Chapter 2

Rose POV

I sat on the school steps with my notebook in lap, drawing. I added a few flowers to the sketch of skirt, then shaded in the rights with green colored pencil. My earbuds were in, and I was listening to a song by Gummy. Her singing was the motivation to make me like music and start writing my own lyrics.

"When I see stars, I think of you

Then I always pray for you

And I know what my heart was made for

To love you. Forevermore," the song played in my ears. I hummed the song, as my eyes closed. I wanted to learn how to play this particular song on my guitar. Hopefully, I could practice later.

The sound of the car was loud enough to drown out the music, and I didn't need to look up to know my mom had just arrived. I closed my notebook, stuffed it into my backpack, took out my earphones, and got in my feet. I could see the two heads of my brothers in the backseat. Mom must've picked them up from school first.

I opened the passenger door, and old BTS song filling in the air. Yes, me and mom were a fan of BTS like sjdbdjdb I can died. But to be honest I don't even know their names nor how they look like. How can I called myself a fan? Your stupid Rose?!

I looked at the passenger seat and only to find it was taken my appa lunch box and eomma bead organizer.

"Can you hop in the back?" Eomma asked. "I have to deliver your dad lunch after I drop you and your brothers home. And also deliver a necklace to a client" She pushed a button and the side door slide door open, revealing my two little brothers fighting over an action figure.

A plastic cup rolled onto the ground. I looked around to see how embarrassed I should be. I mean the parking lot wasn't too full anymore. A few kids were getting into their own cars shouting to their friends. It was good that no one seemed to pay attention to me.

"Sorry I'm late," Eomma apologize. "It fine," I smiled. I shut the passengers seat, swiped the cup off the asphalt and patted my brother on the back. "Scoot over, cry baby." Yeah I call him cry baby because he a cry baby and the other one I called him handsome because he handsome he's not a cry baby like cry baby, for sure.

"Yah I'm not cry baby, I'm Park

Hyun-shik!" he yelled at me. I shrugged it off and wiped some Cheez-It crumbs off the seat and sat down.

"I thought Jisoo was going to pick me up," I said to Mom. My older sister, Jisoo, was nineteen. She had her own car, a job, and still go to college. But because she stilled live at home, stealing my opportunity of having my own room. She had to contribute to family obligations. Like picking me up from school.

"She working at the Café late tonight," Mom reminded me. "Hey!, are you complaining about your super hip mom picking you up?" She smiled at me in the rearview mirror.

I laughed. "Do super hip moms use the word hip these days?"

"Fly? Bomb? Awesome?" In the middle of her list she turned to my brother and said, "Minho, you're ten, let Hyunshik have it."

"But Hyunshik is just seven!! That's only 3 years younger than me. He shouldn't get everything he wants."

Hyunshik elbowed me in the stomach in his attempt to steal the Iron Man figure.

(I was about to put Vkook but.... since BTS is in this book I was like nvm!)

"It's mine now," I said, causing an outraged cry from Hyunshik as I took the action figure and flung it into the trunk.

My mom sighed. "I don't know how helpful that was."

"My intestines appreciate it very much."

My cry baby, Hyunshik, stopped mid-whine and giggled, the desire result of my declaration. I ruffled his hair. "How is school, Hyunmin?" Just a shipped name you know.

My mom slammed on her brakes as a black BMW cut into her lane. I reached over to keep Hyunshik from hitting his head on the seat in front of him. I didn't have to look at driver because I knew who it was. But I could see him anyway, his wavy hair which was dye into blonde. Jungkook had the boy-next-door looks..... tall, bunny smile, puppy brown eyes.... without the same personality to go with them.

"Someone didn't learn safe driving skills," my mom muttered as Jungkook drove away. I wished she had laid on her horn.

"He didn't learn a lot of skills." Including his ability to make chants rhyme.

"You know him?"

"Yeah, that's Jeon the fucking Jungkook. People call him Jeon the jerk though. But girls also fangirl over him. Ugh!"

Now that was catchy. Alliteration. Magnet.... Rose? How did anyone remember that.

"They do?" My mom asked, rising her eyebrows. "That not very nice. Also fangirls? He must having a hard time."

"They don't," I mumbled. But they should've. It had a nice ring to it.

"Jungkook....." My mom's eye narrowed in thought. "Lisa used to date him. Our freshman year." Until Jungkook and I fought so much that she had to pick a side. She'd claimed the breakup wasn't my fault, but I knew it was probably was. Half of the time I feel guilty, and the other half I felt that I had saved her from a heartache.

"I thought that name sounded familiar," Mom said, making a turn right. "Did we ever have him over to the house?"

"No we didn't." Thank goodness. Jungkook would have no doubt mocked me about our constantly house. With four kids, it was in a never-ending state of disaster.

Flashback

Lisa had dragged me to Jungkook house once, for his fourteen birthday. When we'd knocked on the door he'd would answer, his face shown how he felt about me tagging along.

"Great birthday surprise," he called in a sarcastic voice as he headed back into the house, Lisa and I following behind.

"Believe me, I didn't want to come either," I answered back.

Lisa had hurried to catch up with Jungkook. Meanwhile, I'd come to standstill in the entryway. The inside of house was a massive and shockingly white. Even the furniture and decorations were white, but the couch was red and the kitchen counter was marble. Like what the hell, nothing would have stayed white for a second in my house.

I'd turned a slow circle, taking everything in, when Lisa poked her head around the corner and asked, "Are you coming?"

Flashback end

My brothers' voices brought me out of the memory and back into the car with my family. They were not fighting over a fun packs of Gummy Bears. "I found it under the seat. That means its mine," Minho said.

"Eomma can we get black thread? I'm out." She turned onto the main street. "Can't wait until the end of the week? Your dad is finishing up a job." My dad was a freelance furniture designer.. If you were to say we are like an average of poor and rich people. But the amount of work he got can be~ unpredictable, and so was our family budget. Basically everything about my family was unpredictable.

"Yeah, of course" I said

------------

Back home, I took off my shoes changing into a pair of slippers. I stepped over the pile of backpacks just inside the door and made my to my room. "I'm borrowing the laptop," I called out to anyone who wanted to listen, and grabbed the computer off the hallway desk.

I walked into my room.... Well, half of it was my room. The clean half. The half with my study desk which had a lamp and pencil and pen holder. LED Photo clip string light was hang onto the walls, photos of my favorite idols, landscape and family pics. Last but not least my favorite one, my guitar. Although I had found myself appreciating the half every once in awhile.

But with Jisoo not here now, I was free to flop down on my bed and pulled up YouTube. I searched for an Instruction video for a Halsey song. It wasn't a well-known song so I wasn't sure I'd be able to find someone teaching the guitar part for it. I had to scroll through pages, but finally I found one. I positioned the laptop on my study table.

I got up from the bed grabbing my guitar that was laying on the wall and went back to sitting on the bed. This guitar, my baby, took me over two years to earn. Every Friday night, I always watch my neighbors' two-year-old twin boy. They were very difficult to watch than any kids I'd ever watch. But the reason I keep on babysitting this two-year-old twin boy was because of the guitar. The guitar was everything I'd would dream it would be. Its tone was perfect. And playing it made me feel like I wasn't awkward as usual. It made me feel like there was something I was meant to do. This. It made everything disappear.

It just made everything disappear for a little awhile. I was positioning my fingers for the first chord when the door slam open revealing Hyunshik.

"Noona!!" Hyunshik said, running in ans sliding to a halt in front of me. "Look! I have a loose tooth." He opened his mouth wide and pushed on his top right tooth with his tongue..... it didn't move at all -_-

"Cool, buddy!."

"Okay, bye!" He was just as fast as when he came in the room.

"Shut my door!" I yelled after him, but either he didn't hear or ignored me. I sighed, got up, and shut it. Then I focused back on the video and my guitar.

Two minutes later, there was a knock, and then eomma appeared. "Its your turn to unload the dishwasher."

"Can I just finished this" I whined, nodding toward my guitar

"I can't start dinner until the sink is empty and the sink can't be empty until the dishwasher is."

I considered fighting for five more minutes but then I glance up at eomma. She looked tired more than usual. Her eye bags is more visible now.

"Arraseo, I'll be right there. You can go rest" I closed my eyes and played one more strum, letting the notes vibrate through my arms. My whole body relaxed.

"Hurry Up, Rose!!" Eomma yelled.

Ugh!

-------------

The next morning before school, I stopped in the kitchen to grab some cereal. Eomma had already dropped off Hyunshik and Minho, and was folding laundry in the den. Jisoo was still getting ready and my dad was at the kitchen table, reading newspaper with his glasses on.

I took a box of cereal from the pantry and was pouring milk into a bowl when i saw something on the counter that made me shake my head. Two necklaces lay on the beige granite, a peice of paper beneath each one. The necklace on the right had two checkmarks on the paper. The one on the left had two checkmarks.

"No," I said.

My dad peeked over the top of his newspaper. "Just vote. It's not a big deal."

"You say it's no big deal but then you make it a big deal. Whose friend did you rope into this time?" I asked, noting there were already four vote without mine.

"Voting is a privileges. There no rope involved. It's all in good fun."

"Then, they're both equally pretty. I vote for both of them." I crossed my arms.

"Nope. You have to choose one."

"You and Mom are weirdos. There is no hope for any of us when you two do weird things like this." I poured myself some milk and sat down on the table. Dad's newspaper was still in front of him as if he was reading.

"You know Mom is not going to let you leave you alone until you vote," he said.

"Sure. It's mom that cares. Just let me which one is yours and I'll vote for it."

"That would be cheating, Chae."

"Why did you start this tradition? Mom doesn't take over your job and try to out do your fancy carved furniture."

Appa chuckled. "She would win for sure."

I grab a spoon of cereal and put it in my mouth. To get his mind on a different track, I asked, "Why do we still get the newspaper? You know you can find these same stories in the internet..... yesterday?"

"I like to hold my words." I laughed, then stopped when I saw something on te page he held in front of him that changed my mind about not liking newspaper.

Suddenly, I loved newspaper.

Songwriter,Singing,Rapping Competition. Earn five thousands dollars snd a three-week intensive with a top professor at YG Institute for Art. Visit our website for more details!! www.yginstituteofart.edu

"You ready to go?" Jisoo asked, coming to the kitchen. She was yawning, but, as usual she was perfectly put together, in skinny jeans, with her white oversize shirt cover in her white cardigan sweater, and platform shoes, with her hair in a pony tail and her makeup flawless.

Although we look alike- same long, brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, and.... same style?

"What?" I blinked at my sister, confused "I mean, yes. I mean, Dad, can I have that?"

Dad looked at his plate, which have a half-bagel on it, shrugged and pushed it my way.

"Gross. No, the newspaper."

"The paper? You want to read the paper?"

"Yes," i nod like a kid.

Jisoo came over and snatch the bagel of of appa plate. "Yah!, that was for my Chae."

"No, it wasnt," I said. "I want the paper, not the bagel."

He grunted. "Nope, it still didn't sound believable the second time I heard it either" I fake laughed.

"Funny, Dad, Very Funny."

"You can have the paper if you go vote." I rolled my eyes, pushed my chair away from the table, and went back to examines the necklaces. The one on the right had feathers. Eomma was going through feathers phase. I was normally a fan of eomma jewelry but appa on the other hand was a little to hippie for my tastes. I lifted the one on the left. "This is your winner?"

My dad pumped his fist in the air. "She voted for mine, Jagi!" I held out my hand.

Dad gave me the newspaper, kissed my cheek, and went off to find eomma, I think.

"Let go, little one" Jisoo said.

I clutched the newspaper to my chest, hugging the words, and followed my sister. Now I just had to.....

Write the perfect song and win this competition

-TBC-