: i'll pick u up at ur house 6:30pm sharp friday after school.

: awesome! where are we going?

: it's a surprise. 😉

: what do i wear then?!

: something casual and cute. i can't wait for friday! 😃😊

: same!! i'll see you at school.

: okay!

read 8:28am

I set my phone down with a grin plastered on my face. It was settled, I would officially be going on a date with Kim Taehyung.

The happiness inside me would not settle down. I felt like I was on cloud 9.

"I'll see you later guys!" I call out to my parents, grabbing a yogurt from the table and hurriedly running out the door.

I had overslept this morning, causing me to be almost an hour late for school. I was too busy thinking about Taehyung that I completely lost track of time.

As I was running and trying to open up my yogurt at the same time, a car pulls up next to me. I turn around and notice who it belongs to immediately.

Jeon Jungkook.

On cue, his window rolls down and his signature smirk is on his face. "Need a ride?"

I nod and quickly get into the car. "Why are you late?"

"Forgot to set my alarm," he responds, pulling out of the side and driving off. "You?"

"Overslept."

Jungkook hums. "Go figure. The two top students of the school are an hour late to class."

I groan, hitting my head against the seat repeatedly. "I know! I can't afford to get detention. My parents will kill me and won't let me go out this weekend."

And I could not let that happen.

"Why don't we just skip?" Jungkook suggests while stopping at a red light. He turns to face me. "Then tomorrow we could just say we fell sick."

"The both of us fell sick?" I scoff. "As if they would believe that. Plus, my parents already think I'm on my way right now."

Seems like either way I was going to get grounded. And I couldn't afford that, my date with Taehyung would be ruined for sure.

Jungkook sighs, starting the car once it turns green. "Let's just skip today. I'm sure we'll think of something to tell your parents."

I blink. "I don't know Jungkook, that seems really risky to me. Plus, why would I skip with you? What would we do?"

He shrugs and keeps his eyes on the road. "I dunno, just go around for a ride?"

I sigh and look out the window to see that we weren't on our way to the school anymore. Jungkook had gone off the road and gone to a different direction.

"Jungkook!" I gasped. "You were going to force me to skip with you anyway, weren't you?"

"Can't back out now, Miss Second Place." He says smugly, glancing at me with a smirk.

I groan. Why did I even get in the car with him?

My first mistake.

"You know," I begin while picking at my nails. "You and I have been spending a lot of time lately, a little too much."

Jungkook snickers. "And we haven't gotten into an argument. Is this an improvement in our relationship?"

I scoff. "Shut up."

He chuckles and pulls over by a park. There was no one there since everyone was either at work our at school.

My phone buzzed. I took it out of my pocket to see that Taehyung had messaged me.

My heart skipped a beat as I read the text.

: where r u???

: i don't feel good so i decided to

stay home today :((

: oh no!! pls take care

of urself!! ❤️

I bit my lip to hide my smile.

: i will. i wouldn't want to miss

our date friday!! ☺️

: exactly! but also, if u

still don't feel good friday, we can

always reschedule. ur health is more

important, okay!!!

: you're so sweet, thank you.

: ❤️

read 10:19am

I grinned to myself and turned off my phone. I sighed dreamily.

Taehyung was worried about me!

I felt guilty about lying to him about me not feeling good. But if I said that I had skipped school with Jungkook, hell would break loose.

I don't know why, but things have been pretty awkward with Jungkook and Taehyung lately. And I did not want to be in the middle of that.

"What are you so happy about? Get off your phone and let's go, I have something to show you." Jungkook interrupts my time in Taehyung land, getting out of the car and slamming the door.

I sigh and follow his actions. I quickly follow him to the park.

We walked past the park and into the depths of the woods behind the park. I had never wanted to step foot in here because it's always given me the creeps.

Plus, every show, book or movie I've seen, the characters are always murdered or kidnapped in the woods.

Who knows if there are murderers running wild in here?

I make sure to stick close to Jungkook just in case anything popped out at us. After all, Jungkook was a really strong and built guy, he could knock out anyone with a single punch.

"Why are we in the woods?" I ask after a while.

"I have a secret place here," He responds, looking behind him to make sure that I was still close by. "We're almost there, don't worry."

"Well now that you're taking me there it isn't much of a secret place now is it?" I ask sarcastically.

Jungkook chuckles and stops by an abandoned tree house.

The tree house was pretty high up on the trees. Thankfully, there was a ladder to clime up it.

It was run-down. One could easily tell that this tree house had been here for a very long time.

"A tree house?" I mutter to myself. "Jungkook, this is abandoned. What if evil people like murderers are living in there?"

Jungkook laughs. "Miyoung, there are no murderers up there. Trust me, I've been coming long enough to know."

He starts heading for the ladder and begins to climb up.

"What if you're the murderer and you're taking me here to kill me and put an end to this rivalry?" I call out behind him, hesitantly beginning to climb up the ladder.

The ladder wasn't very sturdy, but since apparently "Jungkook has been coming here for as long as he could remember," I had a feeling that I would be okay.

If a muscle pig like Jungkook could climb up the ladder without breaking it, then I should be fine.

Right?

His head pokes out from the treehouse. "Damn it, you caught me."

I roll my eyes and finally reached the tree house. Jungkook grabs my arms and pulls me up into the house.

I groan and sit up. "That was a doozy."

"Doozy?" He chuckles. "Who even says that anymore?"

I point to myself and stick out my tongue. "I just did."

I look out and I am in awe of the view. It's hundreds of thousands of trees and then the city. It was beautiful.

"Woah." I breathe as I continue to be mesmerized by the view.

"Yeah, I love coming up here. Taehyung and I usually come here and have our bro talks or do homework. It's really peaceful." He says as he also stares out.

I chuckle half-heartedly. "I didn't really picture you as a peaceful guy."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Park Miyoung."

"And I'd like to keep it that way." I bite back. He rolls his eyes playfully.

"And bro talks?" I nudge his side. "What do you guys talk about?"

Jungkook glances at me with a small smirk. "Wouldn't you like to know."

I nod. He chuckles again and runs his hands through his hair.

"You know. . . girls, school, life, college."

"Bro talk? More like gossip," I joke. "You got your eye on someone, Jeon?"

It seemed as if I hit a button, because suddenly the atmosphere became tense. His posture was straightened and his eyes were now downcast.

"No." He firmly responds.

And I don't bother to push forward.

It was obvious he did like someone, but didn't want to elaborate on anything. And although the curiosity was killing me, I also knew better than that.

There was no reason to invade his personal life.

I decide to change the subject instead to lighten the mood. He made me skip school with him, there was no way I was going to let this become awkward just because of a simple question.

Plus, he was my ride home. So whenever he wanted to leave, I had to leave with him.

"Nine years," I begin, seeing from the corner of my eye that he had turned to look at me. "Nine years and I still can't beat you in anything, not even a stupid math problem."

It seemed that the topic change had taken a weight off his shoulders as he finally relaxed and went back to his more comfortable posture.

He laughs. "What can I say, you'll always be Miss Second Place."

I groaned. "Will you ever stop calling me that?"

"I'll take it to your grave."

"Fuck you."

And that was how the rest of our afternoon went. We would lowkey bicker about beating the other, leading us to doing small competitions.

Guess who won all six competitions?

You guessed it. Jungkook.

But it was fun, being able to just play around like this. And I could tell he was having fun too.

We were definitely having a turning point in our relationship. Every time we see each other now, we don't want to rip each other's throats out.

I don't know if that was good or bad.

I've always liked Jungkook to be my rival. I liked how he brought out my competitive side, my angry and energetic side.

He was the only one who could.

But I always knew that we've never, in our nine years of yelling, teasing, and competing, hated each other.

Well, I knew that I've never hated him. He just annoyed me to the extent of me wanting to run him over with a train, but never to the extent of hating him.

I wanted to know if he's ever hated him.

"Jungkook?" I ask him as we were walking back towards the car.

He turns to face me with an eyebrow raised. "Yeah?"

"Have you ever, uh, hated me?" I hesitantly ask him.

He stops and turns around, almost causing me to bump into his chest.

"Have I ever hated you?" He repeats.

I nod. "Yeah. Have you?"

"What about you, have you ever hated me?" He shoots back.

"No." I respond. Jungkook was caught off guard. "No, I've never hated you. You just make me so annoyed and frustrated, I'm pretty sure it's unhealthy."

Jungkook blinks, his mouth slightly parted. "I— Really? You've never hated me?"

I shake my head. "Nope."

"Well," he starts, now beginning to grow shy. "I've never hated you. Ever."

A smile starts growing on my face. "Really?"

He nods, bringing his hand up to scratch his nape. "Yeah. You have no idea."

You have no idea.

I think back to when he kissed me at my house.

No Miyoung, snap out of it!

I mentally strangle myself for thinking about the forbidden fruit.

"Why do we sound like middle-schoolers confessing to each other?" I joke, nudging his side and continuing to walk to the car.

Jungkook laughs. "What a love story."

I roll my eyes. "As if."

But the only thing replaying in my mind was. . .

You have no idea.