It took Yoongi three days until Halla finally agreed to meet up with him. Everyday she would just tell him that she was still busy at home and that she had important things to finish first. On the first day Yoongi had felt disappointed, but he had kept his hopes up high that Halla would join him the next day. On the second day the disappointment was replaced by helpless frustration and depression. The boy had step by step lost all of his confidence and his happiness had faded rapidly, Hoseok of course noticing it first. Jimin as well wasn’t making anything better as the clingy bug was around Halla the whole time and he had that rude attitude to just chime in whenever Yoongi and his crush were in the middle of some conversation. As much as Yoongi disliked Jimin, Jimin obviously hated him back. He was giving the blonde boy those meaningful and warning glances which all bounced off Yoongi’s through the years well- trained indifference. On the third day when Yoongi had already completely given up and instead interpreted Halla’s constant cancellations as a nice and polite way to turn him down, he was sitting next to Hoseok, his face showing all of the bad feelings torturing him.

“Do you really want to go on sulking like this forever?“, Hoseok criticized his friend’s absurd behavior. “You’re acting absolutely unreasonable because of a girl you don’t even know! You talk now and then - wow, that still doesn’t mean you’re close or that you know anything about her! How can you act like your world is about to end because of someone you just met a few days ago?! How old are you?! Five?! This is not your personal Armageddon!“ Yoongi’s head was still hanging like a drop of water, a long sigh coming from his lips. “It’s enough…“, Yoongi mumbled, the other one eyeing him skeptically. “What?“, Hoseok asked and instantly regretted it as the cool and sometimes pretty cold Yoongi was becoming the creepiest kind of shadow of himself. “…all I know about her is enough… she’s perfect.“ There was nothing else Hoseok could do than giving him a facepalm, not knowing how a person like Yoongi could have changed into some lovesick fool like that in a short period of time like this. First love was creepy. Seriously. And cringeworthy.

It was just then when the boys were about to bring their tablets back and head back to their classrooms when a girl jumped into their way, talking to Yoongi in a rush, breathing like she had run a marathon. “Hey Yoongi! Is your offer still up-to-date? To mix some music together? I think I’m free today after classes, so if you don’t mind, we could-“ - “SURE!“ Yoongi’s answer was so loud, Hoseok winced for a second, feeling like the musical genius next to him had just screamed into a megaphone. Halla smiled brightly, giving him a short nod. “Then we’ll see each other in front of the school?“, she asked and received a smile and a nod of Yoongi. The girl gave him a short thumbs up and then hurried out of the cafeteria again. As soon as she was gone, Hoseok grabbed Yoongi’s shoulders and turned him around to scold him, but the moment he faced his friend, he was run over by Yoongi’s love drunken smile. His feelings had been like a ski jumper, running down the mountain starting the day he had met Halla, and now they had just hit the ramp and sent him onto a flight of fancy which wouldn’t last forever. Hoseok was scared. Scared of how his friend would act once it was over and he would be falling back to the ground.

When Halla showed up after school, Yoongi was so happy for a second that he expected his heart to jump out of his chest right into Halla’s arms. His happiness was nevertheless dulled by Jimin showing up right next to her. He really was following her around like some dog. “You can go now, Jimin.“, Halla told him in a gentle, yet decisive tone. Her personal bodyguard didn’t move an inch. He was only scanning Yoongi from head to toe, snorting in disapproval. “Hey, I told you to go!“, the girl repeated herself. “I don’t like it…“, Jimin huffed and crossed his arms. “You don’t know that guy and still you want to follow him into his house. I’m against it.“ Halla’s expression darkened a bit as she furrowed her eyebrows and gave him a slight slap on his upper arm. “I went to your house several times too before we moved to Seoul! Why are you so rude? Go home and tell Woobin I’ll be back a bit later.“, she told him, leaving Yoongi in wonder who Woobin was and why Jimin had to tell him. Where the two of them neighbors? “I’ll come and fetch you around 8PM.“, Jimin decided and looked from Halla to Yoongi. “You.“, he addressed Halla’s classmate rudely. “Let me know your address. Unless I know where she’s going, I won’t let her accompany you.“ Disbelief and a bit of surprise crawled up onto Yoongi’s face. He was astonished by how brazen Jimin thought he could act in front of others but as he was willing to let Halla go if Yoongi was just playing along, he gave in. Discretion was the better part of valor, right? 

Jimin left the two students alone after Yoongi gave him his address and phone number, Halla being more than embarrassed by here friend’s more than awkward behavior. “I’m so sorry.“, she apologized once the two youngsters were walking down the alley. “Jimin can be such a jerk. He thinks he needs to protect me from everything. We’re not children anymore…! I can take care of my stuff my own.“ Halla complained and shook her head, Yoongi laughing silently about it. “It’s okay. You two seem to know each other pretty well.“ Indeed the boy was trying to find out more about their relationship, hoping that Halla would tell him a bit without being asked too obviously about the guy mimicking her shadow. Luckily she did. “We are. We know each other like forever. We grew up together and even moved from Busan to Seoul together.“, she informed Yoongi whose mouth almost dropped. “You moved to Seoul together?“ That sounded a lot like they were living together. “Yes, my brother more or less adopted Jimin when he decided to look for a job in Seoul. Jimin begged his parents to let him go with us and they agreed since they know my brother well enough to be assured that Jimin would be in good hands. He needs to be good at school, though. His parents just agreed to his plea because they said it would be better for him to attend a High School in Seoul instead of attending a school in Busan.“ She was chuckling, signalizing Yoongi that she didn’t really believe Jimin could be that good at school. Yoongi joined her chuckle insecurely, one question still remaining in his head. “What about your parents?“, he asked. The girl’s mood dropped almost immediately. And Yoongi soon got the answer why. “They’re dead.“ Her words left a shiver on Yoongi’s skin, he felt stupid for having asked. He had destroyed the whole atmosphere between them. At least he knew now better about his rival. Yoongi wouldn’t only challenge some random best friend. He would go to battle with someone who had been there for Halla when her parents had died and even now he was by her side, going to the extent to leave his own family behind to be with her. This was tough. But Yoongi was still accepting the challenge.

Yoongi’s family’s home was a pretty apartment in Gangnam, far from where Halla actually lived, but she was happy to just once see how people where living in that famous area almost everyone in the world knew about thanks to PSY. The first thing Halla noticed was the absence of anyone else. “Your family is not around?“, she asked and looked around as if someone could show up the very next moment. “Nope, my parents are both working full-time, so it’s just me, you… and probably my brother. But I guess he’ll stay in his room the whole time.“ While Yoongi was taking off his shoes, Halla was already moving curiously through the apartment, examining the many photos spread in the living room. Yoongi’s parents were both attractive and gentle looking persons which explained pretty much where Yoongi got his good looks from. And where his brother got it from. “Is this your younger brother?“, Halla needed to confirm her assumptions, not knowing if his brother was actually older or younger. They looked around the same age. “Yes, younger.“, Yoongi answered and followed her around. “He’s just some weird kid who spends most of the time playing football or  video games.“ Halla frowned and pursed her lips, trying to figure how many years the brothers were apart. “How old is your brother?“, she wanted to know. “16.“ The girl couldn’t believe her ears when she heard about his age. “Aren’t you just 17? That makes one year the most and you’re talking about your brother like he was 12.“ Yoongi just shrugged and waved Halla over, telling her to follow him into his room.

From just entering his private room, everyone could tell that Yoongi was extremely into music. He had a little studio set up in the area where his desk was placed. A DJ controller connected to a laptop was standing on a control stand, a keyboard and a microphone being installed next to it. On the wall there was a giant record collection and the only books Halla could find around where biographies of certain musicians or books about music theory. Yoongi was really a music addict and Halla appreciated it a lot that Yoongi invited her to his home. She herself could never afford anything of what her classmate called his own. She was mixing her music simply on Woobin’s computer, not even owning one herself.  “Wow.“ No more words than that were left. Halla was too amazed. She immediately walked towards the DJ controller and longingly looked at it. “You can try and use it if you want to.“, Yoongi told her and the laptop. He loved how his crush’s eyes were gleaming at his words when she started to move one of the hubs.

The two took hours playing around, mixing new beats and thinking about ways how to perform the little song segments they had worked on. Time just flew by and it was almost 8 PM when Halla checked her phone, Jimin already having texted her to inform her he was already on his way to pick her up. “Ahh… it’s almost time… but we should do that more often! It’s been fun!“ Yoongi felt a mixture of sadness and happiness, knowing that Halla had to leave but knowing that she wanted to visit him again. He hoped that it would be soon and that it wouldn’t take too long until he was able to spend that much time with her. “Come over whenever you want to.“, he said and smiled slightly. Halla nodded and checked her phone again. “Jimin will be here in a few minutes. Do you mind if I use your bathroom?“ Yoongi’s eyes widened and he quickly shook his head. “Sure, it’s on the other side of the floor, almost on the opposite of my room.“

Halla left the room, being happy to use the toilet before Jimin was there to get her. Yoongi was living in Gangnam while Halla was living in Hapjeong which was at least 40 minutes away by subway. She wouldn’t survive the way home like this. When she left the bathroom and wanted to head back to Yoongi’s room there was a little problem with it. Even though finding the bathroom was pretty easy, finding Yoongi’s room was not. In front of Halla there were two closed doors and she wasn’t sure anymore which one she had come from. Unsure if she should just go for one and open the door, she hesitated a second. What if she was disturbing someone. What if Yoongi’s parents were already back home and she was meeting them like this… not knowing which of the rooms was Yoongi’s and getting to know them as a total stranger, never having heard of her before. “Omo…“, the girl mumbled and scratched the back of her head. Jimin would kill her or Yoongi… probably both, if she didn’t show up punctual in front of the building. With pinched eyes she decided to just go for one of the rooms, regretting it the moment she really opened the door. 

In front of her, there was a boy sitting in front of his desk, his back showing to her until he realized someone having opened the door. Shocked by what exactly was playing at the monitor of his computer, Halla was standing in the door like paralyzed, having dropped open. He was watching adult movies. He was watching adult movies! And from the shock on his face Halla could read that she was shocking him more than the other way round. “W-WHO-?!“, the boy voiced out. “I’m sorry!“, Halla shouted and took a step back, closing the door in front of her and breathing in and out slowly. This didn’t really happen. It did not. All the pictures and sounds in this room. Nothing of it had happened. She was reciting it like a mantra in her head, but yet she couldn’t contain herself and started laughing. Not about Yoongi’s brother. But about the whole situation and how this could really have happened. Halla couldn’t even stop when the door in front of her was opened again and the younger of the brothers, who still was taller than her, was looking at her with his big deer eyes. “I can explain all of this! It’s not what it looked like!“, he blurted out. The girl tried her best to suppress her laughters and shook her head. “No, no… it’s okay…“, she appeased him. “No, really!“, he went on when the door next to his was opened and Yoongi looked at the two of them with his eyebrows puckered. “What…? …I’m not even asking.“, he wondered and eyed the two but decided to let it go as someone else was already in his back, “Jimin is there, he just called me and told me to get you ‚the heck‘ downstairs because he’s waiting.“ Halla nodded quickly and was accompanied out of the apartment by her classmate while his brother was watching them speechlessly and frustratedly because he hadn’t been given the chance to clear his name. 

“So, this was your brother?“, the girl wanted to know once the two students were inside of the elevator. Yoongi shrugged his shoulders and sighed shortly. “Yupp. That was my brother Jungkook. I hope he didn’t bother you… it pretty much looked like it.“, Yoongi answered to her and looked at her in an apologetic manner. “Nothing like that.“, she assured him. To be exact, she had been the one to bother him. After all it had been her to open the wrong door and end up in the younger one’s private room. 

As soon as they reached the front door, Jimin was approaching the friends, having already waited for quite some time outside in the fresh night air. “Hey! Don’t let making me wait become a habit!“, he immediately complained and grabbed Halla’s shoulder to drag her a bit away from Yoongi. He didn’t like to see them so close together. The protectiveness was coming over the boy and he was scowling at Yoongi like a  gnarling beast. “Stop this, Jimin! You’re embarrassing me again!“ Since Halla knew how to treat someone like Jimin pretty well, she just pinched into her best friend’s cheek and smiled at Yoongi. “Today was fun! Thanks for that. Seeya tomorrow.“ Yoongi slightly nodded, trying not to blush in front of the two and he was even more happy when Halla dragged Jimin away, pulling him by his cheek, the boy complaining and whining loudly while he was stumbling behind the female. Never before Yoongi had felt something similar like this. He was happy, he was relieved and he couldn’t wait to see Halla again at school. Humming in delight, he was walking back inside.

“I hate you!“, Jimin huffed and rubbed his aching cheek. The two friends were already sitting in the subway, the male one all busy with patching up his pounding face with gentle while Halla was all succumbing to her phone. “Hey…! Are you even listening?“, he whined and looked over his friend’s shoulder to check what must have been more interesting than him and his tortured face. Halla was texting someone on facebook, Jimin grabbed a short glance at the display and noticed the boy on the screen. That was definitely not Yoongi. His name was Jungkook and Halla was texting him something. “Have you ever heard of privacy?“, Halla commented on him dipping into it. “No.“, Jimin answered bluntly but when the girl turned her head around and poked into the red fingerprints left on his skin, he quickly backed off. “Okay, yes! YES!“, he surrendered and grumpily watched how she was happily texting that person.

Halla: hey

Halla: jungkook?

Halla: dude, I can see that you read my msg 😂

Halla: rly, don’ worry about that thing with the stuff

Jungkook: i told you it wasn’t like that…!!!

Halla: haha, sure

Jungkook: y r u texting me at all?!

Halla: want me to stop?

Jungkook: what if?

Halla: would still text you, tho😂😂😂

Jungkook: u r rly exhausting😒

Halla: 😘