[3rd Person]
"Hey Dohee, do you plan on asking anyone to the Sadie's Hawkins dance?" The two friends were walking in the hallway, when Jieun happened to pass by a poster reminding students that the dance where traditionally, the girls ask the guys, was coming up very shortly.
Dohee pouted and shook her head, "We're only allowed to go with guys from this school, so since I can't invite Inseong. I don't think I would go."
"Hmm. I think I might ask someone," Jieun says, tapping her fingers together.
"Really?" Dohee asked hopefully, "Is it Yongg--"
"Taehyung."
"Taehyung?" Dohee repeated, her face forming a worrisome expression. "Has Yongguk really not crossed your mind?"
Jieun shook her head. "I plan to ask Taehyung."
A few days before the school dance, Dohee overheard some news that she was thought Jieun would be interested in.
"Well I guess it's a good thing that you and Taehyung are going to the dance because I just heard that Yongguk was asked by someone." Dohee informed Jieun after their first class.
Jieun frowned slightly and tugged Dohee's sleeve. "Who asked him?"
"Cho Seunghee. His partner for the CPR thing that one day."
"Seunghee?" Jieun remembered her. She had also taken notice that ever since the CPR class, Seungee would often times talk to Yongguk and Daehyun during PE, even play basketball or run with them. "Well, good for them, I guess."
Entering the classroom, Jieun was walked by the front row to get to her new seat next to Taehyung. While passing by, she overheard Yongguk and Daehyun's conversation.
"Seunghee sent me a picture of the dress she bought yesterday. She's going to wear red." Yongguk showed his messages to his friend who 'ooh'ed' at the text.
"So that means you gotta go out and get a red tie and one of those vest things." Daehyun suggested. "Seunghee's really cute. Are you glad you got asked by her?"
Jieun purposely slowed down to listen in on Yongguk's answer.
"Yeah," He answered unsurely. "I guess 'cause you know, I've never been asked to a dance before, so it's...interesting."
While walking, Jieun accidentally bumped her hip into a desk, causing the two guys to look over at her. She quickly shuffled through the rest of the rows and found her seat near the window.
While Jieun tried to hide her face, Daehyun gestured towards her as he lowered his voice, "Wouldn't it be something if Jieun asked you to be her date?"
Yongguk's jaw tensed at the idea. "Daehyun, do me a favor and stop mentioning her name."
Daehyun blinked a few times at his friend whom he had never seen angry. "You don't normally act like this..."
It was true. Yongguk was normally so nice and calm, until recently. He looked over his shoulder and saw Taehyung talking to Jieun. He scoffed and turned back to face Daehyun. "Well I didn't expect Jieun to act like I don't even exist. But fine, I get it." He puts his hands up to surrender. "She just never liked me."
Still concerned over how Yongguk was feeling earlier in the day, Daehyun decided to confront a certain girl about it.
But not Jieun. He was too intimidated. So he went to Dohee instead.
"Hey, what's going on with your friend?" Daehyun stopped in front of Dohee just as she was about to leave the building.
"What do you mean exactly?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
"One moment, Jieun is such a hoe for Yongguk, and then she completely drops him. So what's up with that?"
Dohee sighed, "Well it's obvious that she likes him, right? But I don't know. Maybe she's too scared to admit it."
"But why? All she has to do is tell Yongguk that she likes him and they can go out. It's so easy."
"I don't know! Because she's stubborn and crazy? I don't know what's going on in her mind."
"So how can we fix this? Yongguk is acting like Jieun just tore up his heart."
Dohee shrugged, "I don't know if there's anything we can do. Jieun is going with Taehyung and Yongguk is going with Seunghee."
🌙🌙🌙
On the night of the dance, Jieun slipped on a white and gold dress and waited downstairs for Taehyung to pick her up. Stepping into the living room, she was bombarded with camera flashes.
"My daughter is so pretty!" Mrs. Song exclaimed, continuously snapping pictures.
"She's growing up too fast." Mr. Song followed along, hitting the shutter button on his phone.
"Thank you, but please don't act like this when my date comes." Jieun requested. After a few more minutes, the doorbell rang, and Jieun went to answer it.
She opened the door with a big smile and looked at Taehyung. He wore a black suit, white button up, and gold accented neck tie. "Hi."
"Hi. You look so beautiful." Taehyung looked at her in admiration. "Are you ready to go?"
Giving a nod, Jieun tried to step onto the porch, but not before her parents got to meet Taehyung.
"Hold on Jieun, we want to say hi." Mrs. Song pulled the two back inside and shook Taehyng's hand. "Hi I'm Jieun's mother."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Taehyung."
"So this is your date?" Mr. Song looked down at the boy with an intimidating stare. Taehyung gulped nervously, but soon, the look on Mr. Song's face changed. "What a nice looking boy. I thought he would be a troublemaker, but he doesn't look like a troublemaker at all."
"Thank you, sir." Taehyung laughed and Jieun's parents immediately liked him. After taking a couple of pictures, the two teens were finally able to head to the dance.
"You have everything, right? ID, keys, money?" Mrs. Song called out as Jieun walked to Taehyung's car.
"Yes mom! Bye!"
"Remember, your dad and I are going to drive down to visit relatives tonight, so we'll see you tomorrow!"
Jieun gave a last wave before getting into the car.
Arriving at the venue, Taehyung linked arms with Jieun as they made their way through the rest of the attendees. "Oh I see my friends over there. Wanna meet them?"
"Yeah, sure." Jieun replied.
As they walked across the room, Taehyung's unlinked their arms and switched it up by placing his hand on her waist. The two finally stopped in front of three guys who had their backs faced towards them. "Hey guys."
Jieun put on a smile for a good first impression, but her smile turned into a grimace when she saw who Taehyung's friends were.
"Do you know Bobby, Hanbin, and Junhoe?"
"Oh," Hanbin looked down to where Taehyung had his hand on Jieun's hip, "Didn't know you two were so close."
Jieun rolled her eyes, so badly wanting to leave. Why did Taehyung's friends have to be guys that she all happened turned down in the beginning of the year?
While Taehyung was talking to his friends, Jieun felt completely uncomfortable since she would notice from time to time that the guys were giving her rude looks. She didn't think that sweet, innocent Taehyung would hang out with these type of people. They were all still bitter towards her since she rejected them.
Jieun's eyes wandered around the dance floor and took a sigh of relief when she noticed some friends from class. "Taehyung, I'm going to go talk to someone really quick."
Taehyung broke away from his conversation and looked at Jieun, "Oh yeah sure. Have fun, I'll just stay here with the guys."
Jieun thankfully slipped away and met her acquaintances, Eunbi and Naeun. While she was talking to them, she recognized two people coming in from the entrance. Those people being Yongguk and Seunghee.
Jieun pretended to continue listening to Eunbi's story, but her eyes were following Yongguk and his date. Seunghee handed her phone to someone and asked them to take a picture for her. Seunghee posed herself close to Yongguk and hugged his torso while he put a hand on her waist.
"Hey there you are!" Taehyung said, coming up to Jieun who was standing by the refreshments table.
"Hey." Jieun mumbled back. She was watching Yongguk fail miserably at moving while on the dance floor. Seunghee was encouraging him to loosen up and held his hands as they danced together, but Yongguk just laughed shyly, afraid that he was making a big fool of himself.
Jieun felt Taehyung's arm snake around her and pull her close to him, "Is something wrong?"
She quickly wiped the unpleasant look on her face and showed her date a smile. "No, everything's fine."
Taehyung gave Jieun an unsure look, implying that he didnt fully believe her.
Jieun brushed it off with a laugh, "Seriously Tae, everything's fine."
"Well, okay then," He nodded. "Well you know, since we're here, at a dance, do you want to dance?"
Jieun tried to shake off any of the negative feelings she had and grabbed Taehyung's hand. "Let's go."
Taehyung pulled Jieun to middle just as a slow song started to play. Automatically, his hands held her waist and her arms went around his neck. Taehyung lowered his head so that he could whisper something to her, "You know, my friends told me they were pretty jealous that I came here with you."
It was hard for Jieun to hear, partly because the music was loud, and partly because her mind was somewhere else. Yongguk and Seunghee were standing a few couples away and Yongguk, being awkward as always, didnt know how he was supposed to slow dance. Seunghee took the initiative and playfully positioned his arms like a ballroom dancer. One hand rested on her waist and the other held her hand.
Seunghee rested her head on Yongguk's chest, as she wasn't tall enough to reach his shoulder. Jieun felt frustrated while watching the couple, and she stopped moving. Taehyung took notice of this.
He put one finger under her chin, having her look up at him. "Are you sure nothing's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
"Is that the truth? Because I'm getting the feeling that you don't really want to be here with me."
"No no no. That's not it. Really, I'm glad that you came here with me."
That repsonse made Taehyung smile, but it also made him do something that Jieun wasn't expecting. He tilted her chin up higher and pressed his lips to hers.
Little did Jieun know, Yongguk saw the whole thing.
"Do you wanna step out of here for a while?" Taehyung asked. Jieun was still too in shock to answer, but Taehyung held her hand and lead her outside of the room and into the hall.
As they stepped away farther from the dance room's entrance, Taehyung stopped behind a wall where he was sure there would be a little more privacy.
He put his hand on the back of Jieun's neck and continued to kiss her.
Jieun just thought that Taehyung took her out here with the intention to walk around or talk, not to do this.
She placed her hands on his chest and gently pushed him away. "Wait Taehyung...I'm sorry, but I'm not in the mood to do this."
"What's a little kiss?" He put his hands on her shoulders so that she couldn't leave and kissed her with even more force the third time around.
Jieun frowned and tried to move her head to the side, but she couldn't. It didn't feel right kissing Taehyung and she didn't feel that spark that she usually felt whenever she kissed Yongguk.
"Stop it." Jieun mumbled through the kiss, but Taehyung wouldn't listen.
"Come on, I thought that you liked me." He whispered against the skin of her neck before kissing it. One hand trailed down to her thigh and slowly started to lift her dress up.
"Taehyung stop touching me." Jieun began to raise her voice, but just before she could let out a scream, Taehyung put his hand over her mouth to prevent others from hearing her. Jieun didn't want to cry, but a tear managed to slip out, and then another. She couldn't believe that Taehyung was treating her like this.
When Jieun realized that she was just not strong enough to push the boy off of her, she lifted up her foot, about to stomp of his shoe to catch him off guard, but someone else beat her to it.
"Get off of her."
Jieun opened her eyes at the sound of the familiar voice. Yongguk was standing right behind Taehyung, grabbing him by his tux jacket and pulling him away from Jieun.
Taehyung turned around to get a look at Yongguk and scoffed. "Why don't you mind your own business. We were just having some fun."
Yongguk stared at Taehyung in disbelief and shoved his shoulder, "It didn't look like she was having fun when you were forcing yourself on her."
"Ok listen," Taehyung took a step towards Yongguk and spoke in a hushed tone, "After I'm done here, you can have her, alright? This is all just for a bet anyway."
Unfortunately for Taehyung, that wasn't gonna slide with Yongguk. He raised his fist and threw a punch at the boy's face, making him stumble back.
Quickly, before Taehyung could get up, Yongguk held his hand out to Jieun. "Do you want me to take you home?"
Jieun nodded slightly, still surprised with everything that happened.
Hand-in-hand, Yongguk took Jieun out to the parking lot and towards his car .
"Wait Yongguk, but you can't just leave Seunghee, you're her date..." Jieun voiced softly.
"Don't worry, I told her I might have to leave early--and even though Daehyun is dateless, he still had to attend this since he's on the dance planning committee, so I told him to keep her company and take her home."
The ride to Jieun's house was a quiet one. The only time anyone spoke was when they got to her driveway and Jieun said 'thanks for the ride,' before getting out of the car. Yongguk took it upon himself to walk her to her doorstep.
While Jieun was looking for the keys in her purse, Yongguk decided to tell her something. "I know that you probably don't want to think about it right now, but I hope you're ok...I just got so mad when he was touching you like that, especially when you didn't want him too, I had to do something."
Jieun stopped looking through her bag and stared up at the boy in front of her, "Yongguk, thank you for stepping in, and thank you for making sure I was ok."
"You're welcome." Yongguk wanted to pull the girl into a hug, but instead, kept his hands in his pockets. For the past few weeks, Jieun has been avoiding him so he wasn't sure if he could just go ahead and hug her.
"I'll see you at school on Monday."
Yongguk took the hint of Jieun saying her goodbyes and he stepped off the porch. "I'll see you on Monday."
He started the ignition of his car and started backing out of the driveway, but he noticed that Jieun was still out on her front porch, calling someone on her phone. He decided to park again and check on her.
"Is everything ok?"
"Huh?" Jieun turned around, not noticing that Yongguk had come back. "Yeah I'm just...I don't have my key..." Jieun felt like an idiot at that point. She even remembered her mother telling her not to forget her keys, but she didn't bother to double check if it was in her purse.
"Are your parents home?" Yongguk asked.
Jieun shook her head, "No..."
"So who are you calling?"
"Um I was calling Dohee to see if I could go over to her house. But I know that she's with Inseong tonight so she's not answering my calls right now." Jieun hung up the call and put her phone down, not knowing what else to do.
"Well, you can just stay at my house tonight."