It’s now 2pm. You were walking back and forth in your room. It’s been for a while that you paced around the room. Since.. an hour ago? You couldn’t even remember. You were contemplating. Should I go to the studio? After what happened? It’s gonna be awkward as hell. But what if he waits? Ughhh I can’t think like this! Tired of walking around, you decided to sit down. After taking a few deep breaths, you decided not to go to the studio early. You tried to distract yourself by cleaning your room, even your whole apartment! Looking at the time now, it’s 3.30pm. Then you picked up your bag, went out your apartment and started walking towards the studio. It only took 15 minutes to the studio. Standing in front of the studio’s door, you stopped. You’re here anyway, so let’s just go in. Upon opening the door, you saw a familiar figure sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Jungkook looked towards the door to see who opened the door. He immediately stood up when he saw it’s you. He wore a concerned expression on his face. You walked across the room to put down your bag. Then you heard his voice calling your name. You turned around to face him. He was right behind you. He opened his mouth to say something but halted by you when you rose up your hand mid-air, your palm towards him. “Look, Jungkook-ah. Let’s just forget whatever happened yesterday, okay? I.. may have overreacted yesterday. I-I don’t want it to be awkward between us.” You looked everywhere except at him. You can’t look at him because you’re afraid that your eyes will betray you.

You couldn’t see the disappointments in his eyes as you’re busy looking at someplace else. You can hear him sighed. After a moment of silence, he finally spoke. “If you say so. Okay then. So.. we’re good?” He put out his hands for a handshake. You look up to him to find him smiling slightly. You smiled back at him, shaking his hands. Still, whatever happened the following days was not what you expected. It was super awkward between you two. Although you promised to forget it, to play casual, but deep down inside, how could you forget? You love him. It’s been your wish since forever to be hugged by him.

Apparently it’s the same at Jungkook’s side. He couldn’t be normal around you anymore. He started to make a distance between himself from you. No longer small chats in between lesson breaks. No longer pairing up to do a duet song together. But one thing that hadn’t change is the staring he gave you. Before this if you caught him staring, he would look away. But now, he just looked straight at you. When you looked back at him, he’s still looking at you. You two looked at each other as in you didn’t see each other for years. His eyes had this loneliness feeling while your eyes were full of guilt and sadness. You no longer talk to each other. Just a simple greeting at the beginning and at the end of the class. The staring has become your conversation every day. No words are needed. This continued for the following days.

~*~

You opened your eyes slowly. You were having your afternoon nap. You lazily reached for your phone, realizing your battery’s dead. You groaned at the fact that you forgot to charge your phone. You looked up the wall to see what time is it. Your eyes found the clock. The longer needle was at number 1 while the shorter one’s at number 4. You stared at the clock for a few seconds then your eyes widened. Damn it! You’re late for the vocal lesson! You washed your face, picked a decent outfit and make yourself presentable. You locked your apartment door and you sprint out of your apartment to the studio. It only took you 5 minutes to get there with your speed running. When you reached in front of the studio’s door, you heard someone’s singing. You stopped, took a deep breath from panting and slowly pushed the door to make your way in.

You took a peek inside the studio, only to find the studio was empty, except for the singing person you heard just now. You frowned. You opened the door fully. The creak sound of the door made the singing person turned to you. It was Jungkook. You entered the studio and asked, “Where’s everyone?” Jungkook looked confused, but he answered, “Class was cancelled. The instructor sent a message. Didn’t you get any, noona?” Message? What message? Where’s my phone-oh. Great. Just great. Your knees gave up and you fell on the floor. You grunted as you repeatedly softly banged your head on the floor. “Hey, hey noona! What are you doing??” Jungkook rushed towards your direction to stop you from hurting your forehead again. “My battery’s dead. That’s why I didn’t know.” You rubbed your forehead, immediately regretting your dumb actions earlier.

Jungkook suddenly smiled towards you. You saw that and tilted your head upwards as if saying ‘What?’ to him. “Noona, did you-um overslept or something?” He asked between his laughs. Your eyes widened in surprise. Trying to act cool, you replied, “H-How did you know?” He pointed towards your hair. You immediately turned towards the mirrored wall in the studio. A piece of your hair was pointed upwards, your bangs are everywhere, you long hair at the back looked like they’re just underwent an electric shock, and your hair was simply a mess! You let out a heavy sigh and buried your face in the palms of your hands. You felt so frustrated that you mumbled against your own hands. “Ugh, I don’t know if this day could get any worse!” You could hear a small chuckle came from Jungkook, but you choose to ignore it.

“Here, wear this.” You looked up from your hands to see Jungkook’s red and black snapback. You looked at that snapback, to Jungkook, and back to that snapback. He sighed but smiled, almost looked like an apologetic smile, but had a very loving feeling from it. He leaned towards you. You wanted to take a step back but you just froze there. He brushed your hair with his fingers, making the pointed hair of yours went normal again. He pushed up your bangs, revealing your forehead and put the snapback on your head backwards. With his hands on your shoulders, he turned you to face the mirrored wall. “See, that’s not so bad. Now, no more bed hair!” He held both of his hands up in the air; his eyes were closed, as if he just finished a magnificent magic trick. The smile never left his lips.

You looked at your reflection. Hmm, this is way better than just now. You forced yourself not to smile. When Jungkook opened his eyes and your eyes met through the reflection of the mirror, you burst out laughing. Seeing you laugh, he laughed too. After a few seconds of laughing, you wiped a tear that fell due to too much laughing. “Noona, you should laugh more. You are much prettier when you smile and laugh. Don’t make all of that disappear because of me.” You blushed, and quickly looked away. Jungkook went back to his bag and started packing. “Um, Jungkook-ah. Uhh-um.. What are you doing after this? Are you busy? Do you have any schedules?” Jungkook just shook his head. “Hey-um. If you don’t mind, do you want to grab something to eat? Or drink? Or whatever. That is, if you want to.”

Jungkook beamed at the question. His eyes widened but full with excitement. He nodded furiously, like a kid wanting ice-cream from his mother. Both of you exited the studio and walked towards the nearest café. You often go to that café with him but not after the hug incident. Luckily that area does not have much people so you can avoid any fans lurking at Jungkook. From the studio to the café to ordering drinks and pastries until both of you are seated with your orders in front of you, there were only silence filled the air. You didn’t what to say, so as Jungkook. Surprisingly, you like the silence a bit. Just having him by your side made you feel the warmth you never felt with others. It’s been a few minutes until you finally broke the silence. “I never got to ask you this, but I want to ask anyway. Is it fun? I mean, being a singer, an idol?” Jungkook looked at you, took a sip at his drink and answered your question. He started to blurt out about his idol life, how it was tiring to go from schedule to schedule, music shows and all. He was sometimes stressed to balance between his idol schedule and school, and also his title as the ‘Golden Maknae’. That means that he had to practice diligently to make sure that he was up to people’s expectations.

“But that was nothing. It was all worth it. The best part was when I was on stage. When I sing, people listen to my voice. Some of them even cried while listening to my singing voice.” He let out a small laugh. You nodded to his answer. “What about you, noona? Why do you want to sing? I never saw someone who didn’t look at the mirror before going to vocal lesson just because she was late 10 minutes.” He broke into a big laugh. You looked at him, pouting at how he teased you about earlier. You smiled, and gazed outside the window. “My late dad, he loves to sing. When he sings, I can feel warmth from his voice. He was a great singer, he touched a lot of people’s emotions with just his voice. I want to be just like him. I want to be able to convey my emotions through singing, so that people can feel what I feel. I want to move people, with just my singing.”

Both of you continued to chat for hours. Ordering your dinner at that café, you started eating and chat some more with him. It didn’t feel awkward at all. You love talking to him. Jungkook’s phone rang and he picked it up. “Yes, hyung. Yes, I know. Yes. I’m-um I’m with vo-vocal lesson noona.” You’re surprised with that name. You couldn’t help but to laugh softly. Jungkook looked at you and he blushed a little. Ending his call, he looked back to you. “Vocal lesson noona, huh? So that’s my name to them?” You managed to say before laughing even more at your own nickname. “Anyway, I should get back. Your hyung was probably asking for you, right?” Jungkook nodded slowly. “I’ll walk you.” He said when both of you were out from the café. It’s already dark outside. Your hours of conversation just felt like minutes. You were going to say no but he continued, “I want to. Besides, my hyung will be picking me up near the studio which is not far from your house, I think. And now is the peak hour of traffic, they wouldn’t reach here early.”

Both of you walked slowly towards your apartment. Silence filled the air between you guys again. You wished that this moment could never end. You wished that time would go slower so that you could spend more time with him. However, in your heart, and in your mind, you knew that whatever you were doing is wrong. You knew that it’s not a good idea to be close to someone. Nothing was going to end up good if you keep doing this. You need to draw a line, starting now. When you reached in front of your apartment complex, you turned to him. “Jungkook-ah, I need to tell you something. Oh, before that, here. Thanks, for today.” You took off his snapback and handed it back to him. Instead of taking his snapback, Jungkook grabbed your hand. You were shocked, you looked at him surprised. “Let me talk first.”

As if gathering his courage, Jungkook closed his eyes, inhaled a deep breath before releasing it. He cleared his throat, opened his eyes, and started talking. “Noona, when I first met you three years ago, I started to like you then. You were cute, you were pretty, you were everything I ever dreamed of.” You were dumbfounded, you kept looking at him. He slowly moved his thumb over your skin, caressing your hand. He stopped for a while, and continued. “After knowing you, as time goes on, you are perfect. It’s not your looks anymore that caught my heart. It’s your kind personality; your little actions that made my heart flutter. The way your eyes disappear when you smile, the sound of your laugh is like music to my ears, your voice, your singing voice is everything I want to hear every single day. And when we stopped talking for a few days, I realized that I missed you so much, that I am missing the most important thing in my life. I-I love you, noona.”

The whole time, he was looking into your eyes and you looked back. When he finished confessed to you, suddenly you looked away. You felt that his grip on your hand loosen, you pulled your hand towards yourself. You looked back at him but he was already looking down, disappointed with your response. Not thinking straight, while ignoring the voices in your head, you didn’t care about anything anymore. You brought your hands towards his cheeks, cupping them. He was surprised, immediately looking to you. You pulled him slightly downwards towards you and pressed your lips softly on his lips. You closed your eyes and started to kiss him softly. Jungkook was shocked. It was only after a few seconds later that he returned the kiss. When he started to put his arms around you, you snapped. You opened your eyes in shock, accepting the reality that was happening right at that moment.

Suddenly you pushed Jungkook away, breaking that kiss. He looked at you, confused of your actions. Oh my God, what have I done?! What was I thinking! “I’m sorry, Jungkook-ah. This was not supposed to happen. This was a mistake.” You turned around to enter your apartment complex but were stopped by his strong grip at your wrist. “Wait noona! What? A mistake? No, noona. I love you, and I know you love me too.  Noona, please wait. Hear me out!” His cries became just a buzzing sound to you. You couldn’t focus, your vision started to become blurry with your tears filling your eyes. Then, Jungkook’s phone rang again. It must be his hyung.

It was then you turned around to face him. You didn’t look at him; you looked down and used your free hand to grab his hand that was holding your wrist. You pushed his hand off yours. When you looked up to him, he was surprised to see your eyes full with tears. “Noona, why are you-” “Jungkook-ah, you and I, we were never going to be together. Us, it’s never going to work. I’m-I’m sorry.” Then a tear ran down your cheek. You turned your back to him and started running inside the building, leaving a confused Jungkook at the road side. He finally picked up his phone, “Yes hyung. I’m on my way.”

Entering your apartment, you closed the door behind you and you locked it. You leaned your back against the door, sliding down until you sat on the floor. You closed your eyes, letting your tears flow down your cheeks. It’s for the best, for both of you. A voice at the back of your mind voiced. “It’s for the best. I know. But still it hurts.” You continued to sob all night.