It was 5 am when I woke up. No matter what I did, I just couldn't fall asleep. The problem was that I was tired and exhausted, but sleep couldn't come to me no matter what. I slept maybe for two hours this night. I turned around in my bed just to see my roomate sleeping soundly on her bed. Lucky her.

Not wanting to wake her up, I decided to stay in bed. I took my phone and checked for any messages. Nothing, of course. I mean, who would text me at this time? Normal people sleep at this time of the day. I took a book from the nightstand. Maybe reading would help. Maybe. Ten pages later and my head started hurting. Putting the book back on the table, I massaged my temples. It was 5.30. Two and a half more hours before I had to be on my class.

The first class of the day was Organic Chemistry, which was quite interesting. It would be even more interesting if I had slept enough, but I managed to focus somehow. Jangmi, my best friend, poked me with her pen, muttering me to give her my notes from yesterday's classes. I opened my bag carefully, not to disturb the class and I gave her my notebook. As soon as she took the notebook, I realised my terrible mistake. She was going to find out everything. I muttered her to give it back to me, but she just frowned and shook her head. My attempt to retrieve the notebook failed.

I was stupid and I knew it. What normal person of my age, a nineteen year old, doodles its crush's name in the notebook? None of my acquaintance. But of course, I, Kim Chaerin, had to do it. What a way to hide my crush from the rest of the world.

It wasn't like I didn't trust Jangmi and didn't tell her about it, it was just me who didn't want to get teased because of it. I knew Jangmi very well and I knew that she would tease me  until she would decide to make me approach him. And that was something I could never do.

Her facial expression when she read his name written all over my notebook was priceless. I couldn't tell whether it was shock or a pleasant surprise, but I knew that she was quite happy with the information she acquired. I turned my head away from her and tried to pay attention to the class, for which I was praying not to end anytime soon.

"I knew it! I knew it was him. The way you looked at him was always suspicious to me", she said, wiggling her eyebrows at me.

"OK, you know it. Now would you please stop?", I said.

She sighed. "Come on, Chaerin, I'm just kidding. But you know, I was serious when I told you to become closer to him. I think you have a chance. I mean, you talk to him, not just creepily stare at him."

I nodded. "That is true. I talk to him because we are in the same group in the lab, but nothing else."

"There you go! Talk with him some more, become friends with him at first. That's how things go. Don't just sit and wait for something to happen. Grab the opportunity!"

The only thing I could do was to sigh and she rolled her eyes at me. "Come on! Approach him first. You think Chanyeol approached me first? If you do, you're wrong. He would just continue to stare at me from afar if I hadn't made the first step."

"You know that I'm not confident enough to do that", I said, looking away from her.

She shrugged. "Then I don't know how to help you."

The thing with my confidence was quite strange, because I thought I had a lot of it. And I did, when it came to school. I was confident, quite ambitious and successful. But when it came to my private life, my love life to be precise, my confidence was reduced to nothing. My looks weren't the reason, because I wasn't bad-looking. It was probably just fear of getting rejected or maybe the fact that no guy had ever liked me back. Somehow I always managed to fall for guys who were out of my reach. I believe that affected me and my confidence a lot.

Looking at Jangmi and Chanyeol, I was happy for them, but somehow envious at the same time. They were always goofing around together, laughing at each other, but when one of them was struggling with something, the other one would be there to help. Or if they couldn't help, at least they could give a warm, comforting hug. I wanted something like that. A relationship where we would be comfortable around each other, understanding and loving each other.

But I also wanted my freedom. Being single my entire life, I got used to my freedom and the thought of losing it made my blood freeze. Relationships also ment occasional conflicts, which I absolutely hated. A relationship now would probably change my father's behaviour towards me, because he was quite protective of me. He never voiced that, but whenever someone mentioned the possibility of me having a boyfriend, he would tense and frown. I understood his behaviour. He just didn't want me to get hurt.

So I discarded every thought of relationship, thinking it was the best for me to stay single. I would have more time for studies, which were my primary focus now. But somewhere at the back of my mind, I could hear Jangmi's voice, telling me to grab the opportunity and make a first step.