=APOV=

"Such a boring weekend Nova." Jade yawned while slouching on the couch.

"All we have are some old classic movies." Jungkook kept stuffing his face with popcorn.

"I'm not the one to be blamed." Taehyung stared at Nova in condemning way.

"Yeah sure." She snickered while tossing the remote to Taehyung. "It was just a suggestion, I didn't impel you." She shrugged.

"Whatever. It's productive to work on my case study rather than waste my time here." With that, Taehyung went into his and shut the door behind him.

"Just choose whatever you guys want to watch. I'll make ramyeon by then." Nova walked into the kitchen to get started with making the meal.

It wasn't even ten minutes before Taehyung came pacing out of his room while calling out for Nova, causing his friends to startle. He went straight to the kitchen after failing to spot her on the couch.

"Nova. Have you seen my case study file?" He darted straight to his point of concern.

"Why would you ask me that?" She quirked her brow before getting back to work.

"God, I'm serious woman." He was losing his patience.

"So? What do you expect me to do?" She snorted while stirring the ramyeon which is almost done.

"Could you just fucking tell me if you've seen it anywhere around?" Nova rolled her eyes at his choice of language and didn't bother to answer him any further. "Wa-wait. Did you happen to hide it somewhere? To pique me?" Nova just threw him a disgusted look before turning back, yet spoke nothing.

"See! You're being weirdly silent." He pointed out. "This is not funny. That's an important file for me, please give it back."

"If that was so important for you, why didn't you secure it?" She didn't even spare to look at him.

"Yeah right. Now give it back." He held his hand in front of her, expecting her to place that file his palm.

"Are you out of your mind?" She slapped his hand away. "I said I don't have it." She opened a cabinet above the counter to search for some chilli flakes as she knows that Jungkook likes his food spicy.

The chaos from the kitchen was clearly disturbing which is why Jade walked in there to check on these two explosives. Before any of them could process Taehyung's state of aggression.

"Stop being childish, Nova!" He slammed the cabinet door shut and that instant the whole house resonated with Nova's shriek. Jade was baffled at what just happened in front of her eyes and she went running to her, pushing Taehyung aside and out of the way.

Both Nova's middle and ring finger have been deeply injured and blood was oozing out without a stop. All this noise got Jungkook running into the kitchen and his expression mirrored that of Jade's just a few seconds ago.

Jade quickly dragged Nova who was groaning in pain and placed her hand under softly running tap water to get those fingers cleaned. Jungkook who comprehended the situation, ran for fetching an antibiotic lotion and an extra set of bandaids.

Meanwhile, Taehyung stood there dumbfounded. He went blank with what just happened. They surely pissed the shit out of each other but never did they go for physically harming either of them. He never wanted to cause pain to anyone, let alone Nova. But the situation here is a complete plight and there is nothing that could be done to reverse it. He was slowly losing his mind on hearing Nova's pain filled whimpers and came to an agreement that if someone has to be blamed, then that would be him. Snapping out of his thoughts, he reached for her other hand, gulping at the loss of blood that made him nauseous.

"N-nova." He gulped. "I'm... r-really sorry." Tears began to pool in his eyes as guilt has washed over him but he preferred to bite them back. Nova is still in pain and is definitely angry over the person that brought this to her, due to which she yanked her hand from him and turned away. Which was enough for already guilt-ridden Taehyung to go and bury himself in his room.

He walked towards the bed to cry his eyes out, primarily because someone bled due to him and he couldn't forgive himself for that. Despite being an extrovert, he's sensitive in the inside. He has always been that way. As he reached his bed, he stumbled over some sharp edge with a yelp before looking down. To his utter shock, it was the same file that has been looking for. Which meant that Nova wasn't actually lying all this time, while he exploded his frustration bluntly on her.

He felt all the wind leave his lungs at the recollection of his wild deed when the file has been laying under his bed all the time. He sat debating with himself whether he should approach her or not but finally when he mustered up some courage and left his room, he found the house to be all silent, indicating that Jade and Jungkook had already left. He slowly made his way towards Nova's room, only to find her sleeping.

Yet he didn't retrieve and continued to proceed inside as he walked towards the side of the bed which she was turned to. His guilt worsened on noticing those bandages wrapped around both her fingers but felt pleased that she was at least sleeping peacefully. For some reason, he couldn't leave already.

"Never knew you could be this beautiful while sleeping." He was surprised at the words that just slipped out of his mouth but couldn't care less. "Nova... I'm really sorry. I know you can't hear me but I mean it."

He urged to hold her hands in order to apologize but didn't want to end waking her up just to earn another shot of killer glare from her. "I've always wondered how our journey would have been if we were friends rather than foes." He stared at her sleeping face for one last minute before standing up with a sigh and padding his way towards his room.

Taehyung wouldn't have obviously witnessed it but the moment he left the side of her bed, a faint smile splayed on her lips.

...

=Nova's POV=

It has been 5 days since I've last spoken to Taehyung and I've clearly noticed his lame attempts to get me talking with him. He just doesn't go for it directly, instead, he comes up with some stupid conversations with Jungkook which he certainly knows would trigger me. I decided not to lose my cool and there's no way I would utter a word to him unless he apologizes directly to me. This cut is still paining and I'm extremely appreciative that it's my left hand or else I would have piles of notes stacked up to be written after this got healed.

"Nova darling." I felt a soft body hug me from behind and I already knew who it could be. My brown-haired, slender bodied beauty is here.

"Hey, Jade." I pulled her to sit in front of me. "So, how was your day?"

"Hilarious." She began to laugh. Perhaps she recalled some incident from today. "I expected at least half of our department students to be mature and smart enough you know. But duh, majority of them turned out to be the most clueless one." God. She's laughing so bad.

"During our case study class, when we were asked to give our observations on a scene in a display, people wrote down the most ridiculous points in their reports." She pressed her lips to control herself. I didn't notice until now that I've been giggling along with her. "While our professor was reading them aloud, you should've seen the various flickers of regret written on each ones' faces." She burst into peals of laughter.

"Lol, I've restrained myself so badly in there so I couldn't help but burst open now." She finally breathed, giving herself a break. "Oh wait, isn't it late? You should get going by now." She's right, I should be at home by now but today I just happened to stop by the library for some information that my project could use.

After a short conversation, we hugged a bye and walked towards our parking spots. I got inside and started the engine. As I was about to reverse the car out of the space, the passenger door opened and a person sat in that seat making me flinch and a gasp left my lips.

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