A/N: So I feel like things are kind of getting draggy, so hopefully this update will kind of begin to pick things up. Thanks for reading, y'all. Enjoy! xoxo

//

This was not what you had expected at all.

Actually, you should have seen it coming.

You were locked up in Music Room #3, sitting smack dab in between Jungkook and Taehyung.

And there was Namjoon, the Shadow King, looming in front of all three of you.

He had a chalkboard out, furiously describing the various uses of logarithms. A pointer was in his hand, glasses atop the bridge of his nose.

After spending four classes with the guy, you were beginning to grow even more exhausted than you had already been at the beginning of the day. You had showed up to Homeroom, seated yourself, finally ready for a bit of peace and quiet, when Namjoon had strolled in and announced that he would be accompanying to every single one of your classes, to help tutor you.

Of course this was the way that Namjoon courted.

He was greater than a genius, you were sure of it. The way that he carried himself, able to meet the expectations of both teachers and students—all of it screamed “Prodigy!” over and over again. He had such a perfect balance of professionalism, carrying himself with a certain grace in front of his professors, yet when he was in the presence of his fan club or other pupils in general, he grew younger, albeit still much more mature than he should have been at his age.

“Therefore, like I was saying…” Namjoon continued, all of his words swirling around your mind again and again. He was quite a harsh tutor, wasn’t he?

Your brain was pounding, and the two nutheads next to you weren’t exactly helping.

There seemed to be some sort of rough rivalry going on between them. This you could tell, as Jungkook harshly tugged your chair over to the left, where he sat.

He threw you that dashing smiling, his cheek leaning upon a hand. “My princess, how have you been so far? Has Namjoon been treating you well?”

Before you could fit in an answer, you felt yourself being pulled back, to the right.

Taehyung had taken your hand in his, writing in the correct answer on your Algebra II worksheet. “You’re welcome, babe,” he whispered. “I got the answers from Jimin earlier, you don’t need to listen to that airhead.”

You chuckled weakly.

“Um, thanks? Are you, uh, hurt from this morning?” you asked tentatively.

“Just a scratch or two,” Taehyung responded lazily, shrugging. “It’ll take more than that to hurt me.”

He flashed his sly grin at you, eyes piercing into yours like a fox’s.

There was a slamming on the table.

“Hey!” Namjoon said sternly. “Are you three listening to me at all?”

“I don’t even know why I’m here,” Jungkook whined. He threw his pencil onto the table, pouty.

“Exactly,” Taehyung said, sarcasm and taunt dripping from his words. He slid himself further across the table so that he could directly stare at Jungkook in the eye.

“If I’m not mistaken,” he drawled, “your ‘princess’ isn’t even in the same grade as you.”

He tugged you over closer to him, an arm slipping around your waist. “Whereas I am. Don’t you ever think that you might not be so suited to your very own doll, Jungkook?”

Taehyung blinked pointedly at him, clearly pressing Jungkook’s buttons to the max.

There was a sharp pain to your head.

“Ouch!” you hissed, rubbing your forehead. You glared up at Namjoon, who was tapping his pointer impatiently in the palm of his hand. “That hurt.”

“Well,” Namjoon responded with an easy smile, “if you three bothered to pay attention, you wouldn’t have to endure so much extra pain, wouldn’t you, now?”

You wanted to groan. Hadn’t you endured enough pain last night?

And speaking of last night…

Your eyes trailed towards Taehyung, who was now enraptured in Namjoon’s lecture. When you had walked in earlier, he hadn’t mentioned anything about the bruises on your wrists from this morning. Nothing at all. In fact…

//

“Come to the music room after lunch.”

That’s what Namjoon had said, hadn’t he? Though you weren’t too keen on spending your only free period with the devil of a tutor, you couldn’t bring it in yourself to say no.

You sighed, dragging your feet along the marble tile to Music Room #3, a place that you both enjoyed, yet dreaded at the same time. On the one hand, the boys were very sincere in their sweet attitudes towards you. On the other, sometimes you wondered where you fit in, amidst all of this rich and luxurious high-class society. Sometimes you just wanted to talk about normal things, like the free frappuccino deal at Starbucks—not whether or not “hydrangea” was going to be the next Pantone Color of the Year.  

Now that you had spent some time at The Academy, the after effects of Junmyeon’s alternate personalities were beginning to wear off. You were thankful for the grueling exercises that Namjoon put you through—so tedious they were that, you barely had any room in your head to think of anything else. It was a bit hard to think about the pain from your bruising when your mind was being tortured with Chemistry exercises.

You reached the end of the hall, a hand on the golden doorknob. You were about to open the door when you heard a shout.

“So what do you want me to do, huh? Give up on her?”

“Taehyung, I’m just saying, maybe you should lay off a bit. She has a boyfriend.”

Recognizing the sound of Jungkook’s voice, your ears perked up a bit. What were they even talking about? What girl? What boyfriend?

And why did Taehyung sound so upset?

From inside the room, you could hear Jin consoling them, motherly ways kicking into action.

“You guys need to calm down, alright? Taehyung, I know you’re upset, but Jungkook is just trying to look out for you.”

“‘Look out’ for me?” He scoffed. “Oh, please. Don’t think I didn’t see you snipping off that white lily in the gardens earlier, Jungkook. I know what you’re trying to do.”

Something in Jungkook’s voice stiffened. You could imagine him already, head down, bangs covering his eyes.

“… What are you talking about, Taehyung?”

The words were spat out so harshly that you flinched.

“You’re going to ask her to be your date for the dance party this Saturday, aren’t you?”

Jungkook was stuttering now, unable to defend himself. Flustered. Upset.

“I-I-It wasn’t like that, okay? I just wanted, u-uh. Um.”

You frowned, though you weren’t one hundred percent sure why. Jungkook could go and ask any girl he wanted to the dance party, right? It wasn’t like… he had any obligation to you.

Right, you told yourself. He didn’t have to do anything of the sort. He could do whatever he wanted—after all, by Saturday, the week’s worth of personal courting would be over. And all of this would end.

You didn’t know why you felt so glum. After all, it wasn’t like you had ever wanted any of this to happen, anyways.

If Jeon Jungkook wanted to go and ask a girl to be his date, that was his business. You should be happy for him.

Let him find a girl on his own level.

You swallowed the bitter taste in your mouth.

“Wanted to what?”

“Taehyung,” you heard somebody warn. Probably Jimin.

“Alright, you two, stop.” Yoongi’s voice cut in, sharp and threatening. “She’s going to be here any minute. Do you think that she’ll like either of you if she hears you both bickering like children?”

“Actually,” you heard a voice say, coming closer. You realized that you were about to be found out, yet stayed as still as a statue, crouched in your eavesdropping stance.

The door opened to reveal Namjoon staring down at you from his great height.

“She’s already here.”

//

“Come on,” Jungkook said, pulling you by the hand. “We’re almost there.”

You followed the leader of the Host Club blindly as the two of you marched through the grass lawn, up the hill towards somewhere you completely didn’t know.

Released from Namjoon’s torturous academic exercises, Jungkook had asked you immediately afterwards to follow him. Where? You didn’t know, but all you could think about was your face growing hot and your heart pounding relentlessly as he tugged you along, hand in hand.

Outside, the sky was beautiful. Bright blue, not a cloud in sight today. Tall trees dotted the back of The Academy’s campus, almost making it seem as if there were no skyscraper buildings or city smog right next door. The place had managed to make itself completely apart from the rest of the busy street, all regal columns and elegant shrubbery.

“Is this a—” Your voice broke off when you saw what Jungkook had led you to.

“The Academy’s stables? Yup.”

“This is actually a thing.” Eyes wide, mouth gaped—that was you.

“Of course,” Jungkook responded, “it’s for one of our courses here at The Academy, after all.”

There were around two or three rows, each little wooden cubicle harboring its very own horse. Grass became dirt, hay littered all over the floor inside. Jungkook kept on walking to the very end, stopping only when he reached a white-blue stallion.

He ran a hand over the animal, which nipped him in delight.

“This is Cobalt,” Jungkook said, smiling. He patted the horse affectionately, eyes wandering all over. “I’ve had him since I was a child.”

“Is that so?”

Though you weren’t in the slightest sure why you were even here, you went along with what Jungkook, continuing to let him talk.

“…And so I told my father that I just had to have him—after all, everybody else I knew had one at the time…”

You grew slightly uncomfortable in the hot stables. You gulped. Once again, you were being reminded of how far apart you and Jungkook’s worlds were. Whereas you had grown up in a small apartment, just getting by with what you had, Jungkook had been born in a society that was flourry and fancy, where children ate with silver spoons in golden high chairs, and apparently, asked for horses at the age of seven.

“But the actual reason I brought you out here is because…” Jungkook ducked his head. His fingers curled around something upon Cobalt’s white-gold mane, though you couldn’t see what.

“Yes?” You looked up at him. You were slightly antsy—the break for class was only fifteen minutes, and you weren’t quite sure how much time the two of you had already wasted.

Pink like the flowers dotting the hill was beginning to bloom from Jungkook’s cheeks. You were met with a familiar face this time—Shy Jungkook, out and about when nobody was around to see his “princely” image.

“Y-you know how we’re, um, having the dance party this Saturday?” He coughed out his words.

“Oh, yeah.” You slumped at the thought. To you, Saturday meant the end. There would be no more courting, no more adoring looks and thoughtful actions and—

And what? You scolded yourself. You were a commoner’s girl. What did you expect? To be coddled by these handsome Host Club boys forever?

Besides, you thought, Junmyeon would never in a million years allow it.

You absentmindedly rubbed the bruises on your wrist.

Jungkook was stammering, saying, “I-I-I know you have a b-boyfriend, but I was just wondering, if—ah—”

He was interrupted by the striking of the school’s bell tower, signaling the five-minute mark.

His eyes shot up to the tall structure, so vast and great that even from the stables it was in view.

He hurried along, anxiousness in his words.

“I-I was just wondering if you could…”

He fell silent. Underneath the blue of his blazer, you could see his arms tightening.

“I’m really sorry Jungkook, but I have to go,” you said apologetically. “My class is on the other side of campus and I—”

“No, of course,” Jungkook said. He swallowed thickly, though you weren’t sure why, his eyes growing sad around the corners. “I understand.”

You gripped your art bag, not sure what was going on with him.

“Did you want to come with?”

You were tentative, careful. You never knew with Shy Jungkook—anything could happen with him, for godsake.

He shook his head lightly, brown eyes staring down at the brown of the floor. “No, no. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Backing away slowly, you gave him a weak wave. Though you weren’t too sure what sort of dilemma he had, you had your priorities. And honestly, what with everything that happened the day before, you were in no way shape or form ready to be worried or concerned over somebody else. Especially after Junmyeon visited…

If you didn’t take care of yourself, your mind could nearly eat at you from the inside out.

And so with a soft, “I’ll see you tomorrow”, you stepped out of the stables, making your way to the last period of the day.

//

It was too bad that you had, though.

Otherwise things might have gone much, much more differently.

This, Jungkook knew.

Knew as he cursed at himself for his stupid shyness, always never able to stand up for what he wanted.

Knew as he watched you leave, slip out of the grasp of his fingertips.

This he knew, as he curled his fingers angrily around the flower that he had oh-so carefully picked out for you—

Strangling the most perfect white lily.

//

A/N: Boohoo :( Let me know how you guys feel about the members' POV! I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts.

If you liked this chapter, make sure to upvote, comment, and SUBSCRIBE for more content! I hope that this has kind of roughened things up huehue I mean Jungkook vs Tae--this could get pretty interesting, you know what I mean? Regardless, thank you very much for reading, I truly appreciate it! I hope you enjoyed. xoxo