"Seolhee, please see me in my office," Ms. Park said before going out of the classroom.

     Ms. Park said the sentence without the usual affection that she has for Seolhee. That alone made the girl feel extremely nervous and anxious about what was about to happen to her. Seolhee carefully inserted the school supplies inside her bag. She tried to swallow in an attempt to gulp down the lump in , or to at least manage the churning in her stomach. Her anxiety is taking over her that she can physically feel it. She feels like throwing up.

     "I don't understand Seolhee, what is happening? Are you going through something?" Ms. Park hands her the chapter three of her capstone. Seolhee didn't have to look at it for more than two seconds before noticing the red marks on her paper. It was bloody red.

     "No, professor, I'm fine, actually,"

     "Did you struggle with your time because you were sick? I would want to give you a second chance for this paper but that would be unfair for other students," Ms. Park crosses her arms and carefully looks at Seolhee. She's her top student and the sudden disappointment on her latest submitted paper can't just be left unnoticed.

     "It's okay, ma'am," Seolhee assures with a smile while shaking her head. "I'll do better next time,"

     The professor stands up. She looks at Seolhee right into her eyes and she saw the disappointment in them. "Well, you know, Seolhee? It's not even that bad," Ms. Park puts her hand on Seolhee's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. "But if it's up to your standards, you can surely do better,"

     Seolhee simply nods her head and gave the teacher a small smile. "I will," she said in a whisper.

     With her head down, Seolhee walks out of the office with an extremely heavy heart. Of course, she would have to do better, and there is no doubt that she can. Throughout her life, Seolhee has accepted that she can always do better; that's what her parents always tell her. You got an A on your chemistry exam? Well, you can get an A plus, even an A plus plus. There will always be room for improvement.

     Seolhee is not new to this kind of confrontation. But she will never be used to the feeling afterward. Disappointing other people is one thing, but disappointing herself is a whole different kind of thing. Now, all she has to do is ditch all the plans she made with her friends and Baekhyun for the rest of the week and focus on revising her chapter three, and writing the next chapters in advance like she always does.

     "Hey girlie, you okay?" Chaeyoung nudged Seolhee's side. "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay," Seolhee replies, more like to convince herself that she is fine instead of actually responding to Chaeyoung's question.

     "Come on, let's eat. The boys are waiting for us at the cafeteria like five minutes ago," Chaeyoung locks her arm with her friend and drags her heavy weight out of the corridors. She knows that something is wrong, and she knows that it is academic-related. She has seen the look on Seolhee's face several times that she can recognize it at first glance.

     After the uneventful lunch, Chaeyoung continued to drag Seolhee outside the biology building and head to the field. Autumn is already starting so the air is getting colder, leaves are slowly turning brown. But the weather is nice, considering the sun is shining right through them in the open field.

     "Are you going to disappear on us again for days so you can focus yourself on your studies?" Chaeyoung gently asks like it was the most normal thing. "Most probably, yes."

     "89 is not that bad, you know," Chaeyoung tries to comfort her.

     "Have you met my parents?"

     "Yeah. Yeah, right, 89 is bad," Chaeyoung nods. For their years of friendship, Chaeyoung knew better than to say that a grade that doesn't start with 9 is good enough. Anyway, that was still worth a try.

      "Is it because of Baekhyun? Is he distracting you too much?" She tries her best to not sound like she is accusing Baekhyun of Seolhee's situation and Seolhee understood that. She shook her head. "No, it's just that everything is new to me.

     And with Baekhyun, he... When I'm with Baekhyun, I don't have to be anything else," Seolhee sighs and looks at Chaeyoung, trying to figure out if what she is saying is making sense to her friend. "I don't have to be number one, I don't have to try hard. Baekhyun isn't demanding something more from me,"

     "Was that why you decided to skip classes with him?"

     Seolhee chuckles at the memory of them two days ago. "It was fun. He made me forget about my worries. He even went to the library with me and waited for me to finish my paper." Chaeyoung's eyebrow raised at the news. "Really? The Byun Baekhyun did that? Wow, he must like you a lot."

     Seolhee nodded. "I feel that too," she isn't too naive to realize that Baekhyun acting so differently around her, at least different from how he treated her when they first met, he must at least be attracted to her. She welcomes that thought that Baekhyun might actually be serious with her.

     "Well," Chaeyoung arranges herself in a more comfortable position with her legs stretched wide across the grass field. "I hope you're going to be kinder to yourself this time. You know, when you're going to hide in your room for days and do nothing but study everything in advance."

     Seolhee nodded once again. She is always thankful for Chaeyoung, for always reminding her that no matter how cruel the world can be towards her, or no matter how hard she can be on herself, Chaeyoung will always be there with her. Seolhee rests her head on her friend's shoulder and closed her eyes. Chaeyoung proceeded to pat the back of Seolhee's head while whispering 'I'm so proud of you, my Seonggi~' that calmed her down at that very moment.

     Baekhyun hasn't had time to contact or meet Seolhee today. As a graduating student, Baekhyun has a lot of things to accomplish. And despite being the 'bad boy' that he is, Baekhyun is actually doing well enough just to pass the semester. He is always that type to do the barest minimum for the academic requirements, he's doing just enough to not fail the exams, papers, and other laboratory requirements. In fact, if Baekhyun just put in a little bit of effort into what he is doing, he can actually enter his class's top 20.

     So when he had finished all his classes, he went straight to the floor below his: Seolhee's classroom for her last subject. Baekhyun doesn't remember when, but he has memorized Seolhee's class schedule. However, by the time he arrived, the room was empty and he can't see Seolhee anywhere. Baekhyun sighed in disappointment and just