“Sorry sorry!”

“Yah Wu Yifan, why is it that I’m always waiting for you now? Is this your revenge for always waiting for me in high school?”

Pulling open the door and gesturing Jessica inside, Yifan continued apologizing. “Sorry, some of the cultures got contaminated so I had to discard and re-plate some of the bacteria. That set me back for the rest of the experiment. I even have to go back in this weekend to do what I had originally planned to work on today, and to make up for the lost time. We’re on a tight schedule since they want to try doing this in different cycles. The next phase begins on Monday, so everything is rushed now.”

“Don’t you have work Saturday?” By now they had chosen a table and Jessica had ordered their drinks while Yifan was explaining his lateness.

“I’m scheduled Saturday 8-4 so I’ll go into the lab afterwards. I’m covering for my co-worker on Sunday 12-7. Depending on how much I get done on Saturday I may go in earlier on Sunday or later. I’ll see how it goes.”

“I thought you also have a date with Victoria.”

Yifan shrugged, picked up his coffee and took a sip. “It can’t be helped, I’ll just cancel.”

“Oh she’ll love that,” Jessica said sarcastically. “Didn’t you just cancel on her last weekend?”

He shrugged again, “You needed help with moving furniture. And this lab is more important. School and work trump dating, if she can’t realize it then she’s not the girl for me. I’ve already mentioned to her how important this lab rotation is to me. I’m hoping this experience will help me get into an advanced lab course next semester.”

“Oh the one you were telling me about? The one that your lab professor teaches to upper level students only?”

“Yeah that one. Since I’m in his lab right now, I’m hoping he’ll see the work I’m doing and sign a waiver to let me take the course.”

“You’re a hard worker Yifan. I believe you’ll get in.”

“Thanks Jessi, hey want to share a slice of fudge mocha cake with me?”

“Didn’t we get that last time?”

“No we got a vanilla cake but there was some mocha in it.”

“Sure, sounds good.”

Yifan called the waitress over and placed their order, making sure to ask for extra whipped cream on the side for Jessica.

“Oh you want to enlighten Donghae about your school and work philosophy?”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“Hah, what paradise? I told you, he was busy for 2 months with the school musical. I thought he’d understand then how important school and work are to me. But now that the production is over, he expects me to spend every minute with him.”

“That bad?”

“He threw a fit when I said I couldn’t go on a date this coming weekend because I have to work late. I got assigned to a project and the deadline is Tuesday.”

“You got a new project?”

“Yeah, some simple modeling. But I still want to do a really great job on it.”

“Of course. So...did he have one when you told him you were meeting me today?”

“What do you think? Of course he did...oh thank you! This looks so good!” Jessica pulled her cup of tea to the side to make room for the plate. Taking a bite she closed her eyes to savor the taste. “Ohhhh, sooo good. Try some.” Spearing a bit of cake and dipping it in the cream, Jessica held her fork out to Yifan. Taking he offered bite, he sighed with pleasure. “That IS good...”

“Right!?” Jessica exclaimed, taking another bite.

“So? Donghae?”

“Oh yeah, so after he threatened to break up with me if I didn’t cancel with you-”

“Seriously?”

“-seriously...yeah so I ended things with him,” Jessica shrugged.

“You okay?”

“It’s only been 3 months since we started going out. And if he can’t understand how important school, work and you are to me, then I don’t have time to waste on someone like him. Besides I could always see him around in school. You, I barely get to see nowadays.”

Yifan nodded, his mouth full of cake and coffee, agreeing with her words. The two ate the cake, even ordering another slice. Coming to the cafe in the mid-afternoon meant avoiding the lunch and dinner crowds, allowing the two to sit longer. Enrolled at different universities, the two had not seen each other for three months in the beginning. After adjusting to college life and the increased workload, they had found a time to meet once a week to catch up. Both were absorbed in their studies, her-finance, him-life sciences and medicine, so they would study together until it was time for one of them to leave.

In addition to schoolwork, their time was taken up by work. Yifan was doing a lab rotation with a microbiology professor in the university as well as working part-time as a lab technician at the hospital affiliated with his school, Korea University. Between the two commitments and school, he had little time left for dating. Since college began he had gone on dates with several classmates but his dedication to school and work tended to push them away, especially when he kept cancelling dates to work additional shifts. If the girl wasn’t deterred by that, then Yifan’s “drop everything” attitude when it came to Jessica definitely pushed them away.

It wasn’t as though Jessica played a possessive friend or gave an attitude to Yifan’s dates. Most cases she rarely saw them and only heard about them. But Yifan had a tendency to answer Jessica’s calls or reply to her text messages right away if he could, and he would cancel dates to meet up with Jessica, spending a good deal of whatever free time he had, with her. Not that Jessica didn’t do the same for him.

After attending an all-girls high school, Jessica came to Hanyang University familiar with guys mostly due to her close friendship with Yifan and ‘her boys’. Her university classmates thought her very pretty and the few guys who asked her out in the beginning found her to be very friendly despite her cold outer demeanor. But her dates found it difficult to occupy her full attention as she would immediately step away during dates to answer Yifan’s calls or texts, even ending dates early to meet up with him instead. She also had the “drop everything” attitude to Yifan, though hers arose mostly as a result of seeing Yifan always caring for everyone around him - her, the boys - and less for himself. So Jessica took it upon herself to take care of Yifan as he focused on everyone else around him. Apart from school, she was interning at a small banking firm and teaching English at a tutoring center. Her time was divided between lectures, work and Yifan. The few hours she was at home were spent catching up on sleep for the next day.

Finishing the second slice of cake, they each took out their school work and started studying. The two sat in the cafe for 4 more hours before Yifan had to leave for work. Greeting the evening shift workers and promising to return next week, they walked to the subway station. Going in opposite directions on the same line, Jessica’s train came first. Before getting on, she handed Yifan a small bag holding a bento box inside.

“Don’t forget to eat dinner, I packed some rice and chicken in there. There’s also an orange, don’t leave that out!”

“I won’t. Thanks Jessi!”

Giving her a hug he pushed her toward the train before the doors closed. Waving bye to each other Yifan watched her train pull out of the station and into the dark tunnel.

So the next update may come slower, sorry!! I thought I'd have time this past week to finish things (hence my postponing my update for 6 days) but I had a really crappy week...got in an accident so my mood is fluctuating between sad, annoyed and angry...which is not good for writing because I keep writing really melo plots, which I'm not good at so they're reallly bad melo plots, haha...>.<