Soojung rubs her tired eyes as she stares at the screen of her laptop. It’s already past three in the morning. Her surroundings are quiet, except for the humming sound that comes from her overworked laptop and the song playing in the background from the same source. Every now and then there’d be some noises coming from outside, either passing vehicles or just some drunkards yelling out profanities while they scramble their way back home.

 

Stretching her back, she massages her shoulders and lets out a yawn. She has been up all night working on her paper which is due at the end of the week, perhaps spent half of it cursing herself for all the weeks she wasted procrastinating (but one just never learns, do they?), downing cups and cups of coffee that don’t really help anymore at this point. That’s when one of the tabs she has on blinks with a notification for a new message.

 

Aren’t you sleepy? I thought you have class early in the morning.

 

She smiles reading his message and types back almost immediately.

 

You remember my schedule?

 

I read somewhere that girls like it when men remembers little things.

 

Sweet talker.

 

Oops, you got me there.

 

They keep bantering like that for a while like they always do. Their conversations always end up taking a detour from the original topic into some sort of a showdown of witty comebacks and playful teases, which is why hours feel like seconds whenever she’s chatting with him and the conversation would drag on until the early hours.

 

Soojung met him over a year ago on a certain blog she visits frequently. He is one of the readers, just like her, and his username became familiar to her due to his regular comments on the posts voicing his own ideas and opinions. She doesn’t quite remember how exactly they started speaking to each other or even who said hello to whom first, but when she realized it they were already talking on daily basis, almost like a new routine that they developed unconsciously.

 

Funny, she thinks whenever she recalls how she used to view online relationships. They have no basis, she argued once, no guarantee of the other side’s genuineness even when their full name and information are revealed. But now he has grown to be one of her most trusted friends whom she pours her deepest thoughts and even fears to, that not even her own mother knows about. And for Soojung who doesn’t let down her guards easily, he has become one of the most important people in her life whom she holds close to her heart.

 

The clock continues to tick away, her laptop continues to hum, and their banter dies down eventually. She receives a short message from him afterwards just as she’s about to doze off in front of the screen.

 

Go sleep.

 

She chuckles at that and tries to come up with a witty reply but in the end settles with a normal one.

 

You should sleep too.

 

He doesn’t reply right away so she assumes he has logged off, and goes to wash her mug and brush her teeth. When she returns, the tab is blinking again.

 

Zzzzzzzzzz

 

It’s not particularly funny, but for some reason she can’t really comprehend, perhaps the lack of sleep topped with too much caffeine in her system, she just bursts out laughing.

 

 

 

 

She closes the door behind her and turns around only to find herself standing face to face with a young man whom she quickly recognizes as her neighbour who lives in the room right opposite hers. Soojung only runs into him every now and then, when she’s going out and he’s coming back or vice versa, but hardly speaks to him except for brief nods in acknowledgement when they pass by one another. Her eyes widen in surprise as his gaze is fixed directly on her.

 

“What?” she asks.

 

“Nothing,” he mumbles in return, shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket and proceeds to head downstairs, leaving her in a daze for a moment before she, too, takes the same path downstairs and out the building.

 

It’s a normal morning for the two of them, walking together to university but not exactly together. Their steps are not in sync and the gap between them is apparent. From a distance, perhaps one could concoct a story about them, that they are a couple with dark clouds over their heads at the moment, or maybe a pair of friends with one harbouring a one-sided crush on the other while the former is either oblivious to that fact or simply chooses not to acknowledge it. After all the route they take every morning is the same, yet neither of them ever made the initiative to start being on friendly terms with one another.

 

She pulls out a yogurt drink from her bag after they reach the bus stop and pokes a straw through the cap. She enjoys her drink slowly while checking her emails, scrolling past the less important ones to the more important ones. A new message suddenly pops up on her screen, and a smile instantly graces her face upon seeing the sender’s name.

 

Did you wake up on time?

 

Soojung takes the final sip of her yogurt before throwing it off into the bin nearby, and starts typing her answer.

 

I woke up all right. Waiting for my bus now.

 

His reply to that comes quickly and causes her to quirk her brows.

 

Oh? I’m waiting for my bus too.

 

Out of curiosity she raises her eyes to scan her surrounding only to discover that her bus has arrived and a line has already been formed so she hurriedly rushes over to join the queue. Soojung scans her card upon getting on the bus, and when she finds a vacant seat, she also notices the guy sitting next to it. The one who lives opposite her room and currently busy fiddling with his phone with earphones plugged in.

 

As if he can feel her stare on him, he lifts his gaze and stares back. “What?” he asks. He’s wearing a faded maroon plaid shirt underneath his jacket, she notices. His overgrown fringe almost covers his eyes.

 

She tears her eyes away and shakes her head abruptly. “Nothing,” she mumbles in return, and moves further away from him.

 

She stands through the whole ride and steals glances at him every now and then.

 

 

 

The sun is blazing in the sky, but it is more humid inside the cafeteria than outside. The place is packed with students thronging in to fill their churning stomach with food. It is the lunch hour after all, the short break where they can put their minds off the seemingly endless assignments and lectures. Friends of different classes and majors reuniting for a short while to share stories and gossips, couples sitting together oblivious of the world while others just enjoying the solitude in the midst of all the clamour.

 

Soojung sits almost at the centre of it all, earphones plugged in with her tray in front of her, book on her left and her phone on the other. Multitasking at its best.

 

“How many times have I told you?”

 

Feeling one side her earphones being pulled off, she looks up and finds Jinri joining her at the table with her own tray containing her lunch. “What?” Soojung raises a quizzical brow.

 

“Can’t you just do one thing at a time like most people?” Jinri nags, but at the same time Soojung’s phone buzzes with a new message so she picks it up right away as she spoons a mouthful of rice. “See what I mean?”

 

It takes the younger girl some time to respond to the message before she returns her attention back to her friend. “Sorry, what did you say just now?”

 

Jinri rolls her eyes and starts picking on her food. “Forget I said anything.”

 

“You know I’m not most people, Jinri,” Soojung tells her with a grin, earning a soft chuckle from her. “Where’s Taemin?”

 

“Dead,” answers Jinri simply as she takes a bite of her meal.

 

“Almost.” The voice streams out from next to her, and she glances sideways only to find the mentioned name filling the seat on her right. He slams his stack of fat text books and files down on the table and rests his head on them as he whines. “I’m 99.99% certain that one of Professor Hina’s life goals is to make my life a living hell.”

 

“What about the other 0.01%?”

 

“One can never be too sure. Maybe I wronged him in our previous lives.” Soojung laughs amusedly at her friend and offers him her coffee, which he refuses adamantly. “I won’t be able to sleep in the next class if I drink coffee now,” he reasons.

 

“Just go home then!”

 

“Can’t. Attendance. Besides I don’t have AC in my room,” he reasons.

 

Jinri makes a face. “Taemin, it’s fall!”

 

“More reason I need AC.”

 

She rolls her eyes at him and shifts her attention on her lunch instead while Soojung chuckles and finishes the last bit of her coffee before starts to gather her stuff. “Are you leaving?” asks Jinri.

 

“Yeah. I don’t have class until 3.30 so I’m going to the library.”

 

“It’s not even 2 yet,” she pouts a little, but her face quickly changes as something strikes her mind when she hears the buzzing of the phone in Soojung’s hand. “You’re just gonna be sitting there with your phone texting that guy from Internet while smiling to yourself, aren’t you?”

 

Taemin’s ears perk up hearing that. He lifts his head from the pillow of books and casts his gaze at Soojung. “Oooh your Internet scandal?”

 

“He’s not a scandal, he’s my friend.” She rolls her eyes.

 

“Oooh you’re not denying you’re gonna be texting him.”

 

Soojung pushes his head back so it rests on the books again. “Just sleep, will you?” she tells him then glances over at Jinri who’s trying hard to suppress her laughter. “See you later.”

 

She marches off leaving her two friends behind and pops her earphones on. The route from the cafeteria to the library includes passing by the small courtyard by the river that separates the library from almost the rest of the buildings, and there she sees someone lying comfortably on the grass, a book on his face to cover himself from the sunrays.

 

Funnily even with the distance and his hidden face, Soojung still can tell who it is by the plaid shirt he’s wearing, his worn out backpack by his side and the black jacket he’s using as a head rest. She doesn’t make a stop to greet and say hi, instead she just continues to trudge off without another glance at the boy.