Bomi couldn’t figure out what she did wrong… She was so sure that she had gotten a good score on the test, but to have only scored 9 out of 15?? That was barely over 50%. Aside from the severe misjudgment of her quiz score, Bomi had to go be a bone-head and bet what could be the whole of her salary on that score!

Ilhoon’s 13 out of 15 score had blown Bomi’s score out of the water and she could think of nothing more to do than push her books aside and proceed to wallow in her own sorrows for both the loss of the bet and her steadily dropping grade.

And that is why Ilhoon was currently watching Bomi bang her head repeatedly (albeit, lightly) into the desk before her, while also listening to her mutter to herself about how stupid she was… It was a rather comical sight… if he didn’t feel so horrible for the poor girl, that is.

“Uhh…” he spoke up (quietly) to get her attention. “Hey…”

“You…” *BANG*

“are…” *BANG*

“such…” *BANG*

“a…” *BANG*

“numbskull…” *BA—

Ilhoon grabbed the sides of her head before she could continue harming herself. He was totally taken aback by how much force Bomi was exerting with her head banging and was only able to lessen the impact, rather than completely stop it (at least for the first few knocks).

“As much as I love this front row seat to your pity party…” he joked nervously, attempting to cheer her up. “I don’t think your brain cells are going to thank you as they’re being beaten out of your head…”

Bomi sighed from her position and hung her head heavy between his hands. She was in too much of a funk to even raise her head to acknowledge his sarcastic humor. Because Bomi hadn’t actually even announced her grade (just saying that he had won after he revealed his), Ilhoon began to wonder just how bad her grade even was…

“You’re right…” she whined, still not looking up to face him. “Because I obviously can’t spare any of the few brain cells that I have…”

“Uhh… w-wait, hey… I-it was just a joke!!” he stuttered, struggling to keep Bomi’s head away from the table as she tried fruitlessly to bang her head once more. “It’s still early in the quarter and we have tons more assignments on the syllabus!”

And because Bomi had a flair for the dramatic (like a certain somebody that lived in the same house as her), she stayed silent, despite knowing it was true that there was a lot of time left to raise her grade.

“…Okay, c’mon. That’s enough…” Ilhoon said after receiving no response. “…How’s this? I’ll treat you to anything you want today, you don’t have to pay for a thing!”

“But…” she mumbled two inches away from the desk, sounding a fraction less gloomy than she had before. “You won the bet… I should be treating you. You treating me would go against all the rules of this bet that, might I remind you, was made by none other than me!”

“So what…? Live a little, rules are made to be broken anyway.” he smirked as he finally let go of her head. “And with that I say, where to first?”

“Wait wait hold on, I think you’re forgetting that usually the phrase implies breaking a rule to somehow benefit yourself...” Bomi looked at him skeptically, trying to keep the growing smile off her face. “…Tell me… how exactly would this benefit you again??”

“Well… it’s a long story…” Ilhoon began. “But the basics are that my best friend slash roommate is inadvertently making my life a complicated mess. You’d be doing me a fat favor by killing time with me before I have to go home.”

“Ahhh…” she nodded knowingly. “The old best friend slash roommate mucking up your life? Unfortunately, I am all too familiar with that dynamic…”

“Okay… so? As a fellow citizen who is also afflicted, what do you say?”

“I say…” she paused, a smirk finally peeking through. “How much money you got on ya?”

Minhyuk left the classroom with no certain plan of what to do for the rest of his Monday. It was his last class and the only two people he would normally be talking to were, oddly enough, with each other. The rest of his and Ilhoon’s friends were finishing their own educations elsewhere (which was at least an hour by car, bus, or train…) and while that may have been suitable for a weekend… it was only Monday… and so that left Minhyuk with… well, no one.

He stood before the bulletin board in the hall, skimming the job offers, “roommates wanted”, and club socials that littered the surface. Socially, his hands were already so full with the people he knew. Ilhoon would also skin him alive if he upped and left for a new housing situation, not that Minhyuk would ever even consider doing that.

A job didn’t seem too far out of the question though… Minhyuk hadn’t actually considered getting one since he (and Ilhoon) received pretty sizable allowances from their parents with the sole purpose of allowing them to concentrate fully on their studies if necessary. As long as it was part-time and not too intensive though, Minhyuk was positive he could juggle the both of them.

“And soon enough the extra spending money will come in handy to take Eunji out…” he muttered to himself as his hand hovered over a tear-off tab from a “barista wanted” flyer. Minhyuk was not at all prepared for the rapidly approaching mass in his peripherals and flinched before shutting his eyes tightly.

*RIIIIIP*

“Yaaaaas!!” shouted a certain pen-spinner female student as she jogged lightly down the hall away from our job-lurker and towards her own part-time job.

Minhyuk opened his eyes again to see the large bold-print “NEED A TUTOR?!” advertisement missing one more tab than it was two seconds ago. He whipped his head around and caught a familiar head of brown hair, before realizing that he knew that voice from somewhere… It was Cupid!!

“Wai--!” he yelled, stopping mid-word after figuring out that he still had no idea what her name was (since that was the deal, of course). He watched her small figure dart towards and eventually disappear into the crowds that were exiting and entering their classes.

“Wow… what are the odds…” he mused to himself as he tore the paper and stuck it in his pocket. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again…”

“Where are we going again??” Ilhoon asked as he trailed behind the power-walking brunette. They had studied for another hour before packing up their belongings and making their way out of the library.

“You’ll see.” Bomi giggled and shouted behind her. “But we gotta stop somewhere first so c’mon, less yapping and more walking!”

Because the girls’ house was a short walking distance away, Bomi’s somewhat unsaid plan was to drop by the house so that they didn’t have to lug their laptops and notebooks around everywhere. It was even luckier that the hole-in-the-wall barbeque restaurant/bar that she planned to take him to was also only a hop and a skip away.

About five minutes off campus, Ilhoon started to recognize the streets and scenery they were passing. His companion pushed open the large wooden gate of a quaint-looking one-story house, confirming his suspicions of just why the area was so familiar. Bomi continued walking up the path not noticing that Ilhoon had stopped by the gate’s entrance. Unlocking the front door, she turned to see that he was not right behind her as she had thought, and shot him a puzzled look.

“Uhh… I know that the bet technically said anything but… ummm… sh-shouldn’t you buy me dinner first?” with a nervous smile, Ilhoon joked awkwardly from his position at the gate. “I-I mean… we’ve only been on one date.”

She continued to look confused and contemplated what he could’ve meant by that remark until…

“Duhh…” Bomi made a show of rolling her eyes, but turned away so that he couldn’t catch sight of her oncoming blush. “Because I’m planning on ravishing you here and now, right?”

“………………………………………………………………..”

Her joke fell flat and yet affected Ilhoon more than he thought as he stood behind her motionlessly (with a heavy, heavy blush). Hearing nothing but silence, she quickly blurted out her next few words to clarify her intentions (and hopefully rid them of this odd atmosphere).

“Okay, bad joke! We’re just friends, remember?” since there was nothing quite official between Minhyuk and Eunji, she could definitely say this (without issue) not only remind him, but herself as well. “I just thought that since I lived nearby, we could drop off our things, that’s it. That’s all we’re doing.”

“Ohhh, uhh yeah! Smart plan!” he broke out into a forced laughter, before following her actions of taking off his backpack and placing it just inside the living room area. Bomi, on the other hand, disappeared into the kitchen to grab her purse, while Ilhoon made sure he had his cellphone and wallet.

“Anyways umm…” she rummaged through her bag distractedly, injecting a little more spunk into her voice than usual to gloss over that bombed joke. “The place we’re going to has happy hour from 3-6 and that’