Wonwoo stands in front of the unfazed young girl with straight dark tresses, after countless attempts of getting her attention. This is for the sake of getting Kim Mingyu's number, the guy he is after because he has an uncanny resemblance to James Dean that he can't help to adore. But he knows that it takes more than effort to earn his number through this girl. This girl, Kang Seulgi, whom throughout her college life has avoided people excluding those whom she handpicked herself.

"What?" He was expecting a bark of protest, but instead came the voice coated in lethargy, as if he is just the 357th people that have done this to her. An unlit cigarette dangles from the side of her lips.

All the courage that balls up on his hand has vanished. He is not a very brave person, but at least he can pretend to in front of this girl he doesn't know well. Yes, that works. "Let's be friends."

It was the most awkward thing he has ever said as a human being. He knows that people rarely ever said that in real life, that people become friends by mutual acknowledgement of comfort towards each other, that h-

"Don't fall in love with me," he had his head turned away after he said that, hiding the embarrassment until her later words echo and begin to sink in his system. It wasn't a rejection, it wasn't an indirect slap to the face like most people experienced when Seulgi turned a blind-eye towards their existence. His head slowly moves to face her, still staring at him.

Some sort of confidence blooms inside him, and he rises his eyebrows nonchalantly. "You wish."

A lopsided, cryptic smile sways to her cherry lips. "I'll keep your word by heart then. What's your name?"

"Wonwoo. Yours?"

"Seems like you know mine already, don't you, Wonwoo?" Strange how she has gotten used to calling his name in such a smooth way after a few seconds hearing it. Perhaps, everyone feels it too.when Seulgi calls their name, a certain pause that is placed to emphasize the importance of their names. Yeah, everyone must have felt it.

He just wants to get this over with and get closer to Mingyu, that's that. So Wonwoo swallows the retort that is going to stretch this conversation. This doesn't reflect the conversation between two people in the bench of their college grounds, spring softening their hearts. No. Seulgi remains cold with her unlit cigar stick as she sits in her faded high waist jeans, orange t-shirt tucked into it. Her black totebag lies between them and for Wonwoo, that's enough distance he had overcome.

He tries to cope with her pace, but for whatever circumstances, he'd just meet her on that same bench in front of the literature faculty, an unlit cigarette never leaving her lips. Amongst those short moments, strange things happen, at least to him. People stare at him with brighter eyes, and at times they asked him, "What did Seulgi say to you today? Did she mention me? Did you meet her, even?" and they treat her existence as if she is some sort of a legend when only a handful of people are brave enough to greet her. Even though she is not a legend, it is undeniable that she is fascinating for him. She looks at the world through a certain perspective, and most likely she doesn't bother to interact with people that much. All they do is cause trouble, she said in one afternoon day with a tinge of heat blushing her cheek. Seulgi dislikes flowers because they are too soft and she prefers a gloomy weather than a sunny day because she has an excuse to not attend a class and meet him like always. Wonwoo can shrug off the annoyance because he finds a new source of entertainment in seeing her scrunched eyebrows at the sight of crowded groups of friends.

"Have you ever actually light it?" People have spoken how Seulgi smokes but all this time, there has been no proof to those statements. She smiles for the first time, the kind that makes him starry-eyed in an instant.

"My father do this all the time. It's to fool people," she laughs in an inane way, more so after seeing the flabbergasted look in his face. "Can't believe it's you who has the guts to ask me!" her hand suddenly cups on the left side of his face seemingly like a fond act often seen in movies of a friend towards his brother at war. She is smiling as she does this and soon retreats back with her composure still intact. He is, but his mind is thrown into chaos.

"Do you know that there are people thinking that you're a druggie?"

She guffaws again, now he just realized that the cigarette has fallen and now she is only holding back her laughters. Wonwoo doesn't know where to look now that he has made her laugh twice. It terrifies him a little bit that the subdued, stone-faced Seulgi is turning human like this. 

He waits for her to calm down. "It's a fact, you know."

"It's a stupid assumption people make of me. Seriously, all they can do is assume. Does that even matter, really?" she sti