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"_____, do you think this would look good on me?" Jisoo asked, picking up a maroon velour blouse from the rack and holding it against her body as she inspected it from multiple angles.
You didn't have to think twice before you nodded, a fond smile on your face as Jisoo beamed and put the blouse in the steadily growing basket of clothes she wished to try on; you'd never understood why Jisoo even bothered asking you because you always thought your best friend looked absolutely stunning in literally anything and everything she chose to wear.
You lazily sipped on your strawberry lemonade and stretched your arms a little, your eyes casually wandering around the store as you waited for Jisoo to finish leafing through the rest of the clothes on that rack. You admired the lovely interior of the shop, and ooh, those lights were really pretty, and wow, that dress would look wonderful on Jisoo, until you happened to see something so frightening that you felt your blood freeze up.
"Fuck," you cursed under your breath when your eyes fell on a particular person in the queue, quickly ducking as the cause of your sudden panic coincidentally glanced in your direction.
Jisoo looked up quizically when she heard you randomly swear out of nowhere, confusion colouring her face when she saw you suspiciously hunched over behind a jewellery display, "What even -"
You didn't give Jisoo the chance to finish her question, "I'll explain later, I really need to go now," you cut her off hurriedly, shooting Jisoo an apologetic look before you made a run for it. Jisoo couldn't help but snort when you stumbled into the mannequin next to you in your haste, and she had to suppress a chuckle when you offered a fleeting 'sorry' to the inanimate object. She raised her eyebrow, watching you rapidly scan your surroundings as you carefully crossed the shopfloor; it was as if the store was a battlefield laced with active mines, and it made her wonder what had possessed you to flip like a light switch and race out of the store's side entrance as fast as you possibly could.
Meanwhile, a steady stream of 'fuck, fuck, fuck' softly left your lips (and you really hoped that one toddler in the green pushchair didn't hear you) as you sprinted across the bottom floor of the mall and headed towards the outdoor parking lot, which was thankfully very close to your current location. You kept looking over your shoulder every three seconds, praying to all the gods out there that you hadn't been spotted. You fished your car keys out of your bag and aggressively pressed the unlock button as soon as you were out of the building before you came to an abrupt halt, groaning when you realised you had absolutely no idea where you'd parked. Jisoo was always better at remembering these things compared to you.
You mumbled a string of colourful curses as you jogged through the parking lot in search for your car, all while occasionally glancing at the mall entrance to check if the woman had miraculously appeared there to catch you or something (because she seriously had the sharpest instincts in the world).
You were one second away from aborting mission and just hailing a cab when you spotted a familiar grey vehicle out of the corner of your eye. A relieved smile overtook your features as you swiftly made your way towards your car, your primary focus still on the entrance of the mall. With your eyes fixed on the revolving doors, you yanked the passenger door open; your main objective was to get into the car somehow so that you could finally breathe, and the passenger door just so happened to be the one nearest to you.
“Thank god,” you muttered to yourself as you clumsily slid into the car, wincing when you banged your head against the car frame because you weren't looking where you were going. As soon as you were safely inside, you plastered your face against the car window, staring out of it to make sure that you hadn't been secretly followed by the woman or something. You sighed happily a few seconds later when you concluded that you'd managed to escape successfully after all. You tried to calm your pounding heart down, but your gaze and all of your attention was still trained on the mall.
You mentally thanked your lucky stars that you hadn't been caught by your mother, because Lord knows what would have happened if your mother had seen you frolicking at the mall with Jisoo when you were supposed to be in the middle of a 'period of reflection'. The purpose of said reflection was for you to understand that you shouldn't have snuck out of the house to attend Jennie's (wild and wonderful) birthday party six nights ago when your mother had clearly told you that you weren't allowed to go (for some weird and completely incomprehensible reason, might you add; so what if you'd almost failed one of your courses and barely managed to pass last semester?)
You'd tried to sneak back in at 4 in the morning, but had been caught red-handed by your mother, who had been waiting patiently on the couch for you to return. On top of that, the fact that you were a little (read: extremely) tipsy and had knocked over your mother's favourite antique vase and sent it smashing into dozens of tiny pieces really hadn't helped your case at all. So you'd been slapped with a month of being grounded, with work at the coffee shop being the only exception since it was spring break at university.
Your car keys had been confiscated too, but you'd made out to your mother that you desperately needed to go to the library because you desperately needed to refer to a couple of books in order to complete your research paper so that you didn't almost fail again. Your mother had eyed you skeptically, but your father (who was always on your side) had intervened and convinced your mother to hand over the keys. To be fair, you were actually planning on going to the library...just after you hung out at the mall with Jisoo, because you were seriously starting to feel trapped inside the walls of your own house.
As the horrific consequences of potentially being caught red-handed yet again by your mother skimmed through your head, Jungkook stared at you in total disbelief from the driver's seat of the car you had hastily jumped into. His eyebrows were raised so high that they had almost wormed their way into his hairline, and his alarmed eyes were impossibly wide as he sat there, frozen and unmoving, utterly shocked and utterly speechless by what had just happened.
Jungkook had been boredly scrolling through his phone when you'd burst into his car and scared the living daylights out of him, and he had absolutely no idea as to what the fuck he was supposed to do about the girl suddenly sitting in the passenger seat of his car. You hadn't even acknowledged his existence yet, but your existence was seriously scaring the fuck out of him. Were you a stalker? An anti-fan? A kidnapper? A hitwoman hired to kill him?
A few seconds passed by, with Jungkook gaping at you with a dangerous mix of horror and terror churning in his stomach. He wordlessly watched you, wondering how to break the fact of his presence to you, but he couldn't tell whether you were actually unaware of him, or whether you had willingly broken into his car and this was a part of an elaborate grand scheme.
He uncomfortably shifted his position in the driver's seat, turning a little to face you better. You were too busy peering out of the passenger window to notice though, your nose stuck to the glass as you stared outside. He knew that it made literally no sense, but you seriously looked like you were hiding from someone, or that you were spying on someone, and his fear slowly started to subside as he entertained that idea and grew curious about your real motive behind invading his car.
You sank into the seat after you deemed the coast clear and your life out of danger, your eyes closing as you inhaled and exhaled loudly and sharply, the adrenaline of the close shave and your general unfitness leaving you breathless.
Jungkook contemplated the various ways in which he could make you aware of that you weren't alone, but he didn't know which would be the best one. He could either tap you on the shoulder (and scare the crap out of you), speak up and demand an explanation (which would also probably scare the crap out of you), clear his throat to attract you attention (and again, scare the crap out of you), or he could just wait until you noticed him.
Jungkook decided on simply clearing his throat as literally anything he chose to do would probably frighten you anyways. He was just about to purposely cough to attract your attention, mouth half open and the sound almost out of his throat, when you opened your eyes, turned towards the driver's seat to move into it and accidentally met his gaze.
Your soul almost jumped out of your body when your sight fell on a random ass boy sitting in the driver's seat of your car, “What the actual fuck?!" you screeched, jolting so violently that the back of your head hit the window. You hissed in pain and rubbed the sore spot, your eyes widening like two tiny moons when you realised that the boy was still there in front of you. You closed your eyes again and rubbed your temples, suddenly regretting having stayed up late the previous night; the lack of sleep was obviously taking a heavy toll on your mind and you were hallucinating to some crazy next level.
Jungkook jumped back, equally startled, "Who are you and what the fuck are you doing in my car?!” he shrieked, wasting no time in getting straight to the point.
You pried your hands away from your face and opened your eyes slowly, wondering why the boy hadn't disappeared yet. Much to your dismay, he was still sitting right there, the most flabbergasted expression on his face. You blinked a few times, but he still didn't vanish, and you were slowly starting to freak the fuck out.
The worst part was that you recognized him and it made the whole situation ten times worse.
Jungkook swallowed and glanced at you warily, he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to make sense out of this situation, "Why did you barge into my car?" he repeated when you failed to respond and chose to gape at him with your mouth opening and then closing like a stupid goldfish instead.
Your eyes narrowed, and the boy’s presence, and especially his identity, totally flew out of the window as hot irritation took over, “Your car?” you finally said with a snort, as if it was the hardest thing to believe in the entire world.
Jungkook raised an eyebrow as you did a complete 180. Where the fuck was this conversation going? “Yeah, my car,” he said again, a little confused.
You scoffed, you couldn't believe the audacity. Not only was the boy sitting in your car, but he had the nerve to say that your hard-earned baby belonged to him. You had to balance two part time jobs for a year and a half so that you could save up to buy your precious car (although it wouldn't have been possible without your father's generous contribution). Your car was your heart and soul, as funny as it sounded, and you were not going to let some guy claim it as his, "You may be the biggest popstar right now, but I am not going to let you get away with this," you snapped in annoyance, throwing in a roll of your eyes to get your determination across.
Jungkook was so flustered at the bullshit coming out of the your mouth that he didn't even know which part of your words to contest first, "I'm going to call the police if you don't get out," he threatened instead, tightening his grip on his phone.
You rolled your eyes again, "You're in my car, I should be the one calling the police," you argued with an indignant huff.
Jungkook laughed dryly, he'd had his fair share of encounters with gold diggers, creepy sponsors, psychotic fans, petty thieves, you name it, but this was the first time he had come across such a weirdass strategy to approach him, "Your car?" he retorted mockingly, "I don't think so,"
You had always had a quick temper and you were struggling to hold yourself back, "Aren't you rolling in enough money to buy hundreds of your own cars? Why are you trying to steal mine?" you questioned, glaring at Jungkook in a way that should have made him feel grateful that looks couldn't kill.
Your question was completely genuine; JK, real name Jeon Jungkook, was the nation's favourite singer-songwriter, and not only was he attractive as fuck (in the middle of this absurd situation, you really wished you didn't agree), he also had at least 3 songs in the top 20 at any given point in time and had been the artist of the year at all the award shows for the past three years straight. He had a relatively spotless reputation (save for a few 'scandals' that were no fault of his own), was the #1 brand endorsement model in the country, and if that wasn't enough, his face was plastered all over your little sister's room too.
Jungkook looked away and rubbed his temples, feeling his blood pressure starting to rise, "Are you being serious," he muttered under his breath. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down before he looked up at you again, "You know what, I don't have the energy for this -"
"Then get out of my fucking car," you shouted, cutting Jungkook off before he could carry on acting like he was the wronged victim.
You succeeded in fuelling Jungkook's stupidly competitive side which was always ready to fight to the ends of the world and would refuse to acknowledge that he could ever be wrong, "You mean my fucking car," he corrected you in a firm voice, "Should I show you the papers?" he challenged, reaching for the glove compartment.
You ignored the meaningless taunt, "Are you going to get out the nice way or not?" you threatened him, trying to sound as intimidating as possible, even though you were at least four inches shorter than him and the least threatening-looking person Jungkook had ever met, "How did you get inside my car anyway?" you questioned before he could even retort, actually curious about how had managed to do it.
"I got into my car with my keys," Jungkook replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, jingling the keys hanging in the ignition slot to make his point clear. You glanced down at the keys in your own hand and your eyes narrowed. You realized that you were not only dealing with a ridiculously hot guy a world-famous popstar, but also an expert thief who had somehow managed to obtain keys identical to yours and broken into your car, "Listen..." Jungkook trailed off, glancing at you for help because he didn't know how to address you
"_____," you supplied without missing a beat.
"Listen _____," Jungkook started again, his voice calm and steady, "It's not your car," he said slowly, making sure he emphasised every word. He couldn't help the little smirk that slipped onto his face when you looked at him like you wanted to wring his neck right at that very moment.
There were a lot of things about this situation that you could not fathom; why Jeon Jungkook was sitting in the driver's seat of your car, why Jeon Jungkook was claiming that your car was his own, and now, you really couldn't fathom the fact that he had the audacity to smirk at you as if he was completely right and you were completely wrong. The anger was bubbling in your stomach so dangerously that you felt a little dizzy. You fell back into your seat, letting out a very mangled and very frustrated sigh, "I thought you were a decent guy," you muttered, the thread that held your patience together being strained a bit too much.
"I am a decent guy!" he quickly cried out in his defense.
You closed your eyes and tried to count to five to ease yourself, but something inside you snapped, "Get the fuck out of my car then!" you shouted, leaning forward aggressively.
Jungkook clenched his jaw and leaned forward too, not even slightly ready to back down, "You get the fuck out of my car!" he shouted just as loudly.
The two of you, hot-headed and all fired up, engaged in a staring contest, only a gap of roughly ten centimetres between your faces. Jungkook gazed at you, who was looking at him with such beautiful, fiery eyes that he was surprised he hadn't caught fire yet, "You have really nice eyes," he blurted out suddenly, wanting to dig a hole into the ground and die there as soon as the words flew out of his mouth before he could hold them back.
That caught you completely off guard and you looked away first, unable to withstand the intensity of his gaze any longer. You could feel your face growing hot and you would never admit it, but the sudden compliment had made your heart flutter. You coughed and moved backwards, creating a little more distance between the two of you and trying to act non-chalant as possible, "Listen up Jeon Jungkook, this is my car, okay? It’s a second-hand grey Audi A8 that I bought last year with the money I saved up over almost two years, and it’s got dice hanging from the rearview mirror, see there -"
Your words died in your throat when your eyes darted towards the rearview mirror and you saw a cherry air freshner dangling from it instead of your red dice. Your face fell when you were struck with the realisation that you had been raising hell while being totally wrong all along, and you felt your heart shrivel into a prune when you realised that you had just made the biggest fool out of yourself in front of Jeon Jungkook out of all the people in the world.
"Where are your dice? Are they invisible?" Jungkook asked teasingly, all of his prior embarrassment completely evaporating as it condensed on your blazing cheeks. He couldn't have contained he massive grin that burst onto his face even if he'd tried, and he really couldn't hide how chuffed he felt that he was going to have the last laugh. You really were something else.
"Fuck," you muttered in horror, voicing only one of the colourful curses that were chaotically flitting around in your mind. You felt even more horrified when you glanced at Jungkook and saw the biggest shit-eating grin on his face, "I am so extremely sorry," you apologised instantly, feeling like the hugest idiot on the planet. Which was probably an understatement.
"I tried to tell you that this is my car," Jungkook shrugged, almost laughing at the horrified expression that had set up camp on your face.
"I'm so, so, so sorry and god, I'm so stupid," you sighed, and Jungkook couldn't even disagree with you. This was a new personal record, even for a person of your (extremely high) clumsiness calibre. You looked at the floor of the car, wishing it would just open up and swallow you to save you from this terrible embarrassment.
"I'm sincerely sorry for the misunderstanding. And for shouting at you...and swearing a lot," you apologized again, your eyes glued to the floor, knowing that even a mountain load of apologies would not suffice. The reality of the past seven minutes began to dawn on you; you had screamed and sworn at the Jeon Jungkook. You had raised hell in his car and accused him of being a thief. He had told you that you had really nice eyes.
There were a lot of mortifying moments in your life, but you had never wanted to die as much as you did in that very moment.
Jungkook observed you, his earlier amusement slowly morphing into a strange mixture of guilt and pity. He was fully aware that this situation was no fault of his own, but you looked like a beaten up puppy and he was starting to feel just a little bad for gloating, "Hey, it's okay," he said softly, reaching his hand out to comfort you before realising that would be creepy as fuck considering he met you like ten minutes ago and pulling it away, "I'm guessing it was an honest mistake," he tried to downplay the situation, throwing in a casual shrug when you finally glanced at him.
Your lips curved into a small smile, and Jungkook instinctively smiled back, concluding that you looked even prettier when you smiled. He mentally slapped himself and reprimanded his brain to get back on track, "Thank you for understanding," you said gratefully, your embarrassment starting to fade a little. A few seconds of silence passed between the two of you, neither of you knowing how to proceed with this absurd interaction.
But you were curious about something, and you had never been one to be able to hold herself back, "With all due respect, what kind of international superstar doesn't lock their car doors when they're parked and all alone?" you asked inquisitively, your eyes narrowed and an eyebrow raised.
It was Jungkook's turn to be embarrassed, because your point was completely valid and locking his doors - which was the first and most basic security protocol for somebody as well-known as him - had totally slipped his mind, "Why did you even jump into my car without looking inside?" he countered with a question of his own, trying to deflect the spotlight away from himself and his carelessness.
Your eyes lit up, and Jungkook kind of felt like his world did too, "That's a funny story actually, want to hear it?" you asked with a grin, but Jungkook hadn't even answered before you dove into the story.
He watched you as you animatedly narrated how you had snuck out to attend the most awesome party ever, your hands flying all over the place and your expressions dramatic as you explained how you had climbed out of your bedroom window (and almost broken a bone when you fell off the branch of the tree right next to your window) but made the crucial mistake of waltzing in through the front door when you returned. He patiently listened to you drone on, ironically finding your outgoingness and your brightness (and your loudness) quite endearing, "What kind of college student gets grounded by their parents?" he chuckled once you were done, trying to keep a straight face when you glared at him in response but totally failing to as that famous bunny-toothed grin overtook his features.
You groaned, casually nudging Jungkook in the ribs with your elbow without a second thought, the action coming to you surprisingly naturally; all the shouting and swearing had really knocked down all the barriers for you, "One that makes the stupid decision to stay at home while she goes to college and has two annoying younger siblings that she's apparently a role model for," you replied with a roll of you eyes, having no clue about how you'd caught him totally off-guard with the skinship.
Jungkook was in awe of how easily you acted like you'd known him forever and how there was no filter or hesitation or pretense whatsoever. Moreover, it particularly freaked him out that someone other than his family and a couple of his friends was treating him like regular old Jungkook instead of worldwide icon JK, especially someone whose existence he hadn't even been aware of more than half an hour ago.
"Aren't you going to leave?" Jungkook blurted out, instantly regretting how wrongly the words came out, "No wait, that sounded bad, I -"
"Wow, way to hurt my feelings," you cut him off before he could messily ramble into next week, the amused smile around on your lips betraying the fact that none of your feelings had been hurt but Jungkook's panic didn't let him see it.
He shook his head, profusely denying what his previous words had entailed, "You know I didn't mean it like that!" he clarified shrilly, a small part of him wondering why he even cared so much about your feelings, "You said earlier that you need to go to the library," he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck and cursing his tongue for racing ahead before his brain could catch up. Jungkook didn't know why, but his confident and charismatic persona kept glitching in front of you, but strangely (and thankfully), you didn't seem to give a shit.
Your smile widened, but your heart was beating a little too fast and the fear of developing an unrequited crush on someone completely out of your league (yet again) was looming over your head once more, "I'll keep you company till your manager gets back from...whatever he's doing," you offered, clearly paying no heed to the multitude of warning bells going off in your mind.
"The grocery shopping," Jungkook clarified, feeling...nice about the prospect of spending more time with you, "It's his first time in this mall,"
You nodded slowly, "Right. So I can keep you company, unless you really want me to leave, then I can -"
"You can stay," Jungkook jumped in embarrassingly quick, not wanting you to get the wrong idea, or worse, leave.
(The sunny smile that greeted him as soon as he said those words made Jungkook feel like a couple of butterflies had been unleashed in his stomach and he realised that he was at least a mild degree of fucked.)
"Give me your phone," you said suddenly. You had always been bold and confident, but this was a whole other level, and you were really pushing herself (and all of her luck) here, "I'm not going to do anything weird, I promise," you said, sensing the boy's skepticism at the request.
Jungkook glanced at the phone in his lap, and then he glanced at you, "You keep giving me reasons to call the cops on you," he commented, unlocking his phone and tossing it to you, defying every single safety protocol that had been put into place for him way too easily (not that he'd ever been good at following them, given the current situation).
You caught the phone effortlessly and cracked a smile at his words, "Shut up, I'm just putting my number on your phone," you said as you tapped away.
"And why are you doing that?" he questioned, watching as you saved your number and then called yourself so that his number popped up on your phone too.
"Because I'm going to sell your number to fangirls and make millions," you deadpanned with a roll of your eyes, earning a semi-alarmed look from Jungkook, "To make it up to you, obviously, I owe you at least a coffee for this mess - wait, can you do that?" you asked, your eyes widening as it dawned on you (once more) that the boy in front of you was the most Googled guy in the country and the literal subject of millions of people's desires, "Can I even put my phone number on your phone? Like does your company allow you to -"
"I'm free day after tomorrow I think," he cut you off, the answer enough to placate all the doubts and worries that you had (even though they were all reasonable and somewhat true...but Jungkook was going to handle that later) "But aren't you...grounded?" he added, failing to stifle his laughter at the absurdity of a grown adult being put under house arrest.
"Stop laughing at me!" you whined with a pout, although your face was shining with laughter too, "Don't worry Jungkook, I'll figure something out,"
"Jungkook?" he repeated, raising an eyebrow at the extremely informal way you addressed him by his first name. Like honorifics hadn't really been used by either of you since the get go (perhaps because you both had started off with a lot of angry yelling), but the informality still caught him off guard (and made his cheeks feel a little warm, not that he would ever admit it).
You beamed at him and Jungkook's mind went blank at the sight, "You can put the eyebrow down my friend, we're the same age."
And just like that, you wormed your way into Jungkook's life and his heart.
The two of you dove into conversation after that, the newness of your acquaintanceship guaranteeing that there were plenty of random things that could be talked about. It was refreshing for Jungkook because he really didn't have to try hard around you at all; it was effortless and comfortable and he really enjoyed listening to what you had to say. It was even more refreshing for him that you wanted to hear what he had to say as well, because not a lot of people genuinely wanted to listen to him.
You had always been a bit of an over-sharer and you had difficulty shutting up for more than a minute, and before you both knew it (although it had been a whole hour and sixteen minutes since you had jumped into Jungkook's car), Jungkook's manager was back and eyeing both of you weirdly as he wordlessly loaded the bags in the car boot.
You (very reluctantly) opened the car door as your time to leave came, "Hey, do you think you could sign something for my little sister?" you said suddenly, glancing over at Jungkook with pleading eyes.
"Absolutely not," Jungkook replied instantly.
You pouted as you got out of the car, "Damn, that would have been like three month's worth of bribery," you huffed, but you couldn't hold back a smile when you saw the grin on Jungkook's face, "See you around, Jungkook," you bade him goodbye, really hoping that you would. Soon.
10 months later, your little sister shrieked at a pitch that shouldn't have been humanly possible when the boyfriend you finally brought home to introduce to your family turned out to be fucking JK, the biggest popstar in the history of ever, out of all people.