“Hey babe.”

“Why the hell are you even calling me ‘babe’? Do you want me to punch you in the throat?”

“Feisty, I see.”

I rolled my eyes and walked away from the one and only Jeon Jungkook. We’ve been going to school together for the past 6 years and we never got along. He’s always been an annoying brat to me. What makes everything even worse is that he lives next to me. We can see each other from our rooms’ windows, which is again, not fun.

Jeon Jungkook is known as a troublemaker at school. He skips a lot of classes, talks back to teachers, vandalizes school property and even goes against his own parents. Unfortunately, our parents are friends, so there are times when we have to sit together for dinner. Don’t misunderstand, my parents don’t know we hate each other, or at least, I hate him. I don’t want their friendship to break in pieces just because of their children’s relationship. My parents have been nothing but good to me, so I don’t want to do that to them. After all, real friendship at their age is kinda hard to find.

“Aria? Open up.” I looked to my side and saw my best friend with a Ferrero Rocher in her hand. I opened up my mouth immediately, since Ferrero Rochers are my favorite kinds of chocolate. “I have more, don’t worry about it, princess,” she said.

“I wasn’t worrying..” I said and pouted. My best friend’s name is Daisy. We’ve been best friends for about 4 years now. She knows me better than I know myself and the other way around. We’ve been basically spending the past 4 years stuck to each other like chewed gum that’s stuck to a table. We have a lot in common, but our personalities are totally different. From the outside, I look kinda tough and maybe even intimidating, but when you get to know me, I’m actually very clingy and according to Daisy, even cute. Daisy on the other hand, looks very girly (like REALLY girly), but when you get to know her, she’s very protective. She treats me like her little baby, because she says I’m like a child. Which I totally disagree with by the way!!

“Here,” Daisy said, and handed me a bottle of water. I took a few sips and handed it back to her. She placed in inbetween us on the table. “Aria, we’re going to the mall after school, okay? I need to buy some skirts and I want you to buy some too. Jamie’s party is tonight, remember?”

“Oh right. I wasn’t actually planning on going, but I’ll go if you want me to,” I said. I’m not really close to Jamie. She’s kind of popular at our school, and since Daisy and I are also kind of popular (not as popular as Jamie, though), we were invited to the party.

“Of course I want you to go! Who else is gon-”

“Everyone! Class is starting, so be quiet and open up your text books on page 97,” the teacher said. Everyone let out a sigh and opened their books on the assigned page. Class went smoothly, without any disruptions from students.

The bell finally rang, which meant lunch. I was starving in there and my stomach was grumbling. Daisy and I quickly packed our bags and left to go to our shared locker. She grabbed my bag out of my hands and took the books out that were in it, and put the books in for the next 2 hours. Yes, we had every single class together, because we were in the same homeroom. The odds were finally in my favour. Let’s just say, I’m not a very lucky person.

After Daisy also took her books out of her bag and put other books in it, we went to the canteen to stand in line for lunch. All the while, I was standing on my tippy toes to see what we were gonna eat. To my relief, we had pizza and some other side dishes. After getting our lunch, we looked around for any seats/tables.

“Let’s just go outside. There are tables there,” I said and made my way to the exit of the canteen. Daisy walked beside me, out of the canteen. We soon spotted a table with no people.

“It’s getting pretty hot nowadays..” Daisy said. I nodded, agreeing with her. It was the middle of the day, so the sun was literally shining above us. I took off my leather jacket and put it on the table next to our trays with food.

“Can I sleep at your place tonight? So we can get ready and go to the party together," she said, "I also don’t feel like going home and getting ready on my own,” Daisy asked.

“You basically live with me, so sure.” We both laughed. Daisy sleeps over at least 2 times a week, because her parents are often overseas. I don’t mind and my parents don’t mind. She could live with us and I, nor my parents, would mind. My parents treat her like their own child and sometimes even joke about adopting her.

“Hey Aria.”

By his voice, I already knew who it was. None other than Jeon Jungkook. He basically lives to annoy me. I knew how to get him to leave. Just ignore.

Daisy glared at Jungkook and rolled her eyes, while I just continued eating, as if he wasn’t there.

“Are you two also going to the party tonight?”

No answer.

“I can give you a ride, Aria.”

Again, no answer.

“Yah,” he said, this time putting his hand on my shoulder, shaking it.

“Get your hands away unless you want me to chop them off,” I said, holding my knife up. After my warning, he still didn’t retreat his hand. “Who the do you think you are? Put your hand back to where it belongs and don’t ever touch me.” I know I might’ve sounded harsh, but what this guy has done to me over the past 6 years is kinda ed up (excuse me for my language). He always tried to find ways to embarrass me and make fun of me, thinking it would get to me. At the beginning, it did, really bad. But I eventually got used to it and now I don’t feel a single sting when he says something hurtful to me. I don’t even understand why he does this. He’s literally wasting his life by doing this. Such an annoying .

“I’ll see you in class then,” he said, smirking when he left.

“What an ,” Daisy said. I nodded and stabbed my food, completely losing my apetite because of him.

“Please eat. You’re gonna be worse if you don’t eat lunch,” she said. I knew that was true. Whenever I’m tired and hungry at the same time, I get really cranky and moody. Can’t help it though, food and sleep are everything to me.

The rest of the classes flew by. Mainly, because I was sleeping or thinking about food and my crush. Yes, I have a crush. No, it’s not Jungkook. It’s one of my colleagues at work. He’s an absolute sweetheart and very cute. It’s not a huge crush, though. Just a small one. My heart doesn’t beat fast when I see him, I just get a bit tingly and fuzzy inside, that’s all.

“Aria.” I felt someone tickling my double chin. I woke up immediately and groaned when I saw Daisy’s face up close. She was smiling like an idiot.

“What?” I asked softly.

“First, you’re cute. Second, class has been over for like 5 minutes.” I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock on the wall. It was indeed 5 minutes past 3. I slowly packed my bag and slung it on my back. I hooked my arm with Daisy’s and we proceeded to walk to our shared locker.

“You can sleep in the car. We’re going to the mall 40 minutes away from here. They have cuter stuff and more options,” Daisy said, noticing my daziness. I nodded and followed Daisy out of the school. We got into her car and buckled our seatbelts.

“I’ll put on some soothing music,” she said. I jumped when an upbeat song at its full volume. “Sorry..” She quickly said. She put a CD in that we both made a while ago. It's called ‘Sleep’ and has songs on it that are calming and nice. I closed my eyes and soon fell asleep.

After 40 minutes, I was woken up by Daisy. “Time to open your eyes, sunshine,” she said. My eyes fluttered open. I looked around and we were indeed at the big mall. The mall near our school isn’t small, but most stores have the same kind of styles. This mall, on the other hand, has a lot of different stores.

Daisy and I held hands (sounds weird, but we do it a lot) and happily walked through the mall. We stopped walking when Daisy spotted a store with lots of pastel coloured things. Daisy started to go crazy the second we stepped in. Since the theme for the party was “Everything but black”, she picked up a pastel purple skater skirt and gave it to me.

“That will go good with your skin colour, since you’re quite white. Or pale,” she said. I looked at it and slowly nodded. I like black skater skirts, never worn coloured ones, but whatever, let’s give it a try.

Daisy picked out a maroon-coloured one for herself. I quickly skimmed through the store and looked for a fitting top/crop top that would go well with the skirt. I found a white laced crop top and picked it up. I showed Daisy the crop top and she approvingly nodded. It was kinda new for me to be shopping non-black/dark coloured things. It wasn’t bad, though, but it was more something I would pick for Daisy to wear.

“What do you think of this one?” Daisy asked, showing me a white sleeveless blouse. I put two thumbs up and smiled at her. We quickly paid for our things and left the store to look for shoes. I was honestly planning on wearing Dr. Martens boots underneath the skirt and crop top, but no, Daisy disapproved.

We soon spotted a store, where they sold shoes that weren’t too expensive. I picked up a pair of black heels with a strap in the middle. They were pretty high, but hey, although I’m not very girly, I can walk on heels like a pro.

Soon, Daisy also picked a pair of shoes. They were just plain black heels. We paid and left the store.

“Time to eat?” I asked with a big grin on my face. Daisy nodded and smiled. We were sitting on a bench, looking for a nearby sushi restaurant on our phones.

“Okay Aria, don’t look up. Don’t.”

“What? Why?” I asked, looking up. Only then did I understand why she told me to not look up. I sighed and looked back at my phone, ignoring the people in front of me.

“What a coincidence that we meet again,” Jungkook said. He sat down next to me, his friends sitting down next to him.

“Yeah, amazing,” I said, monotonously.

“Guess I’ll see you at the party tonight. Bye babe.”

“Ah! I found a restaurant Daisy.” I pointed at my phone and showed her a picture of the restaurant. It was a two minute walk from here. I quickly called the restaurant to reserve a table for two, just in case. “Okay, thank you so much! See you,” I said and hung up. Daisy and I picked up our bags and made our way to the restaurant by feet.

“Hello, I just called a while ago under the name Aria,” I said. The waiter nodded and led us to a table for two. We sat down and started ordering.

After 2,5 hours, we finished eating. We had to quickly go home and get ready for the party, since it was starting around 9pm.

“I’m so full,” I said. I stretched when we finally got to the car. Instead of calm, soothing music, we put up some upbeat music to sing along to.

After a good 40 minutes, we arrived at my house. We got our bags from the trunk and carried them in. My parents weren’t home, so we went up to my room immediately.

“I’ll take a shower first!” I yelled and ran into the bathroom.

After taking a shower, I got out in my bathrobe and told Daisy to go in. She even had her own bathrobe at our house.

Before changing or doing whatever, I closed my curtains. I grabbed Daisy’s bag with make up and decided to put on BB cream for once. I absolutely hate it, but only for tonight. My skin is already pretty good, so I don’t need it, but so it doesn’t get oily, I put on a little bit of BB cream and a little bit of powder. After that, I decided to do smokey eyes with brown, creme, white and a little touch of black. After that, I went on to my eyeliner. Just when I finished one eye, Daisy come out of the bathroom in a bathrobe. She stood next to me, in front of the huge mirror. We did our make up together in front of the mirror. I finished the eyeliner on my other eye and went on to mascara. After mascara, came blush and highlighter (and a bit of bronzer). I didn’t want to put on lipstick just yet. I put on my bra and underwear. After that I put the skirt and crop top on.

“Wow, Aria! You look girly for once!” Daisy beamed and clapped her hands together.

“Thanks, I guess,” I said and smiled. I blowdried my hair and sat on my bed, waiting for Daisy to finish doing her make up and putting on her clothes.

“Want to trade skirts?” I asked.

“No.” She firmly said. I pouted and took my phone out to take some selcas. I don’t take selcas very often, but I have to take advantage of the situation, don’t I? I finally look put together and nice, compared to my usual ‘no-make-up-and-black-clothes’- look.

“We look super cute,” Daisy said, laughing at her own words.

“Agreed,” I chuckled. Don’t misunderstand, we weren’t being full of ourselves! We were joking around.

“Can you open up the curtains now? I want to make selcas and I need natural lighting for that,” Daisy said. I nodded and got up to open the curtains. I went back to my bed immediately afterwards, standing in front of the mirror again to put my lipstick on.

“How much time do we have left? I’m bored,” I whined. Daisy looked at her watch, “10 minutes.” I nodded and walked over to the bag with my newly bought shoes in it. I opened it, took off all the stickers on the shoes and wore them. I walked around for a bit to see if they hurt my feet, and fortunately, they didn’t. Daisy did the same after blowdrying her hair and we went downstairs together. I put on my checkered coat and waited for Daisy at the door. I put my phone in Daisy’s clutch and we got into her car. The drive to Jamie’s house wasn’t that long, maybe a bit under 5 minutes. Not sure what we were going to do if we both drank.

When we got to Jamie’s house, all the parking spots were taken. We had to drive down to another street to park there. After that, we walked to Jamie’s house, hooking our arms together.

“My feet might just die because of these heels,” Daisy said. I chuckled and looked around. There were a lot of people that also just arrived. They were getting out of the car and also making their way to Jamie’s house.

“Hey Aria, hey Daisy.” We both turned our heads and saw Cha Eun. She’s always been very nice to us, so we didn’t mind walking with her to the party. “What are you two wearing? I’m not sure if my clothes are appropiate for this party..” She said. We both opened up our coats.

She gasped, “Oh my god Aria! You look so cute and pretty! You two look beautiful compared to me, god.”

Daisy and I thanked her and smiled. She showed us her clothes.

“You’re also beautiful! What are you talking about..” I said. She hesitantly smiled. We arrived in front of Jamie’s house and we all took our coats off and hung it up. The place was reeking with alcohol and sweat. It was only 9.30 and people were already drunk?

“Let’s drink something first,” Daisy said and dragged me to the table with drinks. We did some shots before exploring the house. We didn’t go upstairs, though, because that’s Jamie’s own privacy and we respect that. We did look around the garden and the rest of the house. The garden had a pool in the middle of it and there were chairs and tables around it. There were lanterns around the garden and around the pool. We took a seat on one of the chairs.

“Jamie’s house is huge..” Daisy said, still in awe. Honestly, we were both in awe. We knew she had a big house, but we didn’t know it was this big.

“Hey! How’s the party?” Jamie suddenly sat next to us.

“We just got here,” I smiled, “Your house is beautiful, by the way.”

“Thanks, dad designed it on his own,” she answered. I nodded and looked at Jamie’s clothing. She was just wearing a sparkly skintight dress with some heels. I must say, she looked really good.

“Okay, I’m going back in to make sure no one destroys my house,” she said and smiled. We waved at her and she went back in. After hanging around in the garden for a while, we decided to go back in and dance. It was more crowded than when we just got here, so we had to push our way through. Again, we drank a shot or two. Afterwards, we joined everyone. We were dancing and laughing together, feeling the alcohol slowly kicking in.

Suddenly, I felt someone tugging on my arm, so I turned around, only to see the one and only Jeon Jungkook in front of me.

“What?” I yelled, trying to be understandable.

“Nothing,” he said and smirked, turning back around and making out with a random girl. Okay, I didn’t have to witness that..

I quickly turned around and continued dancing with Daisy. There were times I felt someone tugging on my skirt, and I knew who it was. Everytime he did so, I slapped his hand away or dug my nails into his skin.

After a while, Daisy and I got overwhelmed by the amount of sweat and people that we were surrounded by, so we left the house and went back to the garden. We sat on one of the chairs and let out a much needed sigh.

“Disgusting..” We said in unison. We both laughed.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that I have different stages of being drunk slash tipsy. First, I get really clingy and touchy. Second, I start getting a lot more confidence. Lastly, I get aggressive. That’s only happened twice when I was drinking with Daisy. Not aggressive in ‘starting to punch everything in my way’, but I cuss a lot and get frustrated with the smallest things. Right now, I was in the first stage: ‘clingy and touchy’. I was leaning against Daisy and giving her kisses on her cheeks.

“Stop it Aria, you’re getting your saliva all over me,” Daisy whined.

“Sorry..” I giggled.

“Hey Aria.” Someone suddenly joined us. I sat up straight and looked at who it was. I gave the person a questioning look and pointed at him.

“Daisy.. Let’s go back in!” I said and dragged her by the arm, completely ignoring Jungkook. I didn’t do it on purpose, I promise! I just forgot to reply.

When we were back inside, Jamie was making an announcement, “Everyone! Thanks for coming to my party! Please continue to have fun and do not destroy anything, thanks!”

Everyone yelled an “Okay!” back and continued doing whatever they were doing, such as dancing, making out, drinking and the list goes on.

“Aria?” I turned around, facing.. my crush.

“HEY!” I said and smiled.

“Hey, uh.. aren’t you two a bit.. drunk?” He asked. I immediately shook my head.

“No, you’re drunk,” I said and lightly pushed him with my finger.

“Should I take you two home? I don’t think you’re able to drive like that..” He said. Daisy and I shook our heads.

“No no no, it’s fun here,” I said.

“Hm.. okay, if you say so. Want to dance?” He asked. I nodded and took his hand. We started dancing, not really to the beat of the song. We got pushed around a lot, so I ended up standing only an inch away from him.

“HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” A girl suddenly pulled us apart. My crush started panicking and walked away from the both of us. The girl quickly followed him, leaving me puzzled.

“Aria, you’re going home, let’s go. “ I was suddenly dragged out of the house. He put a coat on me and dragged me further away from the house.

“D..Daisy..”

“She’s fine, she’s with Hoseok.” I hesitantly nodded and just let him drag me along. I was suddenly sitting in a car, not familiar to me.

“What are you doing?..” I asked.

“You, Aria, are going home. I’m not gonna let you get taken home by a drunk girl,” Jungkook said. I scratched my head and rested my head against the headrest. I looked up at the sky and saw stars.

“The stars are really pretty tonight,” I said.

“Hmm,” Jungkook said.

“Why are you taking me home..” I asked, kinda weirded out, because we actually hate each other. I started zoning out and didn’t hear anything he said.

"I don't want our parents to blame me for your death or hospitalization.”

Soon, I fell into a deep sleep.