(🎶🎶)

Bayfield University.

A cultural cornucopia that was most renowned for its science and fine arts department. The student population was around 30 thousand and it was a prime location for urban metropolitan living in southern California.

Alana didn't necessarily have plans to come here. She was an honors graduate at her high school and was offered scholarships at three other universities. One of them was even out of state and she would have been one of the first in her family to actually leave home to pursue a career. Not many people from her neighborhood got chances like this so one could imagine the amount of surprise those close to her felt when she made her decision to remain local.   She ultimately decided on Bayfield after falling in love with the atmosphere and campus life. The fact that she was only an hour away from home had nothing to do with her decision.

The familiarity was nice. She knew where everything was and knew she wouldn't be bored if she felt like being social. She made new friends there very fast and kept in contact almost everyone at home.

Something inside of her longed for more though.

Something new and exciting.
Something different.

Something that didn't hurt or use her feelings against her.

Something that didn't emotionally manipulate and gaslight her to death.

Something that didn't get their dick sucked by random blonde-headed heffa's in the upstairs bedroom of a frat house party at a school he didn't even fucking go to...

Wait...what were we talking about again?

Oh yea, School.

Alana coasted through her Tuesday classes like a zombie drone, numb to the cool morning air that blew against her skin as she walked from one building to the next. Deaf to sounds of people laughing and talking around her in the hallways. Numb to the feeling of her hand copying the notes from the smartboard.

Stats 2.

Not her favorite class but she was fairly good at it. She seemed to be on autopilot as her attention was divided between the lesson and how hard it was to keep from crying randomly.

That weekend was hard.

After barely waking up in time to make it to cheer practice that Saturday, it kept everything in her to keep her head in the game while on the mats. Sunday she stayed in her room, ignoring texts and sleeping. It wasn't until Monday that she regained some sort of emotional balance enough to appear ok.

But she wasn't.

From the back of the class with his hood up and his elbow resting on the table, Yoongi was also dividing his attention between his studies and something else. Or someone. He refused to dwell on how he was slightly disheartened at how Alana completely ignored him the entire weekend. He was one of the many texts that had gone ignored and unread.

Even now as he sat with his brow crinkling at her downtrodden demeanor, He was worried that he'd done something wrong even before Saturday night. Part of him regretted being so bold with her that night in his dorm room. Part of him regretted not resisting the conversation to clarify. As if there was even something to clarify.

Hell, he even partially regretted leaving her in that bathroom. Maybe instead of dealing with Dez, he could have hung back to see if she was alright.

Naw.

He had to take the trash out. It stunk.

But still...

"Hmm.." Yoongi hums thoughtfully as he chewed on his pen cap, his eyes dancing between the numbers and formulas on the screen that he should probably be writing down and the girl with the long dark braids pulled up in a ponytail diagonal to him, doing just that.

He loved her hair like that. Pulled up so he could see the wispy hairs at her nape that he often wondered how soft it would feel if he played with them, twirling them around his finger gently and watching the strands curl back in place. Yoongi smirks at the thought for a few seconds before blinking it away and readjusting his posture in his seat to reach down in his hoodie pocket.

Alana finishes copying down the formula just as the professor moves on to the next slide. She feels her phone vibrating in her lap and steals a peek down at it while the screen was lit.

Yoongi:
you know your head
really does look like
a little peanut from
where I'm sitting...

She has to cover her mouth the stifle the snort-laugh climbing up her throat and her smile makes her cheeks ache a bit as she reached down to reply.

Alana:
😂whet?

Yoongi:
no foreal.
With your hair up
I can really see
the shape of it.
A tiny little peanut.

Alana:
🙄😂 i hate u

Now Yoongi was the one smiling at his phone. He glances up briefly before texting back.

Yoongi:
You do not.
you think I'm amazing
and hilarious and...

Alana:
and annoying...

Yoongi:
annoyingly amazing
and hilarious. I know.

Alana:
you better be paying attention
because I'm not
loaning you my notes.

Yoongi:

Yoongi:
I thought we were cool...

Alana:

Alana:
me and my peanut head
said what we said

Yoongi:
bars

Yoongi:
and jokes on you.
I eat peanuts for
breakfast so now what...

Alana bites down on her bottom lip hard enough to leave a mark just to conceal her smile. She wants to look back at him but her cheeks burned too much from blushing. It was only seconds ago that she was willing her misty eyes from letting any delayed tears from falling to mix with the ink on her notebook. Now she was smiling.

Their conversation pauses and their attention is consumed by the professor once more and Alana is back jotting down something in the margin of her notebook when her phone vibrates again.

Yoongi:
I've been meaning
to ask..are you ok?

Alana:
yea im good. Why do you ask?

Yoongi:
oh well from this weekend.
I didn't see you after...you know.

Alana:
oh...yea.

Yoongi:
but great.
Im glad you're ok.

Yoongi:
for what its worth...

Yoongi:
im sorry about
what happened.
You deserve better than that

Alana stares at the screen for a minute, taking in Yoongi's message as if it was something she hadn't heard a million times before from other people. But from him it just hit differently.

She was sickened and embarrassed of her reaction. Running away and hiding like a child when she normally would have spazzed. Dez was bold but he knew Alana well enough to duck. There would have been blonde hair, whether from the scalp or the track, slung all around that room.

But she ran and hid.

And Yoongi saw everything.

She wouldn't have wanted anyone outside of those closest to her to see that. Hell, she hadn't even allowed Alesha and Jade to see her that vulnerable and they lived together.

They saw everything.

Yoongi was different. He was the cute boy that she texted her memes in the middle of class and made fun of her over the shape of her head and movie preferences. He was the boy who made her skin blush at the slightest of glances or innocent compliments. She didn't want him pitying her or seeing her as some wounded damsel. Even if she did feel broken beyond repair.

Class continued on and Alana acted as if she hadn't left Yoongi on read. Paying attention to the proper way to calculate the variance of population proportion seemed a good enough reason to not respond right away.

Not that Yoongi was waiting for her to text back anyway.

Ok, he was totally waiting.

Minutes pass and Yoongi's knee bounced anxiously beneath the table. His eyes danced between the professor, Alana, and the clock periodically, his hand grasping his phone in his pocket in waiting. Why wasn't she texting back? Was it something he said?

"Maybe apologizing was a dick move. Maybe she's trying to forget about Saturday and bringing it up didn't help at all...Smooth Yoongi. Real smooth...."

The cap of his pen was now completely misshapen from his anxious gnawing and he wasn't even going to pretend he had any interest in this class. Hell, it was Stats 2. Only a lunatic would be interested in this stuff.

The time was now 12:50.

Only 10 minutes left of class and Alana was still not responding. Yoongi peaks over to see her busily writing and paying attention like the good little peanut she was, making him smirk at the thought of her focused face.

Then he rolls his eyes.

"What the hell is wrong with you .....stop being a weirdo..." He thinks with a scowl ,leaning back and flinching as if a mini-Yoongi Angel and devil were suddenly on his shoulders scolding him.

😈
Double text her. Do it now.

😇
No! She's paying attention
to class like you should be doing ,
repeat offender.

😈
Do it! Do it! Do it!"

😇
Stop overthinking like you
haven't liked a girl before.
Give her time to
respond and just chill.

😈
You look like a serial killer
with your hood up.

Yoongi frowns at the comment, sinking lower into his seat as he slowly removed the hood from his messy tresses.

😈
Better..now just text her again
fool and stop acting like a buster.

😇
No! Just put your phone down
and focus on the board.
If she texts back then cool.
If not, then also cool.
Stop acting like a..

😈
A Buster.

Yoongi shakes his head as if to clear his over grown bangs from his eyes, simultaneously making the culprits of torment poof away.

Alana's pen taps against the lines paper as the professor spoke, her monotonous voice growing less and less audible as Alana's thoughts swept her away again.

"This is it. Im done with Dez. I cant keep going on like this. Forget the history we have. What about respect? What about loyalty? Im cute. Im smart. Im fun and interesting. Whats so special about him? Nothing...barely got a G.E.D head ass..."

Alana grunts inwardly at the memory of helping Dez study for the exams her freshman year at Bayfield. How frustrating it was to get him to commit to investing in his future since he'd abandoned school for the streets. Dez wasn't dumb. He just didn't apply himself and he'd been that way since they were teens.

Alana on the other hand was always conscientious when it came to her studies. It was something he often praised her on and he expressed his admiration constantly. Saying he was inspired by her to be better and to do better. To not be just another 'you know what' from the hood that would never amount to anything. To actually be somebody worth believing in.

He always knew how to talk a big game.

"I cant believe I've wasted so much time and energy on that fool. So many missed opportunities because I couldn't let him go...I was so stupid."

Alana pauses to look down at her hand, eying the faded tattoo she and Dez got together when they were 16. She rolls her eyes.

"But it's over now and I am so done. As a matter of fact....Let me go ahead and block his number..."

Before her heart convinced her otherwise, Alana pulls out her phone again and unlocks the screen. It opens up on her abandoned conversation with Yoongi and to her slight surprise, she had a new message.

Yoongi:
So...
You have a class
or cheer practice after this?

Alana:
nope. Im all done.

Alana:
You?

He stifles his smile as if she could see him behind her. So maybe he didn't completely screw up the conversation after all. When he looks up in Alana's direction, he can tell  she was taken aback by his question and patiently awaiting his reply. Yoongi takes a quick and self-conscious glance up in the professor's direction before typing his response.

Yoongi:
same. Nothing..

Yoongi:
yoooou wanna
hit the caf?

He was trying to be subtle and not make a huge deal of it. He was just asking her if she wanted to eat. No big deal. Its not like the two hadnt shared a meal together in the cafeteria. They just never went there together. Intentionally.

Together.

Class was over in three minutes and now Yoongi was convinced he was a dipshit and that he'd be better off just giving Alana space. No need to press the issue.

Then his phone vibrated in his lap and his previous anxieties dissipate.

Alana:
sure , I could eat :)

The two walk alongside each other in silence as they crossed campus in pursuit of the student center. The fall air still held cool breeze that made layering optimal but today was the exception and everyone on campus seemed to be on one accord as the grass yards lining the path were littered with lounging students.

Yoongi was his normal casual self. A white fitted tee beneath his dark hoodie, slim jeans, and Nikes. He added a matching hat that he pulled low over his brow after they left class, trapping his overgrown bangs to hang in his eyes. It was a wonder he could see where he was going half the time.

Alana wore a tank top that exposed her caramel skin and jeans with sandals, showing off her pearl white polished toes and jeweled anklet.

She held her textbook and binder close to her chest as Yoongi walked beside her quietly with his backpack hanging from his shoulder. The silence between them was comfortable but still a bit tense due to their proximity and Yoongi's hand gripped the strap of his bookbag as he shrugged it on higher before sending Alana a quick sideways glance.

"Uh....Alana?" He summons her attention timidly. She looks up at him as if he pulled her from an occupying thought, her brows lifted expectantly.

"Yeah?"

Getting caught at the softness in her eyes, Yoongi blinks a few times before responding hesitantly.

"We're cool...right?"

Alana frowns at the question.

"Sure. Why wouldn't we be?" She asks in return. Yoongi sighs softly in relief at her response but he tightens his grip on his bag again anxiously as he mustered up the answer to her follow up question.

"I dont know. I just...wanted to make sure I guess. I was thinking about you...I mean...I haven't really heard from you since Saturday and before that and I.."

"Oh. Yeah. Yoongi about that....Im sorry. I hated to get you involved in that and I felt so bad about not being able to thank you.."

Yoongi pouts as he looked over.

"Thank me? For what?"

"Being there? I dont know...I just feel like you deserve it. I mean you were the one who handled getting Dez out of the house. I hate to have put you in that position."

Noticing Yoongi stopping in her peripheral , Alana pauses to turn to him. He looks down at her curiously, his covered brow crinkling slightly with offense at her words.

"Lana.. You don't need to thank me for having your back. What happened was fucked up and I'd be a worse type of man than Dez if I didn't step in. No one's harming you when I'm around. I hope you know that. Hell, I should apologize for even bringing that shit back up. Ive just been worried.."

Thank god for the wind again because if it weren't for the breeze reminding her to breathe, Alana would have still been staring into Yoongi's eyes. Of what she could see through his hair at least.

A chill runs over her skin and Alana blinks bashfully as she looked away. Yoongi's gaze remained on her as they resumed their walk.

"Worried? About what?" She asks, now resisting the temptation to look back at Yoongi.

"About what? You foo..." he responds, nudging her gently with his elbow. Alana sways slightly from the contact and fails to ignore the way her stomach flipped at his sudden touch. Even if it was playful.

"That's cute or whatever...You dont need to worry about me though. Im good, honestly.I was just drunk and I knew I shouldnt have gone out that night. Something told me not to." She laughs off the embarrassing memory of just how drunk she was when the feeling of Yoongi's presence beside her stalls. She looks to him again with out thinking, only to be met by that same troubled expression.

"Dont do that." He says and Alana frowns.

"Don't do what?" She asks. Yoongi sighs and looks away briefly before reaching up to run his hands through his hair.

"Youre trying to find a reason to blame yourself for what he did. Like your decision was a result of what happened. My mom used to do the same thing with my dad. 'If hadn't done this or if I hadnt said this...such and such wouldn't have happened' She'd say."

Alana's expression goes from confusion to shock at Yoongi's candor. He never really talked about his family, at least not with her and it was unsettling to see the bitterness in his eyes at the mere mention of his father.

She's rendered silent as Yoongi's eyes soften and his shoulders sag slightly when he takes in her expression.

"Sorry. Just..... dont do that to yourself ok? Dont give that asshole the satisfaction of your guilt when he was the one in the wrong. You were in the right place at the right time. Both of us were."

This time Alana remains planted as the blush warmed the skin of her cheeks. She gives Yoongi a small nod in understanding while fighting back her flattered smile.

He searched her eyes hopefully and he's relieved to find enough lightness in her gaze to know his words weren't received negatively.

Yoongi just cared.

More than he knew.

If it wouldn't be perceived odd by the other students passing them and lounging on the grass, Yoongi would have been happy to just stand there in the middle of the path looking into Alana's big brown eyes. But they were hungry and lunch in the caf wasn't going to be served for much longer.

They resume their walk but on lighter feet, both of their minds swimming with unspoken words they wouldn't dare share with the other.

It wouldn't be very friendly of them if they did.

"You really think so? About us both being in the right place at the right time?" Alana breaks the silence just as they reach the glass double doors of the student center. Yoongi was reaching for the handle to open it for her as she turned to him.

Of course he did, but he wasn't only talking about that night.

"Yep. You wouldn't have found the bathroom otherwise...pissy butt." He opts to say with a sly grin, earning a semi-amused yet murderous glare from Alana as she stepped over the threshold.

"Go to hell" she laughs over her shoulder and Yoongi does the same as he allowed the door to shut behind him.