[Chapter O1. B i t t e r l y]

When Jungkook woke up, he was only aware of the fact that his head felt heavy. There was a pressure right at his temples that caused him to let out a loud groan. He shut his eyes and sat up. He should've known that it'd be a bad idea to go against Jimin on a 1 on 1 drinking match. That guy could down 3 whole bottles of soju if he felt like it. Yet his ego got the better of him.

Oh how he hated his own pride.

A blurred vision of Jimin's cocky grin and the sniggering faces of Jin and Hoseok was what appeared when he tried to recall last night’s events. With another groan, Jungkook rolled over again, this time onto his stomach, and he buried his pounding head into his pillow.

It hurt too much to think.

The door opened revealing his mother; arms crossed and glaring. Jungkook let out a little whine, attempting to get some sort of affection out of her. Her glare only worsened.

"Did you have a fun night?" she asked with a mocking tone.

"Not really, just the same old thing," he let out a shaky laugh unsure if this was another one of tricks to get the truth out of him. Most of the times they failed-courtesy to his tight-lipped personality-but those rare occasions they actually worked just added more fuel to the fire—the fire being his mother and the fuel being her persistency.

"I see..." she stepped over the mountain of clothes and pass the numerous amounts of shoes scattered across the ground to sit on the edge of her son's single mattress. Note to self: get Jungkook to clean his room. "You know what day it is, right?"

"Saturday? Or maybe Sunday..." he pondered silently to himself before the vein in his forehead felt like it was on the verge of exploding.

"Actually, it's Monday. Nice try though," she praised with a hint of sarcasm. "And you know what time it is, right?"

"I'm guessing its... half past 3?" That was the time he usually woke up when he had a hangover. Not that he was ever going to say that to his mother, he was already treading on thin ice.

"It's half past 9 and you're late for school," she said.

. The colour drained from his face as realization hits him.

Today was the day that he had to hand in his modern history assignment that was supposed to be handed in 2 weeks ago, but with a whole lot of begging and kissing he managed to get an extension. And where was this assignment right now? Maybe it was under that pile of clothes or crumpled up in the corner of his gym locker.

Right now, he wanted to be anywhere but at school (maybe that was part of the reason he agreed to the drinking contest).

"You better hurry up now, you're already half an hour late," she said with pursed lips, trying (and failing) to hold back her smirk as she watched his expressions change every passing second. Oh, how she had raised up a cute little son.

With a mouthful of rice and some kimchi, his trusty skateboard hugged tightly by his left arm, a bottle of red Powerade in the grip his right hand and his backpack strapped over his right shoulder he raced out of the small apartment where he had grown up in. At the moment it was just him and his mother living there, since his older brother had moved out just last year and his father was in Busan for business. He really didn’t mind leaving with just his mother for the time being but lately he’s been craving some fatherly or brotherly advice to aid with his girl problems (curse his teenage hormones).

-

When he arrived at school, after a 10 minute bus trip, he was greeted by the conceited face of Jimin and the usual blank face of Taehyung.

“Morning hyungs,” Jungkook greeted with a slight bow.

Jimin let out a little ‘heh’ before draping his arm over Jungkook’s shoulder. “Kookie, where have you been?” Jimin cooed, “You missed out on 2 periods already. Perhaps you had a little hangover this morning?” he teased.

Jungkook narrowed his eyes at him. How was it that this guy was okay when he was going through hell this morning.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jimin waved both hands frantically in front of his face. “No need to pull that face, it’s a little bit scary…”

“Looks like you need to take a big poop,” Taehyung added.

Jungkook pushed Taehyung playfully, “You see,” he began. “This is why you can’t get a girlfriend,” he and Jimin both laugh.

“Well I guess the same applies to you two as well,” Taehyung countered with a smirk. As much as an airhead Taehyung was, he was good at turning the tables.

Jungkook and Jimin’s laughter died down almost immediately.

“Excuse me! But I’m single by choice!” Jimin declared.

“Ah…” Jungkook turned and stared at the shorter boy, “What are you saying? Single by choice my …”

“I am!” Jimin folded his arms in defense, “Did you know that I’ve been confessed to almost 10 times since the start of this semester?” he boasted.

Taehyung scoffed, “10 times by the same girl. That doesn’t count.”

“Eh!? Seriously!?” Jungkook’s eyes widened in amazement. “Wow, Shirin sure doesn’t know when to quit.”

“Hey, Park Shirin sure has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” Taehyung teased making Jimin scrunch his face up childishly.

“You guys are jerks!” Jimin said before turning his back to the two. “I’m going to class!”

Both boys looked at each other, then back to the Jimin who was getting further and further away from them. They let out a low ‘ooooo’ sound.

“He’ll cool down by next period,” Taehyung stated.

“I should be getting to class too.”

“Alright, I’ll see you later then.”

It wasn’t every day you would find out that your boyfriend of 11 months had been cheating on you for 5 months. It seriously wasn’t.

When Maka had found out, all hell had broken loose. She had found out when an anonymous caller rang her in the middle of the night. At first, she thought it was some bastard’s sick idea of a joke but the more she dwelled on it, the clearer it was to her.

She had confronted her cousin on Saturday (2 days after the phone call happened) after she had dumped her sorry excuse of a boyfriend and left a massive dint on his precious car. However, confronting her cousin didn’t go exactly as she planned and resulted with her face covered in scratches and her cousin covered in bruises. Let’s not forget the part where her parents kicked her out of the house for ruining their reputations and dirtying the family name.

Now she was living in some tiny apartment in suburban Incheon and living off 400 000 won a month. Maka knew that 400 000 won was only enough to pay for the rent and utilities. She also knew what her parents were trying to do—they were trying to get her to work. How scheming of them.

But she wasn’t going to succumb to their plan.

She came prepared. And by prepared she meant she had 3 of her father’s many credit cards at her disposal, she even went the mile to make sure that the cards could not be annulled without her say so. Nobody was going to make a fool out of her.

“Maka? Han Maka? Is Han Maka here?”

The sound of her name broke her out of her thoughts. Maka raised her right arm which caught the attention of the 5 foot tall man standing in front of the black chalk board. “Yes, that’s me.”

The 5 foot tall man or Mr Jung stared at her then at the paper in his hands. “Everyone,” his voice echoed in the classroom, “This is Han Maka, and she has transferred here from Seoul Academy of the Arts. Please make sure she feels welcome.”

Maka could feel everyone’s eyes on her, she knew what they were thinking, something along the lines of “She’s from SAA? Omo! Why is she here then?”

It was another one of her punishments. Her parents had pulled her out of the very prestigious Seoul Academy of the Arts and enrolled her into some public school otherwise known as ByeonGi High School.

Her life had taken a major downfall.

But she regretted nothing.

The door opened abruptly, revealing two boys. The shorter one had brown hair and a boyish face, the taller one had messy blonde hair and an unamused expression on his face. “Jungkookie!” The one with the boyish face called out in a sing-song voice.

All eyes were on them now. Mr Jung was stumped at the situation before him but quickly came about. “Yah! Park Jimin and Kim Taehyung what are you two doing? Class has started 5 minutes ago!”

Jimin touched the back of his neck and laughed loudly, "My bad! Sorry sir!"

"Yah! You disrespectful-" The male teacher's words were brought to a halt by the loud slamming of the door. “Curse that rude Park Jimin…” he muttered to himself.

-

Maka spent most of her classes running her hands through her long brown hair, trying to brush the knots out. This was how she had spent all her classes doing and she had planned to do this for the last period as well.

However, the modern history teacher had a thing or two to say about it. She had spent the first 10 minutes of class lecturing her. What a prude, who gets all worked up about something as juvenile over a little hair brushing. Obviously her.

“You need an attitude fix,” Mrs Kim stated and pursed her lips at the gold rectangular badge on Maka’s blouse pocket. Mrs Kim had to admit that she was surprised. Where the other students would mix and match the school uniform with something out of their closet, Han Maka did not. She was in complete school uniform—blue blouse, navy tie, black knee length skirt, gold badge and black leather shoes. Han Maka was probably a model student; after all she was an ex-student of a prestigious school.

Maka rolled her eyes and crossed her legs, waiting for the bob-haired teacher to stop staring at her like she was part of freak show. Which she did the moment a dark-haired boy with a skate board and snap back walked in.

“Jungkook, you’re 10 minutes late.” Her eyes narrowed at the red snapback on his head. “Take the hat off or you’ll never see it again,” she threatened.

Jungkook complied and took the hat off. He cracked a nervous smile and searched for a seat. His eyes immediately landed on the seat next to Kim Gerin, the creepy dude who had a knack at staring right into your soul.

Not there, he grimaced but managed to keep his cool.

His eyes scanned the other half of the classroom and found an empty seat next to Han Maka, the new student who had become the talk of the whole school. According to the things Jungkook had heard, she used to be a student from Seoul Academy of Arts but got kicked out when she was caught ing with some of the teachers and students.

He shrugged slightly, rumours were rumours and Kim Gerin was hella creepy. 

Word Count: 1916

[h e l l o  e v e r y o n e (￣▽￣)ノ ,
this took a while to write and i'm not sure why haha,
i hope you liked this chapter ♡ ]