Things Can Only Get Better, Right?

I awoke to my mother noisily pushing the curtains away from the windows, letting in the annoying sunlight. I couldn't understand why she had to use such an amount of force to draw them back, but then again, I was pretty sure she did that on purpose to wake me up. Well, mission successful, I guess. On top of that, my bed was positioned in my room in such a way that the hot, bright light of the sun streaming in through the windows just had to land on my face. A whine rose to the back of my throat, escaping my mouth as I turned my face away before covering my eyes. "Oh, so you're awake? Finally!" She commented as she turned to me, hands on her hips as she gave me a stare down. Now I could have stared back at her, but obviously, nature had other plans for me, and I couldn't even look her way without having to shield my eyes completely.

"Come on Mom, why do you want me to get up early if all of my classes are in the afternoon?" I groaned, slowly sitting up on my bed as I rubbed at my eyes. I had honestly lost count of how many times I must have said this exact same thing to her, and I couldn't ever figure out if she forgot about it every time, or she purposely wanted me up and moving at the crack of dawn. Okay, fine, so 7 in the morning wasn't what people would call the crack of dawn, but I think I had already made it clear to the world how utterly lazy I was.

"Sleeping for so long isn't healthy, Daeun," Mom began, her gaze softening slightly as she sat down beside me on the bed. "You sleep till after 8, you might start getting serious backaches if you keep at it." Wait, who said anything about backaches? I was barely twenty-one! Well, I did suffer from slight backaches if I studied for too long, sitting hunched over at my desk. I had thought that it would give me a pretty neat excuse to not study, but who was I to try and change my luck?

Shrugging, I let out a yawn, covering my mouth with a hand as I turned to her. "I don't really go to sleep before midnight-" I abruptly stopped speaking, averting my gaze hurriedly. Oops. So, that wasn't supposed to come out. My mother had always been under the impression that when I sneaked to my room at around 11 every night, I went to bed immediately. I dared a glance at her, only to see her shaking her head exasperatedly at me. At least she wasn't mad.

"You're going to ruin your health one of these days," she muttered before walking out of my room, leaving me staring down at my feet awkwardly as I bit my bottom lip.

I knew I had to make some good use of having woken up before my usual timing, so after gobbling up whatever breakfast Mom had laid out on the table for me, I grabbed my bag, stuffing some of my books inside. I had been planning to study for a series of tests that were scheduled during the next week, but for the past few days, my job had kept me too busy to even be able to open my books. And while I attended all of my classes diligently, that wasn't enough for such tests.

With a quick goodbye to my mother, I left the house, heading over to the library. She had to go out for her job in a while, and she found it safer for me to be outside among other people than be alone at home. I couldn't even remember the last time I had stayed alone at home, she was that paranoid sometimes.

The half-hour walk proved to be quite refreshing, and I was in a considerably better mood as I entered the building, sitting at a table close to the wall. The place was quite empty as compared to how full it usually was during my visits, probably because everyone was busy in the mornings with their usual routines.

Speaking of routines, I had noticed how mine had started to change slightly over the weeks, and most of it had to do with Kyungsoo. While it had started off with him spending more time with his girlfriend, he was genuinely busy since the past two weeks. His college had some kind of end-of-the-semester festival (even after having attended it for two years, I still couldn't remember what it was called), and he had been occupied with his recitals. It had been more than those two weeks since I had last met or seen him, and he couldn't even find time to contact me anymore.

Anyway, due to me being alone -- well, not completely, but I'll get to that in a while -- I spent the morning studying as much as I could before I had to rush off to school. After that, I would rush to the convenience store for the part time job. During some of the days when I had time to spare, I would go to the library, where I would meet Yixing, and we would end up talking in hushed whispers about literature, which would lead to numerous debates about various authors and novels. So you see? I wasn't exactly all alone. I also talked to some people during my classes, so that counted too, right?

"Cho Daeun?"

I looked up from my notes as I heard a soft, feminine voice call out my name, and found myself staring wide-eyed at Kim Hyerin. Oh, that's right. It had slipped my mind that she worked the morning shift here.

I gave her a polite smile as she grinned back at me, before pointing towards the empty chair in front of me. I replied with a nod, and she sat down across from me, her face beaming with enthusiasm. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she had something she wanted to tell me.

"So, there's this cousin I have who lives in Jeju," she began, not even giving me any opportunity to say anything. "He is getting married in three weeks, and since Kyungsoo's college festival gets over before that, he is coming with me! To be honest, I was so nervous when I asked him if he could accompany me, but he answered without hesitation, and it just melted my heart!" She stopped her monologue to take a breather, and looked at me expectantly as I took it all in. Before I knew it, a wide smile had made its way onto my face.

"Hyerin, that's wonderful! I'm so glad things are going well between you and Kyungsoo," I said, meaning every word as my eyes wandered over her face. Her happiness literally knew no bounds as she lightly bounced in her seat, before erupting into giggles which would have seemed annoying if some other girl had done it, but it just added to her cuteness and personality. How could I ever be mad at her, even though she spent more time with Kyungsoo than I did now?

"Thanks, Daeun," she replied once she had calmed down enough to be able to talk. "I'm really excited for it, and I kind of wanted to beat him to telling you about it," she admitted, to which I could only laugh. Kyungsoo was definitely going to be mad and upset for not being able to tell me before she did.

She left right after that, saying she had some work to do along with promising to meet me at school later, and I was back to studying. I had just got back into the flow of taking down notes when I heard the shuffling of feet next to me, followed by a shadow falling over one of my books. I sighed loudly; who was it now?

"I think we're destined to meet in the library or something," came a merry voice, that was accompanied by slight laughter, and my annoyance instantly faded as I looked up to see a very familiar face.

"Hi, Yixing." I let out a soft laugh as he grinned at me before sitting down in front, looking rather proud of himself for having made a joke successful enough to make me laugh.

Author's Note:

So, this chapter is actually quite shorter than the others, but it was supposed to a filler at first. Then I decided to add something plotworthy, but if I had continued this one, it would have become too lengthy, and I'm not sure if my readers, if any, like reading long chapters. So here you go!

I'm aware the ending is pretty abrupt, but the next chapter will continue from where I have ended this one.

As always, hope you like it!~