To Jimin, college was just a place to help her get a degree and eventually, a job.

Well, that sounded kind of dumb. That's a fact every student can agree with.

But actually, she really, really treated it no more than that.

Now can you see the difference?

Jimin never attended an event outside of her classes. She made absolutely no friends there, except for one friend that was also her roommate at the dorms (yes, that counts too, of course. And Ningning is a great friend. By the way, her real name is Yizhou, but she told Jimin to just call her by her last name twice, because Jimin used to spend half of the time communicating just trying to pronounce her name correctly). And beside that? Nope, ain't got the time for such things as socializing. She was busy enough to study outside of class to keep her perfect grades, while also doing two part-time jobs to help her parents lessen the tuition loads.

Her life sounds just as organized as she would like it to be.

But not really though, she admits.

"You are not socially inept but you are turning yourself into one at this rate." Ningning told her once with genuine concern, as Jimin had blurted out that she kinda felt lonely at times when Ningning couldn't hang out with her because of schedule conflicts, and maybe she already forgot how to make friends.

"Nice vocab you got there, Ningning." Jimin chuckled as an attempt to mask the bitterness in her voice. Ningning hit right in the bull's eye, because she felt the exact same way, just that she couldn't put that feeling into a precise expression like the Chinese did just now (and no, she totally didn't feel shameful as a native Korean, mind you, because hey, her major doesn't have anything to do with literature).

"I'm being serious here." Ningning nagged, though she beamed at the older's compliment. "So, as a kind advice for the first step to make friends, please, try to freaking pay attention to the people around you, like the way you are staring at those scholarship tabs you have on your laptop right now."

There was one thing Jimin was good at: taking advice and putting them into action.

So, following her friend's words, she started to observe her surroundings a bit more.

There was this History course that she was taking, and the class room was small enough that everyone, including herself, had a seat that they always went to and claimed their own after a few lectures of slight shuffling around.

That's a great place to start paying attention to people, for sure. Taking baby steps here.

Her seat was in between two particularly interesting people, to say the least.

The one to her left was a guy that always had this strong, distinct odor of his bodily sweats, and his hair almost always uncombed, oily damp and flaked with dandruffs (no offense to the guy here, but the only reason she was still hanging onto her current seat was because she never made it to class on time thanks to her work schedule prior, and that was legit the only empty seat she could get after always arriving more than ten minutes late; she sure was not the type to enjoy judging glances thrown her way, so the last row was what she came to settle with from the very beginning).

The one to her right was a short-haired girl with a subtle flowery scent that would sometimes make its way to her nose inevitably. And boy, she felt pleasant every time it happened, who wouldn't though? (You should have an idea by now that yes, Jimin always moved her seat a tad bit closer to that girl for that little occasional comfort. And no, she was never too close. She had a great sense of boundaries. She is totally not a creep).

She has to admit that she was short-sighted and all that, because that guy was for sure out of her two-item to-approach list.

So that left the short-haired.

It was already four weeks into the semester, and she was amazed by the fact that her female seatmate spent most of the lecture time sleeping. She doubted the other was sleep-deprived, because there were no eye bags and her face looked bright as day.

It took Jimin a bit more effort to concentrate on today's lecture as she also took quick glances at her neighbor to observe her from time to time, you know, for research purposes.

At first, Jimin arrived at the classroom (late like usual) and for the first time, she actually spared the short-haired a glance only to find that the other had been looking at her too. She smiled this warm, friendly smile that immediately leveled up Jimin's mood for the day, giving her an affirmation that she was a perfect person to make friends with.

In the first half of the lecture, a lot of movements could be sensed from Jimin's peripheral vision on her right. Her female neighbor was jotting down diligently even when the professor was not exactly saying anything note-worthy at the moment. The second half though, Jimin realized with amusement and a bit of a surprise, that her seatmate yawned a few times before resting her chin on her right palm and leaning her head on the wall on her right. At that moment, Jimin belatedly acknowledged that the very cornered seat she chose was after all probably an ideal place for her to sleep without getting much attention from the rest of the class.

She just couldn't quite fathom how jarring in comparison between her neighbor's energy level at the first half and the second half of the lecture.

So she stole more (less stealthy now because the other's eyes are completely closed by now) out of curiosity. Her eyes first landed on the bag that was sitting on the floor close to its owner's chair.

A keyring.

She saw a keyring hanging on the end of the other's bag's handles that stood out for its Chinese-looking characters carved on it. She was wondering for a moment if she was Chinese like Ningning. As her eyes traveled back up and onto the notebook that was underneath the girl's elbows, she saw Chinese characters scribbled on it, again.

Okay, so she wasn't taking notes of the History lecture at all.

Jimin wouldn't say she was disappointed at the other's lack of engagement to the course she had paid to attend, but she for sure felt like nudging the other to wake up and remind her that they were going to have the first exam in two weeks, and a subject like this shouldn't be pushed into the last minute to study because the amount of materials are going to be unbearable at that point to take in.

Should she talk with the girl about it as an ice-breaker?

Her attention span on the socializing aspect was about as long as each rhythmed, soundly breath of peaceful nap the girl next to her was taking, because the professor just told the class that the event he was going to talk about would likely appear in the first exam.

So before she could decide what she should talk about as a conversation starter, the class was already over. The girl was already gathering her stuff and about to leave her seat.

Okay, this is not okay. She began to freak out.

This was the last lecture of the day, and the thing is, she and Ningning made a bet that she would or would not be able to get a phone number in two weeks (god, how comes the days came by so fast?), whoever lost would be in charge of keeping their dorm room clean for the next two weeks. And Jimin really, really abhorred cleaning up after her untidy young friend.

She needed this girl's phone number.

"Hey." She found automatically open as the girl stood up from her seat, then looking at her with a surprised, but not unpleasant gaze.

"I..." Jimin stuttered because she practically zone out for a good second trying hard to think up something to talk about, because unfortunately, the professor took her idea away from her moments before he dismissed the class (the other girl was awake due to the ruffling sounds of closing notebooks and rattling sounds of pens and pencils, just as the professor announced his reminder of the first exam and what to study for it. And to Jimin's surprisingly anticlimactic reaction, the other girl didn't seem to care. Okay, at least she knew talking about exams was out of the question here).

She frantically looked anywhere at her seatmate but her eyes, and she continued without thinking (because prolonging any longer would make it too awkward to bear), "nice keyring there. Are you Chinese? My friend would be thrilled to get to know there's another compatriot on campus." Okay, that outburst sounded like she was looking for a friend for her friend. And she just so deliberately forgot that her Chinese friend had four other friends who were Chinese on campus already. Should she redo her sentence?

"It's a Japanese keyring actually, and I'm a Korean too, just like you." The girl corrected with the sweetest, kindest voice Jimin had heard for a while, but she could see her neighbor was suppressing a laugh. As soon as Jimin's expression fell due to the embarrassment, she quickly added, "and I would love to befriend your Chinese friend too though, if she doesn't mind."

"Yeah." Jimin responded lamely, still affected by her own dumb assumption that every logogram was automatically Chinese in her eyes.

The girl only laughed light-heartedly at Jimin, and she found the little humiliation kind of worth it.

A/N: testing the water with a shorter first part. second part out this sunday (hopefully!). since i'm still writing, do let me know what should be worked on more if anybody managed to make it all the way here <3