In the car, after a few minutes of silence and after her cheeks had stopped burning, Yisun asked “geez… why’d you do that?!” ferociously avoiding eye-contact.

“Oh, come on, it was just a joke!” Yoongi was still laughing.

“Still, that ajusshi thought we were a couple…” mumbled Yisun, staring at her hands with a strange expression.

“Aish.., don’t make that face!” scolded Yoongi, “you’d think that guy paired you off with a monster or something!” he added, pretending to be offended.

“Oh no, no! I didn’t mean that!” Yisun shook her hand in front of her face, finally looking in his direction, and he broke into laughter, which only made her more puzzled.

“Hahaha… you’re so easy to fool…” said the teenage boy, still laughing.

Yisun frowned.

“Oh come on…” he chuckled, then turned to give her an easy smile.

She smiled back at him awkwardly, and the rest of the drive home continued in pretty much the same manner; with friendly banter and Yoongi teasing her. About an hour later, he dropped her off at her place and drove on home.

“I’m home!” he called, taking his shoes off and dropping his keys on the side table by the door.

He heard noise coming from the living room so he headed there to find his mother sitting in an armchair, swaddled in a blanket and watching the news. His mother was a small, pale woman with short curly hair, and, like him, she had small chubby cheeks, which made her appear much younger than she was.

“Oh hi sweetie, did you have a good time?” she greeted him, grabbing his hand and giving it a kiss.

“Yeah mom,” he said, wrapping his arms around her neck from behind and giving her a hug. She smiled and patted his arm and they stayed like this for a few seconds before he asked “is dad home?”

“Oh no, he had to work overtime again” she answered him as if this was nothing special.

“’figures…” mumbled Yoongi, releasing his mother.

“There’s a plate in the fridge if you’re hungry” said his mom, without shifting her gaze from the tv screen.

“Ah, I already ate. But thanks. I’ll go take a shower.”

His mom patted his hand again and he went off in the direction of the bathroom.

He climbed the stairs, and pushed the bathroom door open, undressing and tossing his clothes into a basket near the door. A few minutes later, he emerged again, squeaky clean, in track pants and a towel around his dripping head. He walked into his bedroom and plopped onto his bed, picking up his phone to see if he had any new messages. One of his friends had mailed him to say that he was drinking in the park and asking him to join, but for some reason he felt really tired so he just tossed the phone aside without replying.

He thought about the day he had just spent with Yisun. He had literally –VOLUNTARILY – spent a whole day with her.

‘Why the heck did I do that?’

He picked up his phone again and scrolled through the pictures. He’d taken a few when they were in Seoul today. There were some pictures he’d taken in Gangnam near where they’d parked the car, and some from inside the bookstore; and he’d even sneaked some pics of Yisun when she was getting her book signed.

‘That dork…’ he thought, smiling to himself.

He reminisced on how she’d been so happy, acting like a little kid at the event, and how cute she’d been when she was all embarrassed that he pretended they were a couple. He chuckled again, and then stopped dead.

‘Wait, what?!’ he sat up in his bed, eyes wide open, “I think she’s cute?!?!?!”

He dropped back down on the bed, covering his face with both hands.

‘!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

***

The next day, after lunchtime, Jang-mi and Yisun were chatting in the hallway outside her homeroom. Yisun was still busy relating to her friend what had happened at the book-signing, and Jang-mi was still visibly angry at her parents for having made her miss it. While she was in the middle of another bout of parental derogation, she suddenly paused and asked.

“…what’s he doing?”

Yisun followed her gaze, trying to spot what her friend was looking at. She saw Yoongi who seemed to be walking in their direction, lost in thought. What she hadn’t seen was that he’d retraced the same exact 10 steps, back and forth for the last minute or so, shaking his head, as if he was trying to convince himself of something.

As if on cue, when Yisun turned in his direction, he looked up, catching her eye and stopped walking. She turned to her friend and they shrugged at each other, looking back at him. Now he was looking at her and definitely coming in their direction.

“Hello.” He said to Jang-mi in an oddly formal greeting, causing her to raise an eyebrow at him. Then he turned to Yisun and proceeded to explain how he couldn’t come to their study session today, in one long, breathless sentence.

“Oh, ok.” Replied Yisun, unsure what else she was supposed to say.

And without adding anything else he just turned around and stiffly walked away.

“Well, that was weird” stated Yisun.

Jang-Mi nodded, and they just silently stared at his back until he had turned the corner and vanished from their sight.

“Hey, wanna go to the sweets café after school? It’s been ages!” suggested Jang-mi, realizing eagerly that this was the first time in over two months that she and her best friend could actually spend time together after class.

“Uh… yeah, sure” answered Yisun, trying to smile, though she was still confused by Yoongi’s behavior.

***

“Hey, what’s up?” asked Jang-mi, sitting down next to her friend at their usual table in the cafeteria.

“Yoongi wasn’t in class this morning” said the shorter girl, with a thoughtful look.

Jang-mi sighed, “Yoongi, Yoongi, Yoongi… are we ever gonna talk about anything else??”

Yisun gave her a look, and Jang-mi shook her head.

“Alright, go on.”

“Well I’m just wondering if something’s wrong with him. You know? Maybe he’s sick”

“Ha!” laughed Jang-mi, “this is Min Yoongi we’re talking about. He’s probably in the park, drinking. Or putting underclassmen in a dumpster somewhere.”

Yisun gave her a warning look.

“Oh come on, I know you’re all blinded by love, but seriously girl, it’s a lot more likely that he’s out there cutting class with his thug friends than sick in bed with a cold” she waved her finger at her friend.

***

Jang-mi was actually not far off the mark. At that moment, Yoongi was chilling at Jin’s apartment with a group of friends. Jin was a member of their group who was a bit older than the rest of them and had already graduated. He’d recently started working as a clerk at his father’s bank, and thus could afford the tiny little hovel in which they were all currently squatting. Jin wasn’t there at the moment, but he didn’t seem to mind letting his “baby brothers” crash there day in and day out, “as long as no one has on my bed” which was his only rule.

Right now there were only 4 boys in the house. Jimin and V, another boy with ashy blonde hair, were busy playing a racing game on Jin’s PS4, screaming and occasionally smacking each other upside the head, while Rapmon was sitting at a computer desk with fancy-looking equipment, self-appointed DJ of the music that was blaring through the speakers. Suga had a magazine splayed across his lap, though he didn’t seem to be reading it, or to be paying attention to anything else for that matter.

Yoongi was – as he had been all day, and the day before, and every minute since the realization that he had a crush on Han Yisun – in a state of internal conflict. He didn’t want to have a crush on that nerd. That was embarrassing. ‘I mean she was so… so… …. so freakin’ cute when she…. Aaaaaargh not again!!!’

His phone, on the coffee table in front of him, buzzed, pulling him out of his thoughts, so he put his magazine aside to pick it up. The screen flashed with a new text message that read

 **are you ok?**

He frowned, not recognizing the number and mailed back **who is this?**

 **it’s Yisun.**

**You didn’t come to school today. And yesterday you skipped tutoring so I wondered if something was up…**

He just sat staring at the screen, blinking. Of course. He’d forgotten he’d given her his number the weekend before in case something happened. He looked around furtively but none of his friends seemed to have noticed anything.

Since he spent quite a long time just staring at his phone without replying, that message was soon followed by another that read:
**I’m sorry, I guess it’s none of my business. Take care**.

Just then, Yoongi felt a hand slap him on the shoulder, making him jump. But it was only Rapmon asking “wanna go get some grub, man? I’m starving!”

He quickly shoved his phone away, hoping his friend hadn’t noticed anything and nodded.

***

That night, around 11:30pm, after having finished all her assignments and taken a shower, Yisun padded down to the kitchen in her pajamas to say good night to her parents. Her mom had already gone to bed, but her dad looked up from his newspaper and smiled, wishing her sweet dreams. She walked back to her bedroom and started getting ready for sleep; plugging her phone onto the charger and turning off the lights, before finally crawling into bed.

The house and their neighborhood were quiet, so Yisun very clearly heard her phone when it beeped with the sound of a new text message. She opened her eyes to see the screen lighting up the darkness. She groaned as she picked it up, sleepily, thinking the mail must be from Jang-mi, and that unless it was important, she’d just reply tomorrow.

But it was not Jang-mi.

**Are you sleeping?**

She just stared at the screen not knowing what to do. It was Yoongi.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Well, here's another chapter! i hope you like it!! 
Things are getting a bit more interesting, as you can see, though we're nowhere near there yet! haha.
It really cracked me up to see everyone comment about the slap in the last chapter! XD
Suga meant it as a joke and did it more to egg her on than out of any desire to actually touch her ...
or did he???! kekeke...

please keep on commenting and voting! it makes me so happy to hear what you think!