"You're at it again?"

Jungkook sat silently in the passenger seat beside his mother. He simply stared at his feet, ignoring the world out.

"Jeon Jungkook. I'm speaking to you." She raised her voice. He did not flinch. "Don't you have ears? Don't you have a tongue? Speak."

He remained silent. He sighed wondering when he could go back to the comfort of his room. With her eyes trained on the road, he saw her raising her arms in frustration. She hit him hard on the shoulders. His recent workouts were proving to be helpful because it did more damage to her than it did him. He still did not flinch. Which only riled her up more.

"You caused so much trouble in that last school that they had to kick you out. If they kick you out of this place, consider that the end of your education. I will no longer bother caring about you."

"Right. Like you ever cared in the first place." He mumbled.

"What was that?" She screamed at him, furiously.

He kept his mouth shut. He bit through it all, saying nothing. Silence was his only companion.

***

Jia thought she'd start burning from the sheer intensity of her mother's stare. Her father seemed pretty serious too. They'd been quiet all throughout the car ride back home. She had ended up missing the last hour by the time their talk with the Principal had gotten over. When she got home, her mother threw a towel at her and asked her to shower. Her big toe had been bleeding from where Jungkook had stamped her. She had put on a strip of bandage tape and even though it was pointless, she was too scared to ask her mom to have a look at it. She now sat at one end of their kitchen table while her parents sat by the other end.

"Jia. I need you to tell me exactly what happened. What were you doing by a pool in the first place when you know you can't swim?"

Jia bit her lips nervously and slowly narrated the story. She only said the bare minimum and skipped over the parts she thought might get more questions. She wished she could skip the whole drowning part but it was evident that she was not getting out of that. She explained that she and Jungkook had argued all the way to the edge of the pool and that both of them had fallen at the same time as she slipped on the tile. She skipped the part where she lost consciousness underwater or how she had nearly witnessed the doors of death. Instead, she told that Jungkook had hauled her up in a matter of only few seconds.

Her mother sighed in anger and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Jia, do you know how serious this is? What if he didn't know how to swim? The two of you would have drowned to your death in a school pool."

Jia gulped.

"And besides, how did you not notice the pool?! I knew you were clumsy but I didn't know it was this serious-" Her mother rambled on for about ten minutes straight. Jia wondered how awesome a rapper her mom would make. When she had let it all out, her dad spoke.

"If it went as far as the Principal, this is serious Jia. You're a good kid and if you tell me that this will not happen again, I'll believe you. But you should be careful, okay? Your mom's right. This could have ended in something critical?"

Jia looked down at herself in shame.

"When you told me Jungkook was annoying you, I assumed he called you names and did harmless pranks. But the coach told us that you got into a physical fight today. That's not cool. At all."

Jia was on the verge of tears again. She wasn't sure she could point a single reason for it, it was an overwhelming mixture of too many. She cried because she disappointed her parents, made them come all the way to school and have them apologise to the Principal. She hated that this happened right when her dad was back home. She hated that she was going through all this because Jungkook screwed up with not much fault of her own. She hated that after all this, she sympathised with him instead of hating him. No matter what she did, she couldn't wipe away the furious face of his mom staring down at her. Most of all, she was still shaken from the whole experience. She had not recovered from the shock yet. She started crying her heart out.

"I'm so sorry." She cried.

"Whoa kiddo, it's okay." Said her dad, alarmed.

"I didn't mean to let you down." Jia stuttered.

At that, her dad quickly got up from his chair and knelt down next to her. "Oh, come on. Let us down? What are you talking about? You know we're just worried about you, right?"

Jia nodded but tears were streaming endlessly down her chin.

He patted her head. "You could get hurt in situations like this and we don't want anything to harm you. And if you're not careful, you might end up hurting someone else too. I hope you understand." He said gently.

Jia sniffed and nodded again.

"We know you're a good girl. It's okay to make mistakes. That's how you learn. You hear me?" He asked, smiling up at her.

Jia nodded and wiped her tears away.

"Did you dry your hair out well?" Her mom was by her chair now, ruffling her locks to check. "You'll get sick if you don't." She took another towel out from the cupboard and handed it to Jia. "You're not hurt anywhere else, right?"

Jia contemplated for a while. "Actually..." she reluctantly pointed at her feet.

Jia was pretty sure she'd get an earful for that one; she was also sure that she had a mild cold. But despite it all, she was just grateful to have her parents pamper and take care of her. She was happy knowing that she was loved.

***

Jia nervously fiddled with the hem of her faded blue skirt and looked out through the glass window of Lily's Café. A quiet place which was only a few blocks away from their school. It was a common date spot for most of the couples in their school which only made Jia more nervous.

Jia had spent a lazy day at home the day before; trying to sleep off the incident and Yoongi's sudden message had startled her. Before she knew it, she had agreed to meet him at this café at five. Her watch read five minutes past five and she bit her lower lip out of habit. Being asked out to Lily's was their school's lame tradition of sending a clear message that they were interested in you. While this was the case for most couples, there had been some embarrassing instances too. Which was why Jia was nervous. A lot of the school's famous couples were present and if this turned out to be 'just a hangout', it would spread through school like a wildfire. But both her and Min Yoongi belonged to a middle category which was neither famous nor invisible. And her only relief relied on the hope that people wouldn't bother taking much notice of them.

She had spent the next two hours freaking out with Mina over the phone. Mina was her best friend for a reason, within no time, she'd convinced Jia that this was going to be awesome and that she'd help her prep for it. Her whole outfit was carefully scrutinised and picked out by Mina and she had spent the whole day at school hyping Jia up for the evening. Mina had previously had two dates at Lily's before. One with a classmate which lead to a relationship that ended in four months and another with a senior which had lasted for ten months. Jia on the other hand, was a newbie. She had never been asked out to Lily's before. Heck, she had never been asked out before. Most of the time, her crushes were a time-pass interest that died with her. Even with Min Yoongi, she never expected it to go this far. But now that she was here, there was no going back.

The thought of having a potential first boyfriend hit a stronger wave of nervousness and excitement in Jia. It had been five minutes since she last checked time and she was almost sure that this was going to be a disaster. Before she could think further, the bell by the door jingled, inviting a new customer. He seemed to be in a hurry and he checked his wrist watch for time. His jet-black wavy hair fell as messy bangs on his forehead and his long fingers tapped nervously on his jeans. Jia watched as Min Yoongi looked around the cafe, his dark eyes scanning the crowd of people. She reluctantly raised her hand but his attention was suddenly caught by one of his classmates. Flustered, she quickly brought her hand back down on her lap. The dude asked something and Yoongi nodded a reply. The dude then proceeded to fist bump him and then pointed directly at her.

Jia's eyes widened and she quickly tried to look away but they had already seen her staring at them. She mentally cursed at herself and focused on the faded blue of her skirt.

"Hi. Is this seat taken?" Yoongi asked jokingly in a deep voice.

Jia shook her head, unable to say anything. He laughed at her and made himself comfortable on the chair opposite to her.

"I'm sorry for being late." He said, sheepishly touching the back of his neck. "It's been a while since I've had a free evening and I dozed off."

"That's okay." Jia assured him. "You're here now."

"Yup" He smiled back at her. "Did you order yet?"

Jia shook her head. He immediately called up a waitress and ordered himself an Iced Americano and a blueberry muffin. Jia ordered a cup of chocolate coffee.

"You seem busy these days." Jia commented.

"I am. Professor Han is making me train twice more than last year. The first level zonal competition is next Saturday. I have to win that, get through the second one and then the Nationals." He replied, his mouth thinning into a straight line.

"Are you nervous?"

"For next week, not so much. First zone, I can handle. But second and Nationals are more nerve-wrecking. It's a tight competition." He sighed.

Jia leaned forward and placed her hands on the table. She rested her chin on top of them and looked at him intently. "When did you start playing the Piano?"

Yoongi scrunched down his eyebrows as he thought about it. "I think when I was around five?" He looked back at her and then nodded. "Yup. Five. We had a huge piano over at my Grandpa's place and I learnt my first piece on it."

"Ooh what was it."

Yoongi smiled sheepishly "The Birthday song."

"Of course." Jia laughed.

"The first piece that I really enjoyed playing is probably Elvis. Can't help falling in love with you." He looked out the window. "It's been a while since I played that one."

Their order arrived and Jia asked him a few more questions. Before she could rummage her head for more, he stopped her.

"Jia, it's starting to feel a little like you're interviewing me."

"Oh." She giggled nervously. He laughed at her and shook his head, muttering something inaudibly.

"Huh?" She asked. "I'm sorry, I couldn't quiet catch that."

"Good." He chuckled. "You said you like reading, right?"

Jia nodded her head enthusiastically. He chuckled to himself and said something inaudible again. She raised her eyebrows and he quickly cleared his throat. "I want to know more about you, Yun Jia." He said seriously. Jia felt herself blushing and smiled back at him. She felt more at ease and they ended up talking a lot.

Jia hadn't realised it had already been an hour and gasped when she looked at her watch. "It's getting late. I should probably get going now."

"Sure. I'll walk you home." He replied.

They paid for their drinks and walked out the jingling door. It was getting dark and Jia quickened her pace. They stopped a few houses away from Jia's and she smiled shyly at him.

"Well, it was fun hanging out with you. We should do this again sometimes." He spoke.

"Yeah, Sure." Jia said uncertainly.

"Next time, let's invite others too. It'll be fun." He said smiling, as though the thought was very amusing.

Jia blinked for a few seconds, staring intently at him.

"Bye!" He said and turned to walk away.

Jia stood transfixed, feeling like a complete loser. 'Of course.' She thought. 'What was I thinking.' She stood staring at the back of his head as he took a few steps away from her. Jia wanted to walk but her body just wouldn't move. She wanted to walk away quick so that she could cry herself to sleep thinking about how much of an idiot she was. She must have zoned out in self-humiliation that she almost jumped when she heard someone call her name next to her.

She regained herself only to see the laughing face of Yoongi right next to hers. She was confused.

"Had you there for a second, didn't I?" He asked, laughing his heart out.

"Huh?" asked Jia.

"You're so cute." He chuckled.

"Huh?" Repeated Jia dumbfounded.

"I said you're cute. I've been saying that the whole evening." He replied.

Jia stood blinking yet again.

"Aww." He said patting her head. "If it isn't obvious already. I like you."

At that, Jia blushed furiously. She opened her mouth to say something but no words escaped her lips. He chuckled even more at that. Embarrassed, she quickly hid her face behind her hands.

"Hmm. I'm not sure what that means." He teased her. "I'm going to assume you think I'm hideous and that you can't even look at my face. Yun Jia hates me!" He said dramatically.

"What? No! That's absurd! I think you're really cute and I really like you." She blurted out and quickly slammed her hand against her mouth. She groaned as he burst out in a fit of laughter.

"Why, thank you, Jia." He smiled slyly at her. "Now that everything is cleared up, I'll see you at school tomorrow." With that, he waved a goodbye and walked away.

Jia stared at him in disbelief. She was shocked to see how easily she had been manipulated. Slowly, she turned around and headed to her house. She was sure that she was blushing like crazy. She prepped herself for a long phone call with Mina.