It was a typical Friday afternoon and the Bangtan Boys had taken this opportunity to hang around at their usual spot somewhere in the park next to their neighborhood. Rap Monster, Suga and Jin were busy having an arm wresting competition while Jimin and V were skating. Jungkook and J-hope had settled themselves on the ground and lay side-by-side, caps over their faces and limbs sprawled across the grass like small kids that had no care in the world.

Jungkook took this time in trying to get some sense into the older male.

“Yah hyung, why are you so mean to Kang Soa?” The maknae turned over onto his stomach as grass fell from his disheveled hair.

J-Hope turned his head in his direction “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“She just slapped you hyung, you didn’t even get that hurt did you?”

The older frowned. “It hurt my ego. That didn’t even genuinely apologize”

“Hyung~” Jungkook whind. J-Hope was such a stubborn and uptight prick sometimes; it was amazing how he could be on the same wavelengths. “You’ve done enough to humiliate her already”

“She messed with the wrong person” Hoseok snapped.

“But it was a mistake!”

“Jungkook,” J-hope’s eyebrows shot up and practically disappeared under his hairline, “Are you protecting her?”

“I just don’t like seeing her getting all the crap from others” Jungkook replied with hardness in his voice that hadn’t been present earlier. The maknae couldn’t even be called the maknae in those circumstances, and sometimes J-Hope wondered who exactly was the eldest amongst them. Apart from his innocent and baby like face, Jungkook was the epitome of a manly man, no one would’ve told that he was his actual age because he looked a lot older, a lot more mature than him, even.

“Wait, what?” J-Hope blinked, as the younger’s words echoed inside his mind. Were there others that have been bullying her all this time? It clicked into his brain then. It made sense as to why she had been sporting all those scattered bruises when he had cornered her, and the scratch on her cheek was probably from a nail or something. Hate didn’t waste any time to course through his blood and pump it with anger and irritation while he practically felt the vein at his temple throb. J-Hope did piss her off sure, did humiliate her, but no other being other than him could lay a had on Kang Soa because technically speaking she owed him a lot more than she actually thought. Having hit his cheek and getting away with it was a no-no for him, but that didn’t mean he was going to let some other get her hands on his prey. She could go and find her own because Hoseok wasn’t about to let that one go.

He was mildly surprised at his own possessiveness. Since when was Kang Soa such an important aspect of his life? He scoffed; she’s nothing but trash. I’m just having fun pushing her around because I’m bored; he tried reasoning with himself, nodding.

“Hyung are you listening to me?” Jungkook’s voice made him blink back to reality.

“Come again” He said.

“There are girls that are harassing her physically, and you find it okay to let them have their own way?”

“Girls?..” the elder frowned “Who?”

Jungkook raised a brow “ Oh so now you’re interested”

Hoseok could only roll his eyes to the sky and plop his cap back down over his face “general knowledge” he murmured when the maknae knew quite well from the way his hyung was covering his face that something else had been sparked in J-Hope.

Something that he probably hadn’t any clue of yet and something that he wouldn’t even question since from his early childhood, J-Hope had had an abhorring time to come in terms with love, and is still in that battlefield where he wasn’t sure whether it was time to take off his shield or cower against it like a lost child.

If one was to ask for advice about love, J-Hope was probably the last person that you could count on. He would probably scoff and tell you to go away because love didn’t exist.

“Hyung, you should seriously talk to those girls”

“Go to hell. She deserves it” he murmured back before turning away, and Jungkook knew the conversation was closed.

He wished that Hoseok wasn’t so blind and stubborn sometimes, because he himself felt pity for Soa upon seeing her limping from class to class, his face falling when she didn’t even accept his help and brushed his hand off. She was as bad as Hoseok, not wanting help, not wanting to rely on others, even trying to hurt Jungkook by spitting out things like “You’re annoying me” and “Get a life” or “I don’t need you”. The spite present in her voice laced with the venom of untrustworthiness caused the latter to flinch every time she would say it, but somehow he saw past by façade, he had been observing her, and he knew deep down that Soa was just sad and helpless and just a small girl that was scared of the big wide world. She was unaware of how to present herself to others because of the fear of getting hurt, and she was ignorant to high school life, and what it feels like to actually have friends. The reasons behind her way of acting was still unknown to him, but he felt that she was much similar to J-Hope than he had ever thought within weeks of just observing her.

“Hi Soa!” he cried out the following Monday. The girl didn’t even turn around to acknowledge his presence, just kept removing her books from her bag and placing them accordingly in her locker. Her face was pinched into a frown and as he approached her, he heard her muttering under her breath something along the lines of “stupid Jung Hoseok finding it funny to try and push me into the wrong bus”

He laughed behind his fist placed across his mouth, “Someone’s had a bad Monday morning”

“Yes!” her eye flashed with irritation “Your stupid friend-“ she stopped in mid-flow with a frown “why am I even talking to you? Go away”

 Cold, arrogant, snobby. That was the vibe she gave off.

But her eyes, her clear brown orbs said something entirely different.

They screamed for help, they screamed for someone to notice that she wasn’t as transparent as she seemed.

“You’re so mean” He pouted while following her to her class. She blinked at him when he continued walking behind her, frowning and trying not to sound too pissed off when she asked, “What do you want?”

“Remember the favour I asked you about?” Jungkook asked.

Her eyebrows furrowed and met at the center while she wrinkled her nose “What favour?”

“About giving me English Literature lessons!”

“Ah” Soa let a brief pause fill the air before sighing “when are you free, then?”

“How about today after school?!” Jungkook brightened, so she really agreed on teaching him! He was thankful for the fact that sometimes Soa was a bit to naïve. “Are you free Soa?”

Soa sighed again and raked a hand through her messy ponytail “Yeah. Whatever”

“Great!” He stopped himself just in time from bouncing up and down to look like an overexcited bunny “I’ll see you after class then!”

As the said girl watched with a pokerfaced expression the boy walking leisurely to class, a small smile hitched her lips upwards. It was dangerous to trust this guy, especially since it was a guy. But was everyone really that cold and harshless? There must be some good people in this world, and maybe Jungkook fit in that category.

“Hi there!”

Soa jumped back with a small shriek of surprise. The words spoken came from a girl, a very pretty one at that. She looked exactly like those models in photo-shoots, and Soa’s jealousy startlingly shot up like temperature on a thermometer would.

The girl smiled and showcased her pretty white teeth, so white that it blinded the latter for a split second. “My name’s Lee Hani! But you can call me Hani!”

“Uh..” Why was she even talking to her? “..Hi”

“I’m a transfer student from Los Angeles! But my parents have been speaking Korean with me since small so I’m quite fluent” She smiled again and Soa couldn’t resist feeling like a pathetic idiot next to her. On the other hand, her positiveness was addictive.

“I hope we’ll be good friends!” she continued while playing with her stray strand of hair “What’s your name?”

Maybe, just maybe she wasn’t that bad. Soa tentatively smiled back although it felt weird and wobbly. Since when had she last smiled? Like really smiled with her eyes crinkling with emotion?

“I’m Kang Soa, nice to meet you”

Jungkook waited for Soa outside of her class after the last bell had rung, a small smile twitching onto his lips when he caught sight of her ruffling her hair in annoyance, textbooks tucked under her arm when she exited the class. 

She almost did a double take when she saw the latter leaning against the wall across the door, and when she gave him a quizzical look; Jungkook only sniggered and replied "did you forget our lesson already?"

It all made sense now. How could she forget? Soa jerked her chin in the direction of the library "let's go to the library"

"Arraso" the boy skipped at her side like a golden retriever that wagged his tail at her every order, almost a bit too excited for her taste but for once Soa didn't mind because even though it had taken some tossing and turning to admit it to herself, she liked his company. He was genuine and cheerful and happy; everything she wasn't, and she liked that. She wished she could be as free to express herself as she gazed at Jungkook with a yearning gaze, but unfortunately for her she was still contemplating over how she didn't want to hurt herself. 

They settled themselves in a quiet corner in the far left next to the window, as Soa wasn't going to give up her pleasure of looking out f the window for Jungkook. As the boy removed his copy of 'Wuthering Heights' and the notes accompanying it, she noticed just how much he struggled with the subject, mainly because his speed of writing couldn't march the teacher's pace.

 She sighed upon seeing his half-scribbled notes, "they're half complete"

"That's because I don't understand half of what she's saying" he protested.

"What don't you understand?"

"Everything. I mean, why the hell doesn't Heathcliff just tell her he loves her instead of making her go through hell?" Jungkook's hands flew into the air and raked themselves through his black locks. 

"Because he doesn't know how to tell her" Soa rolled her eyes.

"He's a freaking chicken that's why" 

She explained to him the whole story, then started analyzing each character trait with him, making the latter go and find quotes in his book then write them down in a mind map.  The hour passed quickly with Soa entertaining herself in explaining why the plot moved like this and how the weather reflected the character's pain. Somehow, she felt soothingly calm when reading about literature because it showed her how much life was much harsher, much more bitter than fairytale story books. 

It didn't mean that her student was a good one though. Jungkook hated English Literature and if he could've assassinated the main protagonist he would've done so ages ago. His attention span was as great as a bee's, buzzing from one flower to the other. It annoyed her deeply just how much he kept staring off into space and most of the time when she gave him small exercises to do, he would just switch off after two minutes and lay his head on the table.

"Yah" She smacked his copycat onto his head "Wake. Up"

"Mm, just a few seconds more" he mumbled, voice muffled onto his notes. 

Meanwhile just at this time, J-Hope had finished his basketball practice and had been walking across the courtyard leisurely when he noticed Soa's distinct figure from the window in the library. He frowned when his eyes followed the direction of her gaze, only to pop out of his sockets when he realized the individual sitting right in front of her was none other than Jeon Jungkook. His fist unconsciously curled together at his side as veins popped onto his arm. The older boy watched their interaction with hard eyes and decided he couldn't let his maknae get to her because damn it Kang Soa was his property. 

But then the older boy froze in mid-step; what in the world was he doing? Why did it matter if Soa hung out with Jungkook? After all she had all the right to. So why was he so hot and bothered? Why was his blood boiling like a volcano about to explode? 

Hoseok could only shake his head, you're overthinking things. Since when did it matter to you what you did or didn't do? 

His eyes caught Soa's figure waving at Jungkook as she gathered all her things and started walking out of the library. Soon, Hoseok had lost sight of her and quickly made his way to the entrance where she would be exiting. The girl didn't notice his lurking figure and kept on walking. Soon enough she was out of the school while he continued stalking her. 

Why was he even following her was a mystery he couldn't solve himself. But whatever it was it definitely wasn't concern about whether she returned home safe and sound. It was probably more of the curiosity of where she lived, he nodded to himself. 

Hoseok was surprised though when he noticed her entering an apartment complex, and that made him think of where her parents lived. Maybe she lived all alone? 

Why do you care?! He mentally screamed. 

Quickly following her and trying not to act like a suspect ho was going to rob her at any moment, he realized that after taking the fourth flight of stairs, the girl had to take this route every single day and wondered briefly if she wasn’t tired from doing all this exercise. It must be tough for her especially after a long day at school. He mentally slapped himself for being such a thinker, because J-Hope never overthought things too much and was always this carefree bird swooping from tree to tree and singing his heart out.

He blamed it all on Soa since she was the one that turned his pride upside down a few weeks ago.

The sound of a door shutting brought him out of his own thoughts as he realized that Soa had already entered her apartment. Ruffling his hair, he suddenly had an exciting urge to go and ring the doorbell wondering exactly what would be her reaction if he were to do that. He didn’t want to admit it but a small part of him actually liked seeing her pissed off face, it gave him some kind of satisfaction that his day had been a successful one since his mission to bully Soa had been achieved. Hoseok couldn’t in the world understand why he was being so irrational. It had never crossed his mind before that seeing Soa every day was now part of his routine, but seeing how he ended up walking to her house, it made him think that things had changed since he and that annoying girl crossed paths.

Without further ado and not even processing his thoughts, J-Hope’s finger reached over before he could do anything about it, and pressed the door bell.

Ding dong!

  Look at this cute little Kookie :P Actually, I find it quite pressuring to be the 'golden' maknae to be honest coz it seems like Jungkook can't be himself and always has to be the best :x oh well still love him and all of BTS <3 

How was this chappie guys?! :D Hopie ringing that bell though haha... wanted to continue this but then was like nooo I NEED ME A CLIFFHANGER! :D 

please do comment your thoughts :) Is it going too slowl? And should Jungkook be a love rival? 

How about the new girl Lee Hani? What do you think of her? :) 

xxxx thanks for subscribing ! <3 :D