before you love me | jjk

chapter thirty-four

━━━༻ ˚✩‧₊ june 2020₊‧✩˚༺━━━

As it turned out, Jungkook wasn't messaging Narae less because he was busy bonding, a fact that became more apparent to Narae following their return. He was avoiding her. Again.

Ever since the boys had come back from their retreat, a new energy present in their movements, Jungkook had barely said more than five words to her at any given occasion. If he was the only one in the room when she'd enter, he'd not so subtly exit with a hastily muttered excuse and he avoided touching her unless it was absolutely necessary. He didn't even make her coffee anymore.

Unsurprisingly, this upset Narae.

As far as she knew, they had shared a moment in the studio, kissed and made arrangements to meet at a later time that never came. Now he was giving her the cold shoulder, for reasons that she didn't know or understand.

Finally reaching her limit when Jungkook had snubbed her presence for the third time in the span of two days with yet another arbitrary excuse, Narae barged into his room later that night in the middle of him changing, slamming the door behind her.

"Hey-wait-what the fuck! What are you doing in here?" Jungkook rushed to pull the shirt over his head fully, but not before Narae caught a glimpse of his bare torso. Though her eyes lingered there momentarily, she didn't let that deter her; she was on a mission.

"Hi." Narae wasted no time in getting to the point, "Why the fuck are you acting like such a dick?"

Jungkook was flustered – he'd not been expecting to be ambushed in the middle of the night, particularly not by the one person he'd been taking great pains to avoid. Still, that didn't stop him from regaining his composure, and the anger he'd been holding at bay for the past two weeks to steadily rise. His jaw clenched in irritation at the fact that she had the audacity to be mad at him.

He decided to feign confusion, "What do you mean? When have I been a dick?"

Narae rolled her eyes, "You know what the fuck I mean. We've barely spoken since you went filming, and now you're back you're avoiding me and acting like I've done something to personally offend you." Her tone was indignant, but she was also hurt. She couldn't fathom what she'd done to deserve this treatment from him. "Is that what you do? You just kiss someone, tell them you'll see them later, then completely ice them out? Dickhead behaviour."

Jungkook scoffed at that, "Bit rich coming from you don't you think?"

This made Narae genuinely confused. "What do you mean by that?"

Her innocent expression made Jungkook's anger and hurt bubble over as he moved closer to where Narae stood by the door, "I mean that over the course of the past few months, I've all but confessed to you. You're the first person I want to see when I wake up and the last person I want to see when I go to bed. When you're with me I don't know where to focus because every single aspect of you is so fucking enchanting, and when you're not, I'm constantly thinking of ways to bring you back to me. It's driving me insane – you're driving me insane."

Narae's anger was dissipated as she registered his words, the confusion fully taking over, "So you're mad at me.... Because you like me?"

"No, I'm mad at you because it seems like it was all for nothing. You were just stringing me along this whole time. Just when I thought maybe, just maybe, my feelings were reciprocated, and that we were finally getting somewhere, I see fucking Jung Jinhyeong-" He spat his name as if it was a curse, "—and you all cuddled up with each other by the door."