*Y/n PoV*

I buried my face in the pillow with a groan, as if it would make the pulsing pain in my head diminish and leave me be.

I'd been lying in bed for the past twenty minutes, hoping that the pain would lessen, but, if anything, it had only gotten worse. I knew that getting myself a glass of water would probably help, but I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed.

Outside, I heard my brother shut his bathroom door. He'd come into my room a few minutes earlier, only to have a pillow flung at him, and he'd left the room without a word after that. He'd had his fair share of hungover mornings when I had been in university, so he knew better than to bother me.

I eventually rolled myself out of bed and sat up, my temples throbbing.

I usually kept some ibuprofen in the cabinet in the bathroom, so I stumbled in there and swung it open, scrambling for the pills, but I couldn't find them. I remembered that I'd told my brother where I had kept them when we moved here, so maybe he had them?

Ugh. The throbbing pain was back, and I felt the sudden urge to throw up. Leaning over the toilet, I tried to get the alcohol out of my system but I just couldn't.

Beads of sweat were lining my forehead, and I knew it would feel so much better if I could just get myself to throw up and get the alcohol out, but it just wasn't coming.

Ughhhh. Screw this.

Not bothering to look at the mess I knew I was in the mirror, I got up from where I was sprawled on the floor next to the toilet, and limped out of the bathroom towards the door. Maybe my brother had the ibuprofen.

Before I left the room, however, my eyes fell upon a little box on my nightstand. I walked over to it only to let out a sigh of relief as I picked up the painkillers.

Deciding to get myself the water and take one right away, I stumbled towards the door so I could get out and go to the kitchen.

Just as I got to the door and leaned against the doorframe, however, a bright yellow sticky note caught my eye, stuck on my wall. I didn't remember sticking it up there, so I walked over and peeled it off the wall before reading it.

Unintentionally, and without my realising, a stupid smile had spread across my face as I read the note, butterflies erupting in my already volatile stomach.

So it wasn't my brother who'd bought me the hangover medicine and kept it on my nightstand like I had thought. It was Taehyung.

That smile quickly dropped, however, when I realised that I had completely lost track of events last night after I had gotten into the car. What if I said something? How did he get me upstairs? Did he pick me up? Was I heavy?

The sudden wave of questions hit my brain, and my lack of processing at the moment just made it throb once more.

Rolling my eyes, I went to the kitchen, and, filling a glass with water, downed the whole thing in one gulp before I refilled it, this time to take the medicine.

Once all that was done, I sat in place for a couple of minutes, since I felt that the urge to puke only grew every time I moved. The headache, however, seemed to have already diminished slightly. Once my brother came out of the shower, he cut up some bananas and gave them to me in a bowl, before sitting down next to me and patting me lightly on the head in a comforting manner.

"Hey, I know you're not feeling too good, but I need to go get some foods for lunch, okay? I'll be back in only ten minutes, I'm going to the convenience store down the street, and call me if you need anything," he told me.

Getting my phone, he lay it on the counter next to me, his contact open already so I wouldn't have to look for it.

"Hmm. Okay," I mumbled, putting my head down after finishing the bananas. He filled up a bottle with water and handed it to me.

"Keep hydrated, okay?"

"Hm."

"Okay. I'll see you in ten." He walked to the door, and turned around, looking back at me. "Where are the keys?"

"Oh, um." I picked my head up off the counter and stole a glance at the sticky note that was still crumpled up in my left hand. "On the bench, over there," I pointed. Sure enough, there they lay.

"Why did you put them there? Put them on the key hanger, always, please," he frowned.

"Sorry, I couldn't see very well last night, so I just put them there." I lied quickly. "Yoongi brought me to the apartment but then he left, didn't come in."

I felt bad lying, but since I wasn't so sure myself of what had happened last night, I didn't want to say anything else.

"Did you knock something over? I thought I heard something fall last night."

"Oh, uh, no?" I didn't sound very convincing at all. "You know what, probably. But I must have stood it back up."

"Okay, whatever. I'll be back, okay? Bye."

"Bye."

The second the door swung shut and the locks clicked in place, I picked up my phone and immediately scrolled to Taehyung's contact.

My finger hovered above the call button for a few seconds as I hesitated to click it, and then with a sigh I exited the contact and turned it off.

My anxiety concerning what I had done last night that I couldn't remember had gotten the best of me, and I couldn't bring myself to call him.

I really shouldn't have had so much to drink last night, I thought, before laying my head down on the counter once more.

***

Over the next two hours my headache diminished significantly, to the extent that I was actually able to help my brother make lunch. We talked about work while we ate, and later called our older cousin, who was a doctor currently working in Jeju. He was usually working in the ER, so we didn't often get to talk to him much, even though we considered ourselves quite close since childhood.

It hit me suddenly that I hadn't called Rina yet, and I panicked for a second before realising that she was spending the day with her family, so I couldn't call anyways. Instead I dropped her a long and heartfelt birthday text and told her to call me back in the evening if she was free.

Once that was done, I went to my room to take a quick nap after telling my brother to wake me up in an hour.

***

"Y/n."

"Y/n, wake up."

"Y/n get your ass up right now."

I felt my brother poking me in the shoulder and gently slapping me awake. There was no way it had been an hour already, I'd just fallen asleep.

"What is your problem?"

"Taehyung is here," he whisper- yelled. "Get upppp!" He pulled the pillow from under my head, which was completely unnecessary, seeing as I had sat up immediately as I heard Taehyung's name. 

"What? When did he come?" I brushed my hair out of my face frantically and stumbled out of bed towards the bathroom, grabbing the toothbrush, squeezing some paste onto it, and shoving it in my mouth.

"Just now, he said he wanted to come by to see if you guys could hang out. I wanted to tell him to go away but- why are you brushing your teeth? You've only been asleep fifteen minutes."

I looked over at my brother before leaning over and spitting the toothpaste out, and then rinsed my mouth.

"Because," I began, splashing some water on my face, "my breath tastes bad."

 He rolled his eyes and leaned back against the doorframe. "Well, hurry up, its rude to keep him waiting."

"Do you think I want to keep him waiting? It's not my fault he decided to come without telling me."  I reached my hand out and my brother passed me the towel to dab the water off my face. "Anyways, we'll probably go for a walk, okay?"

"Sure, have fun. But make sure to come back if you aren't feeling well, okay?" he ruffled my hair as I walked towards the door and I smacked his hand away, flattening it down.

"Okay, okay, see you," I grumbled as I walked backwards out of the room with a frown. I turned around just in time to stop myself from colliding with Taehyung. 

"Hi, y/n, so sorry if I disturbed you-"

"It's okay, let's go," I broke him off, grabbing his arm and steering him towards the door.

I looked down at myself, still dressed in sweats and a grey tshirt that was all too large for me- definitely not what I should be going out in. But I wasn't about to go inside to change, so I just grabbed my jacket to throw over the tshirt, and after slipping into my slides and making sure I had my phone with me, I walked out the door with him, shutting it behind me.

"Hey, hey, hey, you okay?" Taehyung stopped me and placed his arms on my shoulders.

"I don't know," I mumbled. I was feeling really self conscious right now, not sure what to say.

"Hey." He pouted and leaned down so his face was on the same level of mine. "What happened?" Taking a single finger, he poked my cheek, and I pushed his hand away out of instinct.

"Stop it."

"Why?" His pout deepened to an exaggerated one, making me laugh even more. "Is it not cute enough?"

"No, it's not," I lied. My heart was doing backflips over in my chest from how adorable he looked.

Then, quicker than I could comprehend, his pout morphed into a smirk as his grip on my shoulders tightened ever so slightly. Shit. That was hot.

"Really?" He whispered, the smirk deepening even further. "That's not what drunk you thought. Drunk you thought I was very cute."

He grinned at the mortified look on my face and patted me in the head, the more dominating and sexy aura dissipating within a second to show me his regular dorky self. "Nah I'm kidding, you didn't say much, you just said I looked cute."

I literally wanted to bury myself right now, but some stupid part of my brain loved the way I was so flustered by everything he did- or in this case, what I did around him. 

"Oh, um... well, sorry," I mumbled, looking at anywhere but Taehyung.

"Sorry?" I could hear the grin in his voice. "That made my da-" it was his turn to blush bright red now, clearly embarrassed by what he'd just said, and I smirked.

"Made your day, huh?" I teased, ignoring the burst of joy that came at those words. 

"Oh, shut up," he looked at the ground, grinning. Taking his instruction, I just walked towards the staircase and he followed me down, us poking fun at one another.

As we exited the building, we discussed as to what we should do. I was feeling so so much better compared to before- pretty much back to normal- so we decided on an ice cream from a cart that was just at the intersection.

"Which flavour do you want?" He asked me, digging in his pocket for his wallet. 

"Is there coffee?" I went up on my tiptoes but still couldn't see the list over the head of one of the guys standing closer to the cart.

"Yeah, I think so." He squinted slightly, leaning back to try and read the list of ice creams that they had.

"I'll go get them, you wait here," he said, and walked there to buy them. I stood where I was, fishing out my phone to read Rina's reply to my long and heartfelt birthday message: 'k thx', and a few seconds later, I was even graced with a 'I'll call you later'.

Taehyung soon made his way over with two ice cream cones in his hands, his wallet pinned to his side by his elbow so that it wouldn't fall. I rushed over to take my ice cream from him, and took his wallet and put it back in his pocket before he dropped it.

"Thanks."

"No problem," I smiled, before trying a tiny bit of my ice cream. "Mmm. This is good. What did you get?" I leaned over to take a look at his.

"Cookies and cream," he replied. "I always have to choose between this and rocky road, but he was almost out of rocky road, so I took this."

"Ohh, I love rocky road," I said, taking a little bit more of the ice cream. "And my brother always gets cookies and cream, so even though it's not my favourite it's kind of like a comfort flavour to me."

Taehyung smiled at me. "Yeah, cookies and cream is a comfort flavour isn't it? I've got it since I was a kid."

"These two are the best for when I'm just laying in bed or in front of the tv bawling my eyes out, you know?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Why do you say that like you do that on a regular basis?"

I suppressed a laugh. "Tae, I'm a girl. I go through pain on a monthly basis. Though for me, it's not always that bad, to be honest. A lot of girls have it worse than I do."

He turned slightly pink. "Right, I didn't think of that."

"What did you think of?"

"I don't know, just watching 'Titanic' over and over and crying over your ex or something."

I laughed. "First of all, I would never again watch Titanic willingly, and second, I'm completely over my ex ex, it's been years. Even if I met him now we couldn't go back to how it used to be. It was like a... a- you know a...firework?"

"Firework?"

"Like- it originates from a spark, turns into something big and beautiful while it lasts, but then its gone. And once its gone, you can't get the same thing back no matter how hard you try."

"Thats poetic."

I grinned. "Yeah, it is, isn't it?"

We finished up our ice creams and walked around a bit, never too far from my apartment. 

Around an hour and a half later, I got a call from my brother to come back home, so Taehyung walked me back to the apartment. I didn't really want to go, but I wasn't going to make a scene there.

"So, um." I turned to him as we stood in front of the door.

"Yeah," he scratched the back of his neck.

"I guess I'll see you, then, uh- sometime soon?" I tried not to sound too hopeful.

"Yeah. See you," he smiled and turned around, walking down the hallway and turning the corner towards the stairs.

Toning down the smile that still hung on my lips, I turned around and pushed the front door open to reveal my brother trying to make some food.

"Hey, do you mind helping me out? I know it's my turn and everything, but..." he gestured to the mess around him.

I laughed. "Sure. I'll wash my hands and come."

Coming back in a couple of minutes, I sat down opposite my brother on the counter to slice vegetables, and cleaned up after him as he cooked. 

By about an hour later, he'd set up an elaborate meal, which we lay out presentably on the table before taking pictures to send to our parents. 

They loved when the two of us would cook for them when we lived together, especially when it came to our eagerness to plate everything in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

After that, we sat down to eat together, relishing the food as we reminisced, laughing about the disasters we'd had while cooking, and how our parents would pretend that we'd cooked up something great even if it seemed to be a disaster.

A/n: I know, this chapter's bland and boring lol- especially the ending, and I'm sorry about that, but I promise that it will get better, I just had a huge writers block over how to end this chapter but don't worry some real plot progression is coming soon :)

Thank you so much for reading, have a great day or night wherever you are, and don't forget to vote and comment if you enjoyed the chapter!

<3