable every day! How could I not hate you? What the did I do to you anyways? Did you just wake up one day and think, ‘oh, that _____ girl seems like a good person to pick on, lets ruin her life for fun’?!" The tears were still falling but they were angry tears now as you finally vented some of your feelings.

"I didn’t… I mean, no, of course not! I never wanted… you just make me confused is all, you’re different from the other girls and… and I wanted you to look at me…" He trailed off, looking like he wanted to say more but just couldn’t find the words. This only confused you more. He wanted you to look at him? You had been looking at him, before all of this. You’d pretty much had a crush on him, before.

"Great method you picked for getting attention, genius." You snapped, really not sure what to say to this new information. Why did he want you to look at him? He couldn’t mean he liked you, you’d seen him flirt with girls and he did that quite well without making them hate him.

"It didn’t start like that!" He snapped back. "I just… last year when you helped that other girl who was being bullied, I really admired that. I hadn’t really noticed you before but you looked so strong and pretty standing up to those guys for her."

You remembered that, of course you remembered that. That was how you’d met your best friend. Truth was you were fiercely protective of others when they were bullied but you could never do much for yourself.

"So I started watching you and… look, I meant to hit on you normally but Yoongi thought you were lame and he and Jimin made fun of me when I said you’d looked cool so I pretended I didn’t like you and to prove a point I made fun of you, but that was the first time I saw you look at me and… I just really wanted you to look at me, _____." He looked into your eyes, all sincere pain. "I’m really sorry I hurt you."

You felt frozen on the spot. Jungkook liked you? He was teasing you because he liked you? That had never even occurred to you, it was such an absurd idea. Especially since you liked him; had liked him, you corrected yourself. Truthfully that had always made his teasing a lot worse for you. It wasn’t just some guy being mean to you, it was the guy you liked and that hurt more than anything else.

”_____, please say something.” You snapped out of your thoughts, eyes focusing on Jungkook again. He looked so ashamed of what he had said and done to you. Annoyingly enough he also looked extremely handsome in his suit.

"I did look at you." You told him, too exhausted from all the crying, shouting and thinking to keep the pain from your voice.

"What?"

"I did look at you, before. I looked at you all the time. You were the one who never looked at me."

Jungkook stared at you, eyes wide. Then he kissed you. It happened so fast you didn’t really have time to react. One moment he was standing in front of you, the next his lips crashed into yours. You found yourself kissing him back, realizing with a pang that you had never stopped liking him, only burying your feelings underneath the belief that he hated you all this time.

When you finally pulled apart Jungkook wiped away your leftover tears with his thumb. “I’m sorry for everything, _____. I was stupid. I’ll never listen to the guys again, I promise. Can you forgive me?”

You nodded your head, pressing your cheek into his palm. He smiled, kissing you again.

"I’ll make it all up to you, I swear. Starting by showing off my beautiful girlfriend on the dance floor."

You blushed, realizing you must look horrible with your makeup all smudged. You grabbed your purse from where you’d left it on the sink, fishing out some makeup tools. Jungkook chuckled behind you as you fixed yourself up again, hugging you from behind and resting his head on your shoulder when you were finished.

"You look beautiful without all that, you know." He told you, kissing your neck. You couldn’t help but smile as he took your hand dragging you towards the door. Suddenly you stopped.

"But wait, what about Yoongi and Jimin and… your friends don’t like me."

Jungkook pulled you close, resting his forehead against yours. “They don’t know you. Besides, who cares what those guys think?”

With a smile the two of you headed out to the dance floor, surprising everyone by being the happiest couple around.

________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: Requested by Anon, original here.