Drinking coffee before class was a huge idiotic mistake. Now I couldn’t even see straight, let alone concentrate on taking down notes that were vital for the next test. Putting on my specs, I willed my eyes to focus but forcing them didn’t help one bit.

I sighed and then ran my fingers through my hair and noticed that there were loose strands stuck between my fingers. Hair loss. It was my worst nightmare. All the stress was finally getting to me. gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

“Yaa, stop wriggling around so much!” YongGuk chided me, giving me the meanest look I had ever seen him wear. “I’m trying to write.”

“YongGuk-ah,” I said. “Please tell me the truth, are your gums real or are they just gums stuck together to look like gums?”

“Mwo?” He glanced at me, his eyebrows furrowed. “What kind of question is that?”

Groaning, I straightened my back and then flinched when I heard a cracking sound. “I just wanted to make sure.”

YongGuk shook his head and then resumed taking down notes. It was weird. YongGuk didn’t notice that I was drunk. Usually he would tell me off nonstop, “The lecturer would kill you if he found out!” or “I can’t believe you’re drunk. You’re helpless.” Then I would give him all of my excuses like, “I couldn’t help it! The coffee truck was there and it was calling me over with its heavenly scent. How was I supposed to resist?” But I knew there was a better excuse than that that was why I drank the coffee with no doubt in the first place. I just couldn’t remember with my thoughts being all jumbled.

I laid my head on the table and then turned so that I was facing YongGuk. He was concentrating on the lesson with a serious face. I didn’t have a lot of classes with YongGuk. I always looked forward to this class just so I could have someone to talk to but whenever we were in class, he would ignore me. I didn’t know whether he was ignoring me because he wanted to focus in class or he just wanted to ignore me because he knew he would see me later anyway.

“YongGuk-ah,” I mumbled. But he continued writing as if I hadn’t spoken up. It was always like that. But I didn’t want to give up. “Yaa, YongGukkie. Bang YongGuk. YongGuk-ah. YongGuk-oppa.”

“Mwo?” he answered but didn’t turn to look at me.

“Did you respond because I called you persistently or because I called you oppa?”

No reply. He was ignoring me again. I needed something more than that to get him to not ignore me. But what was it that would get him easily? JiEun-unnie? Ani, it wouldn’t be nice to use someone else. I already did that once. What else could make him take notice? Rapping? Ani, I couldn’t make noise.

“I’m drunk,” I admitted. But he didn’t give me a look or anything; he just wrote and wrote and wrote without stopping. It was weird. YongGuk was jotting down notes more than usual. Giving up, I buried my spinning head in my arms but still kept my eyes on YongGuk. “Why aren’t you telling me off?”

For a moment it looked like he wanted to pause but decided against it and went on writing. Then he muttered something. That was when I realized that that something had been my excuse for drinking the coffee.

"I knew."