It was a lazy day. The sun hid behind the clouds, leaving a dull hue of grey in the sky.

Jiwon and I laid in his bed, curled into each other. We ordered pizza and watched as the rain fell gently outside. Neither of us had bothered changing from what we’d worn the day before. I’d stolen his socks when my feet got cold. They sagged at my ankles, and kept slipping off. Jiwon would carefully put them back on each time my liberated, icy toes tickled his leg.  

I rolled to my side, noticing a pair of boxing gloves meticulously wrapped up sitting on Jiwon’s desk.

“Why don’t you ever talk about boxing?”

His fingers that had been twirling through my hair stilled.

“It’s just a way I stay in shape. It’s not like I’m competing or anything.”

I looked up at him, getting frustrated by his unbothered expression.

“Jiho told me you were scouted to join the boxing club.” I frowned. “Why did you turn them down?”

“I don’t want to turn it into a big deal. It’s just a hobby.”

I sat up, shrugging out from under his arm haphazardly draped over my torso.

“Even the things you don’t think are important… They’re important to me.” I reached for the glass of the water I’d poured last night, taking careful sips. Jiwon shifted around.

“Hayi.”

“I want to know things about you, I want to be a part of your life. Don’t you feel that way?”

“I do.” He sighed, taking the glass of water from my hands. He drank the last of it before letting the glass fall gently to the floor. His arms s back around my waist, his chin resting on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you cared about it. I’ll talk to you about it more.”

“Have you worked on the assignment for Literature?” I changed the subject, leaning into his touch. He was warm.

I could see the book on his desk. It looked different from mine, somehow without all of the sticky notes and dog-eared pages.

“I didn’t have the time.”

“Ah, but I did?”

“I’m in different classes than you are.” He murmured into my back. “More difficult.”

I wanted to push him off of me. We were the same major, even if I was still in introductory classes. Apparently because he couldn’t understand, it was stupid and not worth his time.

I stayed silent, knowing anything I said would probably start another fight.

He sensed my change in mood and moved his arms, falling onto his back with his hands above his head.

“Tell me the story, what happened?”

He reached out his hand to pull me back down with him.

“It’s Cyrano de Bergerac, don’t you at least know the basic story?” I huffed in disbelief, refusing to acknowledge his hand.

He shook his head.

“It’s about a man who falls in love, but he feels like she’d never love him back so he writes her love letters for another man. The woman falls in love with the writer of the letter, not knowing it is actually Cyrano.”

“Will you write me a love letter?” Jiwon asked, smiling up at me.

“You should write me one insead.” I laughed, but a part of me (a growing, insidious part of me) was annoyed.

“I don’t even get the play, how am I supposed to write about it?” He lamented, his fingers travelling under the hem of my sweatshirt unconsciously.

I gave up, falling back down beside him.

“Isn’t it nice to have a break from math and science?” I whispered, resting my hand on his chest.

“Not really.” He left a peck on the side of my head. “It’s more of a feeling like, ‘why do I need to know any of this stuff?’”

I felt a foreign feeling growing in my heart. Or more like, something I had never felt when I was with Jiwon.  

It something similar to the feeling of being stranded in a city without a map where no one spoke the same language.

“Do you have a favorite book?”

“Ah, manga?”

“You don’t have a favorite manga?”

“No, they’re all good.”

It was a feeling like landing on a distant planet, and discovering you were the only life form.

“So you’ve never really read just to read?”

“No… that’s a thing?”

My body tensed. I thought I would scream.

“Yeah, Jiwon. That’s a thing.”

“Do you like reading?”

I looked up at him, trying to control my facial expression. I really thought in that moment he felt as far away from me as if he was on the other side of the world.

Or, really, did we live in the same world at all?