Kevin didn’t get the chance to go down from the mountain. There was the usual classes excuse but they weren’t that bad (Well, Archaeology of Food might be taught by a literal demon in Kevin’s opinion) he just didn’t want to go down from the mountain. The bus ride was way too long and he didn’t want to admit he had some stupid crush on a boy he met once. He was twenty years old. Didn’t people stop getting crushes after their eighteenth birthday?

Kevin was leaving the Starbucks at the West Mall Centre when he saw Minseok come out of the Tim Horton’s. Before Kevin had time to process what he was doing, he had made his way over to Minseok. “Hey.” He felt like slapping himself as soon as the words came out of his mouth. There was no guarantee that Minseok would remember him. They met once for one minute a week ago

“Hey. You’re, oh my God, I’m so sorry. Give me a second.” Minseok paused and seemed to think about something. Kevin felt his face heat up. There was no way Minseok was going out of his way to remember his name right? “You’re Kris right? The guy with the extra U-Pass.”

“I still have that extra U-Pass, if you want it. But my name is Kevin.”

“Kevin! I’m so sorry; I don’t know where I got Kris from.”

“It’s OK! Kris is actually one of my names. I couldn’t decide between Kevin or Kris for my English name, so I told some people it was Kevin and others it was Kris. To this day, there are still people that know me by Kris and others who know me by Kevin.”

“What’s your real name?”

“It’s Yifan.”

“Yifan.” Minseok said, pronouncing the name effortlessly. “I never had an English name before. I had a Chinese name back when I was younger.”

“You had a Chinese name?” Did Minseok used to live in China? That was something safe that Kevin could bring up.

“Yeah,” Minseok nodded. “I was a study abroad student in Beijing in middle school and high school. My Chinese name was Xiumin. Most people called me Baozi though.”

Kevin stared at Minseok. His face, all chubby and round did look a lot like a steamed bun. It was the cutest thing Kevin had ever seen.

“We should probably start walking. I think we’re taking up space.” Minseok said.

Kevin snapped out of his day dreams and realized that they were causing people to manoeuvre themselves weirdly. “You’re right.” Kevin began walking and noticed Minseok keeping up with his pace. “Do you like Tim Horton’s more than Starbucks?” Kevin glanced in the direction of Minseok’s hand that was carrying a coffee.

“I do. We have three Starbucks at UBC but both my freshmen and sophomore years; my roommate was a Canadian Studies major so I always felt slightly guilty in a sense when I would walk into my dorm with Starbucks.”

“Both years? Was it the same person?” Kevin asked. Three Starbucks in one campus. Damn, UBC really did get everything.

“No! It was two different guys. Thanks to me now, they’re best friends and thanks to them I have now taken four Canadian Studies courses throughout my academic career.”

“My 101 class for History was on Canada. That along with the 102 class that followed it were my only experiences with Canadian history.”

“I haven’t taken a single foreign language class throughout university. I’m thinking about taking a Chinese class next semester. I don’t want to forget my Chinese, you know.”

Kevin didn’t know how long they walked for but he passed by a clock and realized it was almost two. “I’m sorry but I need to get to class. It was nice talking to you.”

“It was nice talking to you too. Here.” Minseok pulled out his phone. “Enter your number. Save it as Kris.”

Kevin did as he was told and wondered if he should have stuck with Kris. Minseok typed something on his phone and soon a message came in on his phone.

‘Hello Kris! This is Minseok. Now you can save my number.’ Kevin wondered if it was socially acceptable to save text messages from a complete stranger and if SFU would get angry at him if he wanted to change his name on all of his forms.

“Bye.” Minseok said and disappeared as easily as he did the first time. It wasn’t fair. Kevin was the one with a class. He should have said bye first. Although, to put the situation in perspective of one of his favourite songs, he hated seeing Minseok go but he loved to watch him leave.

He went off to History and Principals of Rhetoric and took notes for the first hour of class until his phone went off. He looked at it to see it was a message from Minseok. He opened it and it was a picture of a Starbucks. The text below it said. ‘One of three. And all I wanted was a sandwich from Subway.’

Kevin couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. He typed back a response.

From: Kris

To: Minseok

At least if you ever decide to try then you’ll always have one close by.

Kevin felt proud of himself. He sent a rhyming text message to someone while he was in an English class. He should have taken English up as a minor.

From: Minseok

To: Kris

I’ll admit, I never thought of it that way. And I have to say I like the rhyme.

Of course Minseok would have picked up on the rhyme. He was UBC student. He wasn’t dumb. English wasn’t his first language but there wasn’t a doubt in Kevin’s mind that Minseok could speak it better than most natives.

Kevin spent a couple more minutes texting Minseok back, mostly about his class and Minseok’s sandwich before they stopped so Minseok could eat and Kevin could pay attention to the rest of the class.

Class got out and Kris walked back to his dorm room. These were the moments in which he wished he had a roommate. If he had a roommate he could have easily talked about what to do when you have a giant crush on someone who lives all the way at the bottom of the ing mountain you’re on and studies at your worst rival school and looks like a Chinese food item. He had his friends on campus but he had a reputation of being the school’s basketball hero, he was meant to be playing professional after all this was over. He couldn’t talk about it with any of them. He didn’t want to bother Tao either (Tao also most likely would be having with someone).

He grabbed his phone and decided his only option would be to FaceTime Jongdae. It was a last minute resort but Jongdae would have a solution to all of this. Or at the very least distract Kevin enough from the whole situation.

Jongdae picked up right away. Jongdae was in his dorm room and was wearing purple like always. Kevin knew that Bishops’ was famous for its school pride but did Jongdae really have to wear something purple every single day?

“What’s going on Kris? Did you run out of oxygen?” Jongdae was someone that always called Kevin, Kris. He never once called him Yifan or Kevin. Jongdae also tried his hardest to use Chinese whenever speaking with Kevin.

“No,” Kevin hesitated. Telling Jongdae about this could easily end very badly. “I’m having some romance trouble.”

Jongdae cackled. “What’s going on? Last time I checked you didn’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Did you and Tao get back together? Not to let you down bro but have you seen his Instagram? Tao has been getting around New Brunswick.”

“I’m not getting back together with Tao. I have a crush.”

Jongdae laughed even harder. “A crush? Basketball captain Wu has a crush on someone? Who is it? Is it a cheerleader? Or another basketball player?”

“It’s neither. He doesn’t get to SFU. He goes to UBC.”

Jongdae let out a low whistle. “Damn, you’ve always liked playing with fire haven’t you? If you’re going out with a guy from UBC then I’m about to head down to McGill and start ending rivalries too. What’s this UBC guy like?”

“We’ve only met twice but I got his number today and we texted during one of my classes. He’s really nice and funny-“

“Everyone says that the person they have a crush on is nice and funny. What’s his name?”

“He’s Korean like you. His name is Kim Minseok.”

“Kim Minseok? Does he look like a steamed bun and likes to draw buildings?”

Kevin tried to hide how surprised he was. “Yes, do you know him? Don’t tell me you dated him at one point?”

“No! Me and Minseok, that never happened. I wish it did though. A lot of people fell under the spell of Kim Minseok. We know each other from Korea. He studied abroad in China through the same program that I did. I didn’t keep in contact with him that much. I’m shocked to know that he was right here in Canada all this time.”

“Do you think you can get me in with him?”

Jongdae laughed again. “It’s been so long since we’ve talked, I think you have a better chance of getting yourself in. Don’t be afraid, Minseok-hyung doesn’t bite.” Jongdae said, saying the honorific in Korean rather than Chinese. “Unless you like that sort of thing. Don’t let his face fool you; I heard Minseok-hyung is the definition of perfection in bed. Biting would probably make him even happier.”

Kevin took a moment to imagine Minseok and him making out, Minseok with wild hair and a mouth that darted to Kevin’s neck at every possible break. Kevin cleared his head of those thoughts. He couldn’t start thinking about Minseok that way or it would become the only thing he would think about for days.

“You’re thinking about him in bed aren’t you? You get it bad, Captain Wu, real bad. Why don’t you just go visit him at UBC or something? Or offer to meet up with him somewhere in Vancouver. Minseok-hyung is friendly, I’m sure he wouldn’t say no.”

“I wasn’t thinking about him in bed. I just met him.” Kevin tried to defend himself. “I’m sure I’ll think of something. Do you know if he even likes guys?”

“Everyone likes Minseok and Minseok likes everyone.” Jongdae said solemnly.

“I’ll take your word for it. By the way, I’m thinking of switching my English name back to Kris.”

“Yes! I always knew you would one day. Kevin was so high school for you. You needed to have started your higher education with Kris instead of ending it. I’m proud of you. I got to go. I need to work on cheers for the upcoming football season.” Jongdae said ending the call.

Everyone likes Minseok and Minseok likes everyone, eh? Kevin pondered.  That wasn’t so bad. If Minseok really did like guys, there was a chance for Kevin. Not to toot his own horn but Kevin found himself to be a pretty attractive guy. He even got modelling offers before. But if everyone liked Minseok back, wouldn’t that mean that the chances of Minseok already being taken be so much higher?

Why did Minseok have to be so complicated?