“Okay class,” Mr. Park concluded, “that’s it for today. Remember that the sociology essay is due before the weekend. If you hand it in before Friday there’s a better chance for you to get a remark.” Groaning, I packed up my books as Mr. Park prepared for his next lecture. I had just finished my historic sites essay last night and was not prepared for this one at all. I swung my bag over my shoulder and checked to see if Sungjae (who was sitting beside me) had finished packing up as well.

                “Have you started on the essay yet?” I asked curiously. Sungjae looked up and smiled cheekily before nodding. “Ugh, of course you did,” I sighed, “you always finish your homework like, six weeks before it’s due.”

                “That’s a lie,” Sungjae replied, obviously amused. We exited the lecture hall with a polite nod towards Mr. Park before turning to the right and walking towards the exit of the building. “I just know how to manage my time properly. Unlike a certain blonde haired person who spends too much time and invests too much energy in fictional cartoon characters.”

                “Excuse me!” I snapped sassily. “They’re not cartoon characters!” I huffed, crossing my arms across my chest. “Besides, you game just as much as I do!” Sungjae merely laughed at my accusation (or was he laughing at my defense? I wasn’t quite sure). He was too busy laughing to notice that we had walked out of the building so I took my chance to shove him into the nearest bush.

                “What was that for?” he screamed as he narrowly missed a thorn bush. He couldn’t stop himself from falling onto the grass however, which caused a handful of people to look at us strangely. This time I couldn’t stop my laughter as Sungjae glared at me from the ground, still in disbelief that I actually tried to push him into a bush. “Geez Sanghyuk,” he finally said, getting off of the ground, “I know you love me but that’s not how you hug people.”

                “Wow,” I replied, shocked at Sungjae’s comeback, “I can’t believe you actually said something like that. Seriously? A bit self-centered, don’t you think?” Sungjae merely shrugged and elbowed me sharply before we continued walking. I wasn’t sure about Sungjae, but I didn’t have any other classes that day (thank God, I don’t think I could deal with anymore homework) so I was planning on going to the library and studying before heading off to Starlight for my shift.

                Sungjae seemed to have the same idea as we headed on the path towards the library. Haepari was a relatively new university compared to others but the campus was designed to be more western-like and antique feeling. The library (which could be seen in the far distance) definitely reflected this style as it was an old red brick building with wooden decorations and large glass windows. It was quite a nice place however, especially during the morning when the sunlight streamed through the windows. Not that I went to the library in the morning very often, but the couple of times I had been at school early (to finish assignments and such) it was peaceful.

                Looking around (I may or may not have been daydreaming) I realized that we were a lot closer to the library than I thought. There were quite a number of students walking about and there was a couple groups sitting on the lawns (these were scattered around the campus to be used as parks and such) since the weather was getting warmer. As I scanned the students faces to see if I recognized anyone, I felt my previously pleasant facial expression pull into a frown. A couple metres away stood dimples boy – whom I had seen almost every day at Starlight and now had to deal with running into him at school.

                “Seriously? What did I do to deserve this?” I mumbled to myself, trying to avoid Hongbin’s gaze. Luckily he was too occupied in talking to another second year to notice Sungjae and me. I attempted to subtly drive Sungjae farther away from dimples boy which only caused him to stop (he freaking stopped in the middle of the path) in confusion.

                “Hyuk? What are you doing?” he asked, tilting his head slightly. I sighed (and tried not to vomit at his aegyo) before simply pointing in the direction of dimples boy and his same age friend. “Lee Hongbin? What about him? Do you know him? He’s supposedly really popular. Well I guess he is popular since there are so many rumours about him. You know even seniors confessed to him? He’s that handsome apparently,” Sungjae rambled, still not moving.

                “That’s great but he’s annoying and comes to my work place all the time,” I answered. Sungjae probably wouldn’t move until I answered his question fully and I was not in the mood for making a scene (people were already beginning to wonder why two first years were randomly standing smack in the middle of the pathway).

                “Oh yeah, you never told Ilhoon or I about your job. How is it? How is he annoying? He’s really friendly apparently, has a lot of friends. I think he’s part of the photography club too?” Sungjae continued his line of investigation and I smothered the urge to smother him.

                “He’s just irritating okay? Gives off a selfish kind of feel. Plus the first time I saw him he was making some girl cry so I didn’t get the best first impression,” I replied, keeping my sentences and explanations as short as possible so Sungjae’s curiosity would be sated.

                “So you’d like him better if you didn’t get that first impression?” Sungjae smirked knowingly. I raised an eyebrow at his suggestive tone and smacked his shoulder. Why did everyone seem to think dimples boy and I would be such good friends? First Hakyeon and now Sungjae... Maybe there was some weird chemical in the air that made people lose their minds.

                “You’re an idiot,” I stated curtly. I had learned long time ago not to fall for Sungjae’s jabs. That is, if you wanted to be somewhere in the next couple hours. It made for some fun entertainment on rainy weekends to just joke around with each other but it was definitely not raining and I needed to be outside of a two kilometre radius of dimples boy before I punched somebody (great, now his very presence was pissing me off).

                “Hey, Hyuk!” an annoyingly familiar voice broke through Sungjae and my conversation. I gritted my teeth as dimples boy bid farewell to his friend and walked towards us. Sungjae raised an eyebrow at Hongbin’s greeting but stayed silent (which I guess I should thank him for). “You doing anything this weekend?” Hongbin continued, disregarding the fact that I had not greeted him (which I probably should’ve since he was my sunbae).

                “This weekend?” I asked. There was no point in ignoring him considering the fact that he was kind of, you know, right in front of me? But I was determined to keep this encounter as short as possible. There was a limit to the amount of Hongbin I could be exposed to daily and if he decided to come by Starlight later I don’t think I would be able to stand his annoyingly handsome smile.

                “Yeah,” Hongbin replied amusedly. “You know how it’s a vacation?” Dimples boy laughed when he saw my confused face. “Maybe you don’t know this ‘cause you’re a first year but every year around this time we get four days off, including the weekend, because the university staff is busy preparing for the freshman orientation.”

                “Oh,” I responded, my mouth forming a small O shape. I had attended that orientation, it was well organized and nicely put together but I didn’t think it took four days to orchestrate. “Why in the world would it take that long?” I asked myself, although judging by the laugh that came out of Hongbin’s melodious vocal chords I had probably said it aloud.

                “You tell me. The student council is heavily involved with the whole thing so they probably just tricked the administration to let the students have four days off. Not like we don’t need it. If you’re anything like me you have plenty of work to catch up on no?” Hongbin smiled and I resisted the urge to poke his dimples. Damn, I was reaching my daily dose of dimples boy limit. I needed to get away from this man soon before I did something I might regret (like punching him in the stomach).

                “Hyuk barely handed in his last essay on time,” Sungjae piped up from his spot beside me. I groaned as Hongbin smiled even more. Why couldn’t Sungjae just keep quiet? Although that was probably as impossible for him as it was for me to give up video games, but he seriously needed to learn timing. I kissed my teeth in disapproval as Hongbin and Sungjae exchanged greetings. “Well, I have to go now, see you later Hyuk,” Sungjae smirked at me and left before I could even say goodbye. Wow. What an . Leaving me along with dimples boy. See if I ever make you coffee again.

                “Moving on, so are you busy? You never answered my question?” Hongbin turned back to me and smiled gently.

                “W-what? No, why?” I stuttered, caught off guard at his smile. It was different than the one he usually gave and seemed almost genuinely.

                “Well nor am I,” Hongbin said, grinning. “And I had some extra tickets-”

                “Nope,” I cut him off. “No way. Noooope. Thanks but no thanks.”

                “But-” Hongbin started.

                “No,” I replied sharply before storming off. Yeah, okay, maybe that was a little immature but there was no way in hell I was wasting my valuable time with dimples boy of all people. Although I’d probably just spend the whole day in bed surfing the internet but that wasn’t the issue here! The problem was that dimples boy always had to weasel his way into my life, first at Haepari, then Starlight, and now he wanted to be part of my weekend too? How great did he think he was? Not everyone wanted him, although by the looks of the people I passed, a bunch of his groupies were appalled that I turned his invitation down.

                “Hey Hyukkie,” Hakyeon greeted as I came out of the back room with my uniform on. I nodded my head in greeting before wordlessly taking my place beside him. We soon fell into our normal routine (well as normal as one could get with a boss like Hakyeon). Hakyeon took orders and talked to the customers while I made most of the orders. Twenty minutes before my shift ended, Hakyeon had joined Wonshik and Jaehwan at their table and I was just finishing cleaning the tables when he walked in. Groaning as he greeted Hakyeon, Wonshik, and Jaehwan, I had the strong urge to inflict pain on anyone within a 10 metre radius. The nerve of this man, waltzing in here like he owns the place. Okay, maybe I was starting to sound like my mother and it’s not like I had any control over where dimples boy went but still!

                “Hyukkie go make coffee, you should know by now,” Hakyeon shooed me to work with a wave of his hand before resuming to the conversation on hand. I sighed and retreated behind the counter and began to boil the water needed for dimples boy cafe mocha. “So kids,” Hakyeon started, “what’re you gonna do over the weekend? We’re closed by the way so none of you children have to go to work.”

                “Hyung, I’m only two years younger than you,” Jaehwan pouted, “I’m going out of town with a couple of my friends.”

                “There’s an engineering competition type thing that I’m participating in so I’ll still have to be at school,” Wonshik added to which Hakyeon replied with a whispered, ‘nerd’. “Shut up hyung, what about you Hongbin?”

                “Mmm, well I have an extra ticket for this attraction but I don’t have anyone to go with,” Hongbin replied easily, sparing a glance at me (to which I attempted to ignore without feeling the twinge of guilt in my gut). “I asked a couple of my friends but they’re all busy.”

                “Busy?” Hakyeon gasped, “Too busy for the prince ulzzang of the school, Lee Hongbin? Where has all of your charm gone? Unable to even convince some love struck girl to accompany you to wherever you want to go. You’re not fit to be our poster boy anymore.”

                “Shut up hyung,” Hongbin replied, unaffected by Hakyeon’s teasing. “Thanks,” he smirked as I placed his drink on the table (a bit roughly I’ll admit). I raised an eyebrow at his sneer before giving him my ‘seriously?’ face.

                “Hey Hyukkie,” Hakyeon slung an arm over my shoulder (which was a bit difficult since I was taller than him). “What’re you doing over the break?”

                “Uhm,” I started, desperately trying to find words. If I told him I was busy there was a chance (a big fat one at that) that dimples boy would call me out on my lie. But if I told Hakyeon the truth than there was a good possibility that Hongbin would ask me to hang out with him once again. Biting my lip nervously, I shrugged Hakyeon’s arm off my shoulder in an attempt to gain more time. Isn’t it around this time that someone usually walks into the store and provides me with an escape route? It happened in the dramas and movies all the time!

                “Sanghyuk said he was free,” apparently real life really isn’t like the movies since dimples boy had to poke his nose into my business. “I actually tried to get him to come along with me but he refused. Quite rudely might I add. He stormed off before I even finished my sentence. At least it was kind of cute; he almost looked like a little kid.”

                “You’re the one who asked me out of the blue. Who in the world does that anyways? You barely know me!” I resisted the urge to jump over the table and strangle dimples boy. I was not cute; in fact, my noona told me multiple times that I had zero aegyo at all so who was this annoyingly handsome stranger to call me cute?

                “Well isn’t this a perfect time to get to know each other then?” Hakyeon cut in, standing slightly in front of me (which conveniently stopped the death glare I was giving dimples boy, oh if only looks could kill). “Hyuk, go with Binnie on this outing of his. It’ll be good for, what’s it called? Oh yeah, interpersonal relationships. You’re lacking in that department.”

                “Wow, interpersonal, how many syllables is that? Like four, five?” I muttered sarcastically. Apparently I wasn’t quiet enough judging by the smack Hakyeon gave me on my shoulder. I was rewarded however, by a snicker from Wonshik (and a smile from dimples boy but I wasn’t paying any particular attention to that).

                “Anyways,” Hakyeon continued, “Hongbin’s a regular here so you better learn to get along or at least tolerate each other because as much as I like having you around Hyukkie, Binnie’s been here longer so you know what they say, family above all.” So he was practically threatening me to go with dimples boy or I would lose my job. What a great boss. Dimples boy wasn’t even an employee anyways, so this ‘family above all’ business was total bull.

                “Fine,” I growled. I had briefly considered refusing and being fired but my mom would stop sending me money and I doubted that I would be able to find another job easily. “But he’s paying.”

Tadah~ Looks like Binnie and Hyukkie are going on a date~ I’m not sure if they should go to the art gallery like they did in that one VIXX TV episode (that was definitely a date and no one can convince me otherwise) or somewhere else but I’ll figure something out. Or I’ll ask everyone around me until they get annoyed and give me an answer. ^_^

We got to see Sungjae again, after a couple chapters without contact from BTOB. I have a side(ish?) story for them which’ll have its own chapter(s) so don’t fret! We’ll see more of them later.

Moving on, you guys should definitely check out The Ark’s debut MV, ‘The Light’. It’s seriously awesome. Plus they’re the girls that did the dance cover to BTS’ ‘Boy in Luv’ so why not right?

Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read this, don’t be a silent reader, and I do not own anything in this story other than the idea and plot, any similarities to other works of fiction are purely coincidental or have been used as sources of inspiration. Please do not repost this anywhere without my permission; plagiarism isn’t nice!

Hope you’re smiling!

~ Alateni