Imagine a calm and collected teenage girl gracefully entering the classroom door 10 minutes early.

What burst through the door was the opposite of that.

Or rather, who stumbled through the entrance 5 minutes late. Jongdae first met her in a dimly lit biology class freshman year of high school. Flustered, she rushed onto the left open seat next to him near the door. Her face was flushed, and droplets of sweat percolated on her forehead. She apologized profusely to the teacher, still heaving in breath from...  running? Jongdae could only assume that was the issue unless she had asthma or something.

“Are you alright?” he whispered to her as the teacher explained the syllabus. He leaned toward her when she gestured for him to come closer.

“Yeah,” she breathed in his ear. He winced at the feel of hot air against his skin. “I got lost because I thought the classroom was on the other side of the building! I got my directions mixed up.”

Jongdae nodded, focusing his attention back to the teacher holding up 2 sheets of paper. He felt a gentle poke on his shoulder, but ignored it, thinking it was a figment of imagination. He felt it more aggressively once more on his left shoulder and glanced over to his side, only to see her point to the small scrap paper on the desk in front of them.

Hi!! My name is Yuji ^_^.

Jongdae internally sighed. He hastily scribbled I’m Jongdae with his mechanical pencil, hoping that the grandpa of a teacher wouldn’t dislike him for not listening on the first day of school.

“Okay class, for the rest of these six weeks, the person seated next to you will be your lab partner. If you have an empty seat beside you, don’t worry, you’ll be paired with another individual or joined with a pair if we have odd numbers,” the old man noted, pushing his wide framed glasses up his nose, sniffing before proceeding to the next bullet point on the syllabus.

“Hey,” she breathed in Jongdae’s ear, “can you get some tissues in the front for me? I’m too scared to get them myself.”

This might be a long six weeks.

Lunchtime was right after Yuji and Jongdae’s biology class, and Jongdae had the pleasure of having Yuji tag along with him for lunch. Not that he minded much, he thought as he checked the text messages his friends sent him. We all have the other lunch period after yours, he read. His clucked his tongue, loneliness coursing through his body. That feeling didn’t last long; Yuji started spouting about something that she heard about on the internet.

“Is that so?” Jongdae asked, tapping his foot and feeling bored out of his mind standing in line.

“Dude, you have no idea!” Yuji exclaimed. “Eggs are amazing things.”

“I don’t deny that, but wouldn’t it be bad to put raw egg lining onto any open wound because of bacteria within it?” Jongdae queried. He moved further up in the line, close enough to snag a tray.

Yuji froze as she scrolled down her phone. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, I guess you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.” Jongdae grabbed a few plates of food on the counter as he moved down the line, faintly noticing her grabbing just one small plate of fries. “Is that all you’re eating?”

Yuji shrugged. “I brought lunch in my backpack.”

After finding a place to sit, Yuji took out 2 large brown paper sacks, and proceeded to remove their contents one by one onto the table. 

Jongdae gaped at all the food that Yuji revealed: chips, a sandwich, grapes, a banana, coleslaw, three juice pouches, a container of salad, and snacks galore. “Yuji… That’s a three course meal.”

Yuji held up the banana and replied sarcastically, “You’re right, this banana is a full first course.”

“You know what I mean,” Jongdae responded exasperatedly. “Do you normally eat all of this in one sitting?”

“Please, do I look like I eat vegetables? This is my mom’s evil deed.” Before Jongdae could ask, she continued, “I’m very indecisive when it comes to bringing food. I can’t make up my mind as to what I want for lunch every day, so my mom just packs whatever variety for me to choose later.” She picked up a bag of chips and propped it open.

“HEY! DAEDAE! MY MAN!” a deep voice hollered from a table away. Jongdae groaned and turned to wave but was immediately bombarded with a head noogie. “Look at you! Officially a high schooler. How do you like it?”

“It’s fine,” Jongdae mumbled meekly.

“Oh, is this a new friend?” the stranger nodded towards Yuji and smiling a little too brightly.

“Yes, this is my friend Yuji. Yuji, this is my sister’s friend, Dujun.” Jongdae gestured between the two of them.

“Well, I’ll see you around later, kid. It was nice to meet you, Yuji. Ooh, delicious.” Dujun reached out towards the plate of fries seemingly in the middle of the table before Yuji’s hand grabbed a hold of his outstretched hand.

“Those are mine. Don’t eat them,” Yuji informed politely. Her smile was rigid and her eyes were so threatening that Jongdae felt the need to escape.

“Okay…” Dujun removed his arm from her grasp, grimacing. “Okay. I’ll see you around Dae.”

“Bye.” Jongdae watched as the older guy walked 3 tables away before reverting his attention back to Yuji.

He startled.

Yuji stared menacingly towards Jongdae for a few moments, allowing fear to creep through his bones. “Fair warning, Jongdae: If you ever touch my food without my permission, I will find you and to avoid getting sued, I am not saying that I will hurt you.”

“But you are implying that you will.”

“Correct.” Yuji paused, tilting her body to peer at Dujun seated a little distance away. “You didn’t seem to like that guy.”

“Well… He’s kind of… I mean he’s a nice guy.” Jongdae scratched the back of his head and sighed. “I just know he’s just talking to my sister a lot because he wants to date her. He seems like a prick at times when she’s not around.”

“Gross,” Yuji commented.

“I trust my sister’s judgement,” Jongdae continued, “but she really can’t catch a break. Every time a guy talks to her, there’s always that undertone that they want to go out with her, and eventually, they do ask her out. She gets frustrated, and I guess that makes me feel frustrated too.” He sat silently, thinking.

Yuji nodded understandingly and grabbed the ketchup bottle at the end of the table. “What’re you thinking about?” She squirted the sauce onto the fries.

Jongdae looked briefly horrified at the sight of ketchup on fries, but returned his neutral expression. “I’m sorry if I just dumped a bunch of unnecessary information on you.”

Yuji smiled. “I don’t mind at all. Besides, I agree with you. Friendship is the purest relationship anyone can have, and in her situation, those guys don’t want that, which is sad.”

Jongdae relaxed. A burden lifted off of his shoulders. “Thanks.”

The second day of class, she entered the classroom, on time, and dumped her backpack onto the table. Jongdae eyed her Nirvana t-shirt as she sat down, and – being the pretentious pre-pubescent teenage boy he was – asked her if she even knew who the lead singer was.

“Kurt Cobain…?” She furrowed her eyebrows. “You interested in the band?”

“No, I’m a fan of the band. It’s just I didn’t expect someone like you to have that shirt on because you like the band, too. There’s a lot of feminine clothing with great bands on them just to look cool,” Jongdae answered.

“What do you mean by ‘someone like me’?”

“Well,” Jongdae pondered, “It doesn’t seem like a lot of girls these days listen to them. They’re pretending to like them by wearing those clothes. But it’s nice that you like the band, too.”

Yuji huffed. “First and foremost, your judgement of that is so unnecessary. Like who cares if someone wears it just because it looks nice or if they actually like the band. I can’t believe you actually have such as snooty attitude to believe that there are such a few amount of girls that can like a band you happen to like!” After finishing her rant, she turned her seat to the front of the classroom and focused her attention on anything but him.

Jongdae started feeling bad for already giving a wrong impression to her so early. He probably should’ve phrased his sentences better to transition into the topic of Nirvana and the like. He tried to apologize for offending her, but she ignored him for the rest of the period.

The following day, Jongdae came to class a little later than Yuji and set a bag of cookies onto Yuji’s desk.

“What’s this?” Yuji asked, unraveling the ribbon around the sack.

“It’s my way of saying sorry to you for saying the wrong stuff.” Jongdae watched her plop one of the biscuits into . “I didn’t know what kind of cookies you like, so I just kind of just guessed with this one.”

Yuji swallowed the cookie. “Well, this is a good cookie. But if you must know, my favorite is double chocolate chip.”

“Noted.” Jongdae tapped the side of his head.

“You didn’t have to give me food to apologize, by the way. Although, I’m not stopping you if this is your preferred method.” She stuffed another biscuit into before stuffing the bag into her backpack.

“You wouldn’t listen to my apologies yesterday,” Jongdae pouted.

“But you didn’t say the right apology. You said sorry for offending me, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was your gentle insult to females.”

“Gentle?” Jongdae questioned.

“I can’t think of the right word for it, but your insult was casual so it didn’t seem horrible. Now if you were aggressive about it, then I wouldn’t use that term.”

“Gotcha.” Jongdae paused… the teacher was about to start his lecture, but then he left for the restroom. “So, are we good now?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Yuji smiled. “Did you make those cookies?”

Jongdae scratched the back of his head. “I’d be lying if I said yes. My mom did a couple days ago, and she had some extra so I gave them to you.”

“Well, I gotta meet her someday because those tasted phenomenal.”

"I'll tell her that." 

When the bell rung, Jongdae hesitantly asked, "Where'd you eat for lunch yesterday?"

"Outside, near the hills in the back," Yuji replied, placing her notebooks into her backpack.

Jongdae bit his lip. "Mind if I join you?"

"Of course! I was trying out the atmosphere yesterday outside for potential eating spots, but there're too many bugs crawling around. Hopefully, the place we sat the other day is still vacant." Yuji glanced at him as they walked toward the cafeteria, "Besides, you're my lunch buddy." She held out her fist.

Jongdae fist-bumped back, grinning from ear to ear. "Lunch buddies." After a beat or two, he asked, "I didn't catch your last name."

"Kwon. Kwon Yuji. And you are...?"

"Kim Jongdae." He held out his hand jokingly.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Kim Jongdae." She shook his hand as aggressive as she possibly could.

They laughed boisterously and continued to their new daily lunch spot.