“I think I’m actually dumb.” I announced in frustration to an empty room, a pillow bunched into my lap as I sat in bed surrounded by books and papers.

I stared at my laptop with a blank face. The screen was opened up to Hyejin’s notes, but somehow the information wasn’t magically making its way into my brain. My bangs flopped into my face for the hundredth time and I pushed them back in frustration. Maybe if I stared harder. I swirled my bangs up into a little bun atop my head, eyes still boring into the screen until the numbers and symbols stopped making sense.

With a sigh, I fell back into bed.

“Maybe I got into university on accident…”

I looked up at the ceiling with glazed eyes, mindlessly counting the paper balls shot up there by the last tenant. Five, six… eleven, twelve… twenty, twenty-one…

A knock at the door startled me, interrupting my counting as I glanced warily at the door. I hoped it wasn’t the law student next door trying to share his ramen with me again. I crawled over the mess on my bed, jumping over to the door.

I stared in shock at Jiwon as he beamed at me through the crack in the door, proudly holding up a plastic bag.

“My room is really messy.” I frowned in apology, my already cramped studio looking like a bomb went off.

“I brought snacks.” He announced happily, ignoring my excuses as he slipped off his shoes and walked in, clearing a path by neatly picking up papers. He shifted around my laptop and notebooks before sitting on the bed, patting the space next to him.

I jumped up into the bed, careful not to sit too closely. There may not have been anywhere else in my apartment to sit down but it was still my bed. And he was still a boy.

He threw a bag of chips my way and I thanked him quietly.

“I’ve been trying to call you.” He said, not looking up as he rummaged through his backpack.

“My phone’s on silent.” I replied sheepishly, pointing to the device in question sitting abandoned on my table. “I didn’t want to get distracted.”

“Do I distract you?” He pouted and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yes, you distract me a lot.”

He smiled but I could tell he was a little hurt.

“I brought you a present.” He changed the subject, pulling something out of his backpack and placing it in my hands. I looked down curiously. “Tada!”

Hyejin’s notes.

I held the binder up grinning, wondering if this was the pride parent’s felt holding their newborns. I had the digital copy but it wasn’t doing much for me. Flipping through pages was more of my style.

“I bumped into her earlier and she gave it to me. She said you were really worried.”

“Ah, yeah.” I scratched the back of my head.

“I got an A on this first exam so don’t be too worried.” He punched my shoulder lightly, giving me a little wink. “We’ve got this.”

I watched him, unsure what to think of his words. If he did so well on the first exam, how did he fail the class?

“I didn’t fail calculus.” He answered with a scrunched up forehead.

What?  

, did I say that out loud?

“But Hyejin said…”

“I didn’t fail, I had the highest score in the class until I got hurt.” He tapped his knee lightly. Oh, that’s right. I forgot. “I had to drop all my classes when I had the surgery. Who knows what grade I could have gotten if I hadn’t done that?”

I twiddled my fingers together, trying not to feel bad for him. He acted fine all the time to the point where I even forgot he went through that hardship. I couldn’t imagine.

“What are you talking about?” I snorted, trying to smile so he wouldn’t know I was pitying him. “Is it Schrödinger’s calculus grade?”

“We’ll never know because it never happened.” He shrugged, a smug smile on his lips. “Don’t be worried I’ll drag you down, that’s all I’m sayin’.”

Ah.

I felt like I’d been shot.

I kept my head down, playing with the hem of my baggy t-shirt.

“I’ve been found out.”

“Found out?”

“I’m actually a bad person.” I confessed with a dry laugh. “I’m really competitive, I tend to think about myself before others. Sorry, Jiwon.”

“Isn’t that normal?” He shrugged again. “I’m like that, too. If you ever get in my way I’ll never forgive you.”

A laugh tumbled from my lips. I couldn’t imagine it. He was obviously lying. One look at his toothy grin and I started to laugh even harder.

“Okay, okay.” I tried to calm down, wiping the tears of laughter from the corners of my eyes. “I was actually studying before someone distracted me.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He jokingly bowed his head before reaching for his book with over exaggerated movements. “I’ll just quietly study so don’t mind me.”

I rolled my eyes, deciding to ignore him. I started to thumb through Hyejin’s notes, using them to help answer questions from the review. I pursed my lips in annoyance as I heard Jiwon loudly flipping the pages of his book. I shot a glare in his direction but he only smiled innocently and turned the other way.

I barely noticed him as I silently worked through the review problems. He was staying quiet like he had promised. I laid down on my stomach, my legs starting to hurt from sitting, and propped myself up with my elbows. I compared the answers from the review with Hyejin’s notes, circling what I’d gotten wrong. I sighed, there was more red pen on the paper than I’d like. Flipping the paper over to a blank sheet, I looked up when I started to hear the sound of light