chapter 10
the psychology of good studentsJooyoung goes absolutely livid when she gets to the meeting for the exchange programme — just as she predicted.
Krystal is there, twirling her oh-so-perfect hair with her oh-so-perfect fingers. She’s talking flirting with a group of boys who’s not even taking the same flight as them, and coats her voice in sugar and more sugar.
Minseok finds the raging Jooyoung first, eyeing her from up down.
“You look... angry,” he comments.
“And you darn know why,” Jooyoung seethes. Kyungsoo, standing beside her, raises his eyebrows in curiosity.
Minseok seems to notice Kyungsoo only then, so he reaches out for a hug (which Kyungsoo accepts and returns, of course) before going back to attend to Jooyoung’s temper. He turns around to take a quick glance at Krystal before returning his gaze to her.
“Her, right?” He confirms, and Jooyoung rolls her eyes.
“Of course she’ll turn up at events and meetings she actually enjoys attending,” she laughs bitterly. And Kyungsoo sighs — but he’s not genuinely angry, she can tell — then tells Jooyoung he’s going to grab a seat first. She nods and waves him off. He doesn’t have to listen to their ranting if he doesn’t want to.
It is always liberating ranting with Minseok because he knows exactly what Jooyoung is talking about, and feels the same way as her about almost everything Krystal-related. (Except the part where Krystal is pretty. He insists she’s not.)
Their short anger-venting session ends when the session starts. Kyungsoo is sitting beside Krystal but Jooyoung believes it is the latter who had asked him if he wanted to sit together. And being the nice, peaceful, non-confrontational guy he is, he probably said yes. And Jooyoung is quite non-confrontational as well (in most situations), so she doesn’t say anything and instead sits down at her own seat opposite them, but makes sure to pettily send them death stares every few minutes or so. They don’t seem to notice.
Minseok, Krystal, Kyungsoo and Jooyoung, along with a few other students, are flying off the next day via a morning flight. Jooyoung hasn’t fully grasped that she is actually flying to the other side of the world — imagine seeing and experiencing things only ever seen in movies and through her screen! And honestly speaking, though she is never going to openly admit, she’s also pretty excited about staying with Kyungsoo and watching animated movies every day.
Time seems to pass faster when Jooyoung is lost in her own thoughts about London and has totally forgotten about the obnoxious princess sitting opposite of her. (Krystal had the audacity to call her ‘Vicey’ again just now. A person with decency would at least look guilty about skipping a meeting, but Krystal Jung is apparently so thick-skinned it doesn’t look like her conscience is pricking her at all.)
Before she knows it, though, the last ever exchange programme meeting is over and Jooyoung begins to feel the hype for real... all the way until she turns to wait for Kyungsoo and ends up having to watch Krystal flirt with him again.
“Soo, can you hold my things for me for a while?” Krystal asks in a sugary tone, tilting her arm in the cast upward slightly. Kyungsoo readily stretches his hands out to receive her bag, and Krystal thanks him, giggling.
This is extremely off-putting, (especially the ‘Soo’! What’s with Krystal and cringe-worthy nicknames?) and Jooyoung is about to leave the two of them alone when Krystal speaks to Kyungsoo again.
“Hey, could you spare a little bit of time now? Just a little bit. Five minutes.”
Kyungsoo shrugs, Krystal’s bag still on one shoulder. “Sure.”
Krystal grins, and her eyes completely disappear into her cheeks. “Can you help me bring my stuff up to my room? It’s at the block nearest the security post.” She fishes in her pocket for a moment before pulling out a key, and pressing it into Kyungsoo’s palm. “This is my room key — my room number’s there. You can leave the key inside the room, I have a spare one with me now.”
“No problem,” Kyungsoo smiles. Jooyoung, from a distance, furrows her eyebrows ever so slightly.
“Yay! Thanks!” Krystal splays her un-injured hand outward, and for a moment a horrified Jooyoung thought she’s going for a hug. It isn’t: instead it’s just a hand gesture, probably to look cute.
But as Jooyoung starts to relax Krystal rests her hand on his chest.
And Jooyoung suddenly feels nauseous. Kyungsoo looks taken aback as well with Krystal’s sudden flirtation, and his feet shuffle slightly away from her. But she leaves her hand hovering there, seeming to like what she has just done, then slowly retracts it, finger by finger.
Krystal leaves without offering any explanation on why she can’t bring her belongings to her room by herself, and when Jooyoung has gotten over her horror, she shoots a glare at Kyungsoo. The scene she has just watched replays itself in her head and it’s awful. Minseok materialises beside her and she assumes he has caught the exchange as well.
Kyungsoo looks amused when he sees the both of them staring at him. “What?”
“It must be great, having the hottest girl in campus feel you up like this,” Jooyoung says, crossing her arms. (She sees the smallest nuance of apprehension on his face before it returns to how it was. He’s good at doing things like this, she realises. It’s annoying because she can never tell what he’s feeling.)
Turning to Minseok, she nudges him to ask him to back her up. And Minseok is a responsible friend, so he his lips slightly, then looks sheepishly at Kyungsoo. “Um, so, do you really have to be so nice?”
He’s talking about Kyungsoo carrying Krystal’s things to her room, Jooyoung knows, so she adds on, “Why do you have to do this?”
Kyungsoo laughs this time. “And do you really have to be so mean?” He asks, but it comes out more like a cheery tease. “Krystal really isn’t as bad as you think.”
“Trust me, Do Kyungsoo, I’ve known Krystal much longer than you have,” Jooyoung argues.
“But that doesn’t mean you know Krystal better than I do.”
For some reason that really ticks Jooyoung off. Partially because she doesn’t know what to respond to that, and she hates not knowing what to respond. And partially also because, what in the world does he mean by that?
Kyungsoo takes the silence from both Minseok and Jooyoung as a closure to their conversation, so he smiles as he waves to the both of them, then heads to the direction of Krystal’s dormitory room.
And watching him leave, Jooyoung still doesn’t know what exactly the words stuck in are. Her heart falls slightly.
___________________________________
It is an emergency.
Clothes are lying everywhere, not only on Jooyoung’s bed (because it has run out of space), but also on the floor, and hung on the window grilles, and everywhere else.
And that is just clothes.
Toiletries, chargers and cables, and random mismatched socks are on top of these clothes, strewn around such that Jooyoung cannot walk without having to jump across items as if she is in a minefield.
And even that is not the crux of the emergency.
It is that it’s 9:30pm and she has not packed at all for the trip the next morning, in which they are set to fly off at 6am. Or 6:30 — she can’t remember.
Jooyoung looks helplessly at the piles of items everywhere, and the first thing she thinks of is to dig for her phone, and after finding it she mindlessly dials up Kyungsoo. She doesn’t exactly like to bother people just to get them to help, but this time she really needs someone to assist her in sorting out this big mess.
“Hey,” he says over the line when he picks up. She can’t tell what he’s doing, but she knows it’s probably not what she herself is doing currently. As much as he is relaxed and unbothered, Kyungsoo is not the type of guy who would voluntarily torture himself like this by leaving things to the last minute.
“Hey, Kyungsoo. You studying?”
“Of course I’m studying,” he says, but Jooyoung can tell he’s not being serious. So she rolls her eyes even though she’s fully aware he can’t see her.
“Wow, what a nerd. Have you packed?” She asks, flopping down onto her open luggage lying on the floor.
“What do you mean by that, we’re literally flying off in less than twelve hours.”
Jooyoung sits up again, then speaks sheepishly. “Well, I may or may not have packed... and it may or may not look like a battlefield in my room now...”
“Han Jooyoung!” Kyungsoo sounds mortified over the line.
“I know, I know!” She groans. “So can you come and help me? Please?”
“I thought we settled during the Long Comforting Talk we had that you wouldn’t procrastinate anymore so that you won’t be so stressed. Did you literally procrastinate packing all the way until today?”
“Oops. But still. The next time I won’t! Now it’s an emergency, and I desperately need your help. Pretty please, Do Kyungsoo?”
“You are too much of a procrastinator,” he laments.
“Pleaaaase?”
“Why would I come,” he says monotonously, but Jooyoung can hear him picking up his keys, then opening his door. She laughs, feeling relief fill her body. Kyungsoo is efficient. She’ll be okay now.
“You’ll come because you love me,” Jooyoung teases. “Thanks, Do Kyungsoo. I knew you would save me.”
A few minutes later Jooyoung hears knocking on the door, so she carefully treads over all her items to make her way there. She beams and opens the door to a sloppy looking Kyungsoo, wearing a hoodie which is too big for him and khakis again.
“You didn’t even confirm it’s me before opening the door,” he says.
“Who else would it be?”
“What if it’s some psycho at the door? Are you going to fend him off yourself?”
Jooyoung shrugs. “Well, there is one standing at the door now.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t hesitate to bulldoze into the room, rolling his eyes.
“What a jerk,” he laughs, but his laughter quickly fades when he sees the mess that is Jooyoung’s room.
She bites her lip, following his gaze. “Now you know why I asked for your help.”
“And this is why I said you shouldn’t procrastinate,” he complains in a nagging voice again. “You really, really procrastinate too much.” Kyungsoo can randomly turn on his mum-mode sometimes, and this is definitely one of the times. He squats on the emptiest spot he can find and immediately begins sorting Jooyoung’s items.
“Pack this in one bag. And then keep that bag in your bigger carry-on bag,” he says as he tosses Jooyoung a lip moisturiser she didn’t know existed, a travel-sized bottle of hand cream and a hair tie. She does as she is told, rummaging through her piles again to find the small plastic bags she had taken out of her cupboard when she first started packing.
Then Kyungsoo throws Jooyoung her charger cable. “Put this in another bag with your laptop charger. This one can go into the check-in bag since you can’t charge your stuff in the plane anyway.” He then finds her laptop charger for her and passes it to her almost immediately.
“Ah, it’s here. Pack this.”
He seems to have disappeared in the piles of clothes, thanks to his small frame which shrinks even further when he squats down. It is kinda cute, she has to admit. Kyungsoo almost looks like a baby penguin squatting down in his oversized hoodie, buried in piles of clothes.
“What else do you need in your carry-on pack... Oh yeah, a comfortable change of clothes for the long flight...” he mumbles, then begins digging through a thick pile again. Jooyoung watches him, feeling both useless yet grateful (but more of the latter), and he gives her a scarf, then resumes picking out clothes.
“Thanks, Kyungs- Oh gosh!” Jooyoung flings her body over the floor, mortified, to snatch away the bra which had somehow ended up in Kyungsoo’s hands. She crumples it in her hand and hides it behind her. He clears his throat, and she cringes at how he had held the bra gingerly with two fingers, like he wasn’t sure if it’s even legal to touch it like this.
Kyungsoo looks embarrassed as he looks at the pile again, and when she cranes her head over to look she is horrified to see an entire pile of underwear right in front of him. She dives in front of him again and plants her head where all the underwear is, right under his nose.
“Y-You didn’t see anything!” She asserts, wriggling her body on the floor to slowly move the underwear away with the bottom of her head.
“Uh-“
“All done!” Jooyoung exclaims a little too chirpily. She’s talking a bit too loudly, but it can’t be helped. She is so flustered her volume is the least of her concerns.
“No, I wanted to say that you’re going to get your clean clothes dirty sliding them all over the floor like this.”
“Oh,” Jooyoung gets up and sits on her underwear pile instead, then figures it’s not a good idea, so she grabs a random box and stuffs as much as she can into it. She just wants to hide them from Kyungsoo. It doesn’t matter how she does it.
There is a pregnant silence that follows, before Kyungsoo clears his throat. “Do you invite guys to your room often?”
“Do I look like the sort of person who would invite guys to my room often?”
“I’m here now.”
“You’re the first,” she shrugs.
Kyungsoo blinks at her, then shakes his head. Then he smiles. “Good. Showing your underwear off to guys is not a good idea.”
“Can you just stop talking about that already,” she groans, burying her face in her hands in exasperation.
He laughs, then arches his neck. “By the way, I see one more bra there. You might want to go and pick that up as well.”
Somehow later that night they end up at the pantry, washing containers. Jooyoung had insisted on bringing kimchi in case they aren’t used to the food there (she’d checked, and it is legal to bring it into London), and Kyungsoo of course nonchalantly agreed.
So Jooyoung rinses the container in her hand one more time, filling it with water. Then she gently shakes it, watching the water precariously tilt from side to side in the container. And then she looks over at a serious Kyungsoo washing another container, and lightly aims the container towards him, splashing water all over his clothes.
“Han Jooyoung,” he only sighs, shaking his head and examining the large patch of water on his hoodie. She sees a hint of a laugh playing on his features so she grins.
“What a loser- Ah!” Jooyoung gets hit by a splash of water right on the ear, and she shakes her head vigorously at an angle to get the water out, narrowing her eyes at the now laughing Kyungsoo. While doing so she prepares her ammunition and fills her container again. Kyungsoo does the same.
And then she dumps the water all over him again, making his short fringe stick to his forehead. But before he can do the same Jooyoung makes a run for it, dodging the water coming her way. It splashes all over the floor and she sticks her tongue out at him childishly.
He quickly takes chase, however, with a new batch of water dancing furiously in his container. It hits Jooyoung quickly, wetting her hair as well. Before they know it both of them are drenched (and laughing).
“Okay, that’s enough for today,” Kyungsoo chuckles, combing a hand through his short hair after a seemingly endless fight.
Jooyoung unexpectedly feels a little upset. “Why? Are you gonna sleep now?”
“You’re going to get sick, Han Jooyoung. And we’re flying off real soon.”
“Who gets sick from water being splashed on them?” Jooyoung scoffs. “When we bathe isn’t it worse? How come no one gets sick from bathing, then?”
“How would you know no one has gotten sick from bathing?” Kyungsoo brings the both of them paper towels from the cupboard, and they dab themselves dry.
“Well, I’ve once run back from the college library back to the dorms in a storm and was completely okay after that,” she boasts, and Kyungsoo just shakes his head again, offering her another paper towel. She accepts it.
“Anyhow, we still need to get some sleep. Our flight is very early tomorrow morning,” Kyungsoo says, then turns to look Jooyoung directly in the eye. He bends slightly and leans forward such that his face is right in front of hers. “You owe me for tonight, Han Jooyoung.”
She tries to be as nonchalant as possible, but still gulps before waving him off. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”
a/n: the weather is perpetually hot where i am is that why i never get sick from running in the rain :0
and after like what 10 chapters they are finally going to london (!!) get ready guys we're setting off
I OWED SO MANY OF YOU REPLIES i’m so sorry!! just replied to everyone i hadn’t replied to aaa but i hope everyone’s having a great 2019 so far! i think it’ll take a while before my next story because of circumstances.... but i promise i’ll be back :”)
Comments