Everyone erupted into conversation at once. All the boys ran over to Taehyung and pulled him into quick bro hugs, before asking him how he had been. 

He answered them easily, smiling and chatting as if he hadnt been gone for the past year. We all went over to the living room area and sank into the couches or bean bags, except for me, who sat cross-legged on the floor next to Yoongi's beanbag, and taehyung, who sat on the floor facing me, leaning against the couch behind him. 

Everyone was smiling and joking, and I began to zone out of the conversations around me like I often did. 

So many voices could be heard at once, so I just let them blend together in my head, not bothering to comprehend any of the sentences. I leaned back, laying my head on yoongi's knee as he turned his fingers in my hair. His long, graceful fingers...

"Y/n?"

"Huh?" I jerked my head up suddenly. In the blur of ambient voices, I clearly heard Yoongi say my name. I looked up at him, but it seemed as if he was mentioning my name in passing to taehyung, not calling me to ask a question.

"No, of course not, Taehyung, that's weird," he said. "Y/n is like my sister," he continued, patting my head.

"I don't know, hyung, it kinda looked like that what with the hugs and the kisses and the... physical contact in general, since from what I remember you don't like it," Taehyung said, smiling. "But sorry for assuming."

"Ah it's fine," Yoongi replied. "From what I know, y/n is doing just fine in the guy department," he said, smirking, making me blush.

"Yoongi!"

"Y/n met this guy at the mall last week and he's been flirting non stop," Yoongi told Taehyung. I groaned and buried my face in my hands. Thankfully, before he could say anything else, Jin interrupted all the conversations.

"Guys it's cake time!" Jin exclaimed. Really? It was 12 already?

We ushered Yoongi to the front and namjoon forced a little party hat onto his head. He groaned, but we refused to let him take it off. 

Hoseok brought the cake to the table from the kitchen counter, placing it on the table gently, while Jimin brought a candle to put on it. I lit the candle, and we began singing (or rather shouting) for Yoongi, sounding deranged and somewhat hysterical, but we made it work, and when he blew the candle out, he had a huge smile plastered on his face. 

He carefully cut a small piece of the cake and fed a little bit to each of us, after taking one huge bite himself. I made sure only to take a small bite, since it was really sweet, which I didn't like.

 Yoongi was then about to start cutting up other pieces to put in the plates for everyone to eat, when I heard what sounded like a battle cry, and then felt something smack the left half of my face.

Yoongi and the others burst out laughing, and I followed suit as soon as I processed what had happened.

Taehyung had tried to chuck a piece of cake at yoongis face, but he had missed by a few inches and it ended up hitting me instead. Tae was red in the face, muttering apologies profusely, asking me to forgive him. I grinned, and slowly walked over to him, picking up a piece of cake. 

I raised my hand like I was going to hit him, and he flinched, closing his eyes. I smeared the cake over his cheek slowly, leaving three lines of thick cream streaked across his face. 

For a second, there was complete silence, as if everyone was waiting for the oncoming explosion, and then- chaos.

It was a full on war, every man for himself. Bits of cream and frosting flew everywhere as my friends and I chased each other around, trying to get more frosting on each other. After a few minutes, however, we ran out of chaotic energy, and began slowly cleaning up. 

We hadn't spilled too much on the floor, so we were done reasonably quickly, and then took turns going to the bathroom to wash our faces. 

I went in between Taehyung and Jungkook, who seemed to not realise that he had frosting on his eyebrows as well. Taehyung took a while washing his face, and I found myself watching him in the mirror.

He was incredibly good- looking, there was no denying that, but something definitely seemed different about him now, compared to a year ago before he had left. 

Despite his cheerful and childlike behaviour that I had seen in the last few hours, he seemed more weighed down than I remembered him to be, almost as if something had happened in his life during his absence from ours, and he was trying to push it away. 

He finished and walked out into the narrow passageway that I was standing in behind the door to the washbasin area thing. The ends of his hair and his eyebrows were wet, and some water still dripped down his face. 

It took me a few seconds to realise that he was waiting for me to go in so he could walk past. I did so, and went to wash my face as well.

We ate lunch after that, with the remaining cake for dessert... except for me- I didn't like the cake. We played cheesy party games for hours, until Yoongi claimed he was sleepy, and promptly dropped his head on Hoseok's shoulder, beginning to snore. Since we all felt the same way, we began to drop off into our own little naps one by one.

"Y/n," Jungkook prodded me gently, waking me up. I could tell from one look outside that I had been asleep for a long time, at least an hour and a half. The sun was still bright in the sky, but a little lower than before. 

I took a look around the room. The only ones still asleep were Yoongi and Hoseok. Rina must have gone home- she would join us at the club later. Jimin and Jin stood in the kitchen, talking in hushed voices, and Taehyung was sitting on the couch next to Hoseok, scrolling through something on his phone. Namjoon, I figured, was in the bathroom, from where I could hear the running water.

"What?" I asked grouchily, rubbing my eyes.

"You wanna go for a walk for a little bit? We still have time before we go to the bar, and I figured you would be the most okay with going outside. All these people are boring," he said, glaring around at everyone else in the room.

"Okay," I said, getting up and flattening my hair. "Where do you wanna go?"

"Well, I figured you might wanna go home quickly, and maybe change? It'll take us like an hour and a half to go there and back, so we can kill plenty of time. Get a coffee as well, if you like."

"Why would I need to change?" I asked, and looked at my outfit. I remembered picking it out that morning specifically so that I could wear it to to the club.

"Well," he started, slowly and cautiously, as if he didn't want to offend me, "we're going to a club, y/n. That's where you dress to impress the dudes."

"Excuse me, I don't need any dudes! I'm a strong independent woman!"

"I'm sure you are, y/n, but please just wear something else to the club today?" Jin asked me, coming away from the kitchen.

"You too? Why? Don't give me the impressing crap." I told him.

"Well..." he took a deep breath. "We think Yoongi likes you and we want to see if he says anything, if he has a drink or two and we thought he'd say quicker if you wore something hot" He said, without pausing. "Not that you're not hot-" he began, as if he was worried that he sounded rude.

I laughed. "You guys are so stupid. But fine, I'll prove to you that he doesn't. He's like a brother to me, you know, just as much as you are."

Jungkook and I left the apartment to go towards my place, but not before I took the chance to take a picture of Yoongi and Hobi sleeping. Cute. I made a mental note to one day make a collage of all the pictures that I had of my friends sleeping.

Jungkook and I walked on the footpath in the bright sun, talking. I was a few steps ahead of him when he suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me towards a store. At first I thought he was taking me to see an action figure, which we had been talking about earlier, or something of that sort, when I realised he was taking me to the display window of a clothing shop.

"That one, get that." He said, pointing at something in the window. I looked through. The mannequin had on a tiny strappy top, not suitable for anything except perhaps a beach trip somewhere in the Caribbean. The top was small enough to fit in my hand if I made it a fist, and my hands were small.

I stared at him. "No."

He frowned, but didn't argue further, and we continued walking. Less than half an hour later, we reached my place. Jungkook told me to go wear something that was 'nice', as if my closet was full of trash. I rifled through the tops I had, and found a cute brown one. It was tight fitting, so I guessed that jungkook would be fine with it, but when I walked out he said that it was nowhere close to good enough. 

I then tried on three more tops, and even one dress, though it was far too cold, but jungkook claimed that I was dressing like I was going to church. I thought that was taking it a bit far. It wasn't as if I didn't own anything that didn't cover my whole body- "what are you doing?" I asked. Jungkook was burrowing through my closet like... well, like a bunny.

"Ta-da!" He exclaimed. "Success! Try this one!" He handed me a slightly short black top with some weird curly things at the bottom. I had bought that for myself a few months ago when it was on clearance sale, but didn't really wear it since it was the middle of winter, and then, after I had moved, it was stuffed in the back of the cupboard, behind the three sets of clothes that I used every day. 

I went to the bathroom and put it on, and to my surprise it looked completely fine. Yes, I would have preferred for it to be a little longer, but I was wearing high waisted jeans, so it didn't even show any skin. Jungkook was finally satisfied. He instructed me to pair it with a long beige coat, and he took a picture to show me how it looked since I didn't have a full-length mirror in this apartment. 

Not bad, I realised. We left after that. Unfortunately, we had taken longer at my place than expected, and it was already getting dark; Jungkook and I had to walk in the direction of the club instead of going back as planned. We took a route that went past Rina's place, and we picked her up on the way. 

The three of us walked together, Rina on my right, and jungkook on my left. I noticed him stealing glances at her when she wasn't looking, and I suppressed a smile. I would surely have to question him later.

It was completely dark by the time we reached the bar, where Jimin was waiting outside for us.

"Finally," he grumbled. "I've been waiting for like five whole minutes. How slow do yall walk?"

"Not everyone is used to only walking at the speed of those taller than them, hyung. That's just you," jungkook said cheekily.

Jimin didn't seem to get it, and so we just followed him into the bar.

The place was packed, and I scanned the room for my friends. My gaze finally landed on them on the other side of the room, and so I made my way across to them. Hoseok passed me a bottle and I opened it, took a quick gulp, and passed it to Jin, who was next to me. He whispered in my ear, "I like your outfit."

"Thanks, Jungkook picked it out for me."

Yoongi, however, did not seem to like my outfit.

"Why did you change?" He asked.

"I had cake on my other shirt," I lied.

He didn't look convinced, but he let it slide.

I was about to tell him the truth about what the boys had asked me when I felt a hand snake around my waist. I turned around, and standing there, a playful smile on his face, was Daehyun.

"Daehyun?!" I was shook. "What are you doing here?" I asked, a little quieter. I took a few steps away from Yoongi and the rest of my friends, who were in conversation, not noticing the arrival of my new friend.

"I'm here for you, honey! It's been so long since we saw each other, and I've been dying to see you." We walked a bit further, towards a side of the room. 

He looked at me again, up and down. I squirmed a bit, made uncomfortable by his greedy gaze, so much unlike the easygoing one that I knew. 

He looped his fingers through the belt holes of my jeans and pulled me closer to him. 

Too close. 

I began to feel the discomfort building in my stomach and tried to pull away, but one of his hands was now on my back, pinning me in place. "You look good, y/n, really gorgeous." 

Placing his hand under my jaw, he pulled my face up towards his, and that was when I smelled the alcohol on his breath. He was drunk as a skunk. 

I really tried to push away now, realising what was happening.

"I don't think-" my sentence was broken of when he slammed his lips into mine, kissing me open-mouthed and sure. I struggled and pushed myself away from him finally, tears filling up my eyes. 

I had liked him, I really had, but I was scared now, and so I turned and started towards my friend group. I was only a few feet away when daehyun came behind me and grabbed my arm once more, pulling me to him. "Don't be like this, sugar, you know you want me."

"Let go of me!" I growled, twisting my arm out of his grip. Tears were flowing down my face now, but he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that I did not want him at all. 

His arm found its way around my waist again by the time I decide that I had had enough. I raised my arm and slapped him sharply across his face, and, pushed him away from me as hard as I could, after which I ran to the women's' room. 

Closing and locking the stall door behind me, I sank to the floor, sobbing. I should have been grateful that I had gotten away from Daehyun, and that nothing too serious had happened, but mostly I was angry at myself, angry at Daehyun, angry at the world for ruining everything. 

I thought he was my friend, and I was so disgusted with him- the way he touched me, kissed me, the smell of alcohol on his breath... everything about him seemed suddenly so repulsive, and I wondered how I could have liked him in the first place. 

I began sobbing again, even harder than before, until I heard the door to the women's room open, and Rina's voice.

"Y/n?" She asked softly. "Can you come out for a second?"

"No," I said, but reached up and opened the door to my stall anyways. She walked over to me and her jaw dropped. "What happened?"

"I- Daehyun-" I was trying my hardest not to break down sobbing again, and my words were coming out shaky.

"Daehyun? What did he say? Y/n I thought you said you hadn't talked to him in a while, did he say something?"

I realised that I hadn't told any of my friends that he was here, just walking away with him without telling them... I was stupid, stupid. Such horrible things could've happened- things could have gotten so much worse- I bit my quivering lip again.

"He was here," I told her, looking straight at the floor. "He was here, he was drunk, and he took me away I thought to talk to me, and then," I was having trouble saying the words, as though telling her about it could make it happen all over again. 

"Then he..." I swallowed. "He touched me, Rina, he kissed me, and he was drunk and he seemed to think I wanted him, and" I was bawling again now, my head in my hands, my body racked with sobs that seemed like they would never stop.

"Oh. My. God." she said slowly, a look of horror and anger creeping onto her face. "Did that son of a bitch hurt you?"

"No, Rina, but it's so stupid! I make a friend, and the second time I meet him he tries to fucking get me!" I yelled, my voice hoarse. She looked a bit startled, and I realised I was being harsh on her for a stupid mistake of my own. "Sorry, I know I'm being harsh on you, I'm sorry"

She pulled me up from the floor, and into a hug, and without even allowing me to wash my face, she took me outside, back to our group of friends in the corner. They were all laughing and joking around like before, but as I approached and they saw my condition, they froze, and fell silent. 

Yoongi was the first to recover from his shock, standing up and coming towards me. I didn't need him to ask to know that he wanted to know what happened, but words failed me. It was horrible enough to tell Rina what had happened, and there was nothing I wanted to do less than narrate it again, much less to Yoongi, who had warned me about Daehyun already. 

Thankfully, Rina gave the gist of what had happened to Yoongi quickly and quietly, such that I could hardly hear, but still it filled me up with bitterness, and the tears welled up again. I buried my face in yoongi's shoulder as he stroked my head, muttering words of comfort. 

I stayed there for the next few minutes, until everyone of my friends knew what had happened, and we got up to leave. A kind of numbness settled over me, and I only came out of it once we had were approaching the intersection near my apartment.

"You're going the wrong way," I croaked to them, after I realised they had turned left instead of right.

"You're not going home to your place," Yoongi said. "You're staying at Rina's. There's no way you can be left alone right now."

"What? Don't tell me what to do, Yoongi!" I yelled. It was stupid, throwing a tantrum in the middle of the sidewalk, when Yoongi was being perfectly rational. 

I normally would have been embarrassed by the fact that there were plenty of people around, but I was frustrated and upset, and needed something to pick on. "You act like my brother, and that's fine! I have told you so many times, you're like a brother to me, but guess what, you're not my brother! You're not my mom, you're not my dad, I'm an adult, I can decide what to do myself, thank you very much!"

"Oh, really? And look where deciding for yourself got you! Almost got at by a guy you just decided to trust in a bar, where your friends are right there! How hard would it have been to tell me you were going away? To introduce us? To do something, anything that would have gotten you out of that situation?" 

He was yelling too now, oblivious to the weird looks we were getting. "I'm trying to take care of you, y/n. If it wasn't for Taehyung, god knows what that guy could have done to you... I can't even think about it."

"Huh? Taehyung?" I looked around and noticed that taehyung was at the far back of our group, looking away. He looked up a bit at the mention of his name, but then down again, leaving me wondering if that was really a bruise on his face, or just a trick of the light.

"Yes, Taehyung. He's the one that saw you going to the bathroom, crying, though he didn't know why. He told Rina to go check on you. He knows you like privacy, so he told only her, and then went away to look for any reason why you could be upset. That's when he found Daehyun."

"What?" I dimly remembered Tae not standing in that corner when I had gone back, but I didn't bother thinking about it then. "He found Daehyun?"

"Yep." Yoongi didn't elaborate. I didn't press. Was that a bruise? Had Daehyun hurt him? Had he hurt Daehyun? There were so many questions swirling around in my head that I felt so weak suddenly, and leaned against Yoongi for support again. "I'm so sorry," I whispered. "I'm so, so sorry, Yoongi. Thank you for everything. I'm sorry."

He didn't say anything back. He just hugged me tighter, and I understood that I was forgiven. 

A/N hi so I know this was a different chapter and more intense, but it's not always gonna be so intense dw for all the people out there who just want to read something lighthearted. 

Hope you're having an amazing day or night wherever you are, and hope you're enjoying it so far! Don't forget to vote!

<3