Just weeks later, seniors began to scramble and fight for printer space in order to print and hand in their theses. Classes were missed, and coffee cups were filled. Students spent sleepless nights revising, editing, and reciting their written works to themselves, and seniors in the science majors wrapped up final experiments. Drafts were sent to professors, and close-to-finished final drafts were sent to secondary readers. As every student felt towards the end of the spring semester, the entire campus was wrought with anxiety as finals and graduation approached.

Kai accompanied Claire to the printer room, where she was currently trying to print five copies of her 150 page thesis. After five hours and two printing run-ins with professors who accidentally printed their exams on expensive, high-quality paper that she spent her savings on, Claire was now putting together parts of her thesis together; the graphs were printed in color, either on the expensive paper or on normal copy paper, and the pages containing text was organized in the same way. She coughed from the dryness of the printer room, as the printer ran pieces of paper every minute.

After seeing that Claire's lips were chapped, Kai opened up his bottle of water and offered it to her, "Claire, drink up..."

She accepted, and after she took a large gulp, she closed the cap and responded, "Thanks," before returning it to him.

"No big," he smiled, "How far are you?"

"I'm getting there, it's just so much paper," she muttered. "I mean, who expected that we have to send just five copies to the school itself?"

Kai chuckled, "I don't think any of us knew that until a week ago."

Claire huffed and pouted, "It's just so much of my savings are now gone towards this."

"Well," he started, "at least you're done! And you did a wonderful job with it too, so that's a good thing, right?"

"I guess so," she nodded.

"I can't say I enjoy watching you deal with hundreds and hundreds of sheets of paper though," Kai teased.

"Geez, shut up," Claire stuck her tongue at him, "just go and boast about the fact that your thesis is only 40 pages long."

Kai laughed, "What can I say? That's what I love about math. It's simple, not wordy, and doesn't take up space!"

She rolled her eyes. "Yep, go and flaunt it."

The two fell into another comfortable silence as the printers whirred in the background. After checking that all her pages were complete (she had to borrow some of Kyungsoo's high-quality paper since he had extra and some of hers accidentally ended up in professor's hands), she bundled up her large manila envelopes filled with her thesis pages, ruffled Kai's hair, and left him temporarily to go turn in the final assignment of her college career. 

Once they were dropped off, Claire heaved a large sigh. The endless nights of poring over her written work was worth the feeling of major accomplishment after finishing. She took in a deep breath of the cool and crisp air, and stretched her arms in triumph. Now, all that was left was to print Kai's much shorter thesis, and hope that both of them passed their defenses from the last week as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~

After Kai's thesis was printed out and handed in, Claire and Kai head out for a nice dinner date at the local Korean restaurant. Even though the restaurant was not the most authentic, the food was hearty and filling. To fill up their empty minds as well as their hungry stomachs, they ordered a numerous amount of banchan, such as stir-fried fish cakes, kimchi, seaweed, tofu, and fermented radish, a large rack of steamed and fried dumplings, one bowl of black-bean noodles, one bowl of stir-fried spicy seafood noodles, and one bowl of bibimbap. It was so much food that even the waitress at the restaurant gave Kai and Claire questioning gazes when she took their orders.

When the food arrived, they dug in and began to stuff themselves. "This is so good..." Claire mumbled with a nearly full mouth full of spicy noodles.

"Slow down," Kai chuckled as he wolfed down a large fried dumpling.

"You too!" she smiled.

They continued to eat in silence. As time passed, their stomachs slowly expanded, and by the time they finished every last bit of the food, an hour had passed, and they couldn't move. Claire sipped tea, hoping that the warm liquid would help her stomach to digest its contents. Kai, on the other hand, laid back in the chair and let out a loud burp. "Ah, that felt gooooooood," he sighed in happiness.

"Dude, that's gross."

"Aww, baby, it's not that bad," he whined playfully.

"We're at a restaurant," she mumbled and yawned.

"No one's here except us! It's a weekday evening, and rather late at that," he smiled.

Claire nodded in agreement, "True, but still, manners Jongin!" she chided lightly.

He stuck his tongue out. "Anyway," he changed the topic, "I'm glad we're done! What a way to celebrate too, with all this wonderful food."

"Yep, I'm glad," she smiled. "But I still have to worry about two final papers that I haven't really started to think about yet."

"Eh, don't worry about that! You still have a week," Kai took her hand and rubbed circles.

"True, but I really should think about it."

"Hmm," he started.

"Yeah?"

"Why don't we take a small break today?"

"Like what?" Claire asked.

"Let's just go chill at your place, or mine, and watch some TV. Something simple and nice," he suggested.

"I guess that's reasonable..." she began.

"You guess?" Kai teased.

"Oh you, I meant we could do that," she scrunched her nose up in a minor pout. "We could even have some of the ice wine I've been saving!"

"Oh right! I wanted to try that," he grinned in excitement.

"Let's go then!"

Soon enough, Kai and Claire settled into her room, and as he pulled up the entire first season of "Grey's Anatomy," Claire poured some ice wine into two glass champagne glasses before passing one to him. "Here, have a sip! What do you think?" she asked as he took a small sip of the pale yellow liquid.

"Mmmm!" he exclaimed, and took another larger sip, "This is great!"

"Yeah?"

"Aha!" Kai nodded, "it's cool, slightly sweet, and a little dry. I like it!"

"That's good. Let's get started then?" Claire asked as she settled herself next to Kai on the bed.

"Yep!"

After a few hours of watching the starting episodes, the ice wine bottle was completely emptied. Red-faced and giddy, the two gently closed the laptop, shut off the lights, and embraced each other in the night. Kai gently massaged Claire's head as she yawned and snuggled into his broad, sculpted chest. He chuckled at her cuteness, and brushed her long hair out of her eyes. "Shall we sleep?"

She murmured, "Yeah..." and hugged him tighter. Kai then placed a small kiss on her forehead and allowed himself to succumb to his dreams.