“I’ll shine down on my mother”

Jinwoo would always remember the day he got his acceptance letter. After getting waitlisted at his dream school in April, he had sent in numerous updates about his academic performance, extracurricular achievements and how much he really really wanted to attend the college to the admissions office. He had half joked about them sending him a cease and desist letter instead of a rejection letter after all the unnecessary updates. In response, his mother swore at him for inviting negative energy. Neither of them had expected him to get this far. Most of his childhood friends had joined the gangs in the neighborhood, selling drugs and terrorizing the other residents. Among the few kids who had completed high school, he was the only one fielding scholarship offers from several top universities.  Those ones didn’t matter though. Jinwoo had his sights set on Albion University. They had flown him in for a campus visit in his junior year, and he had fallen in love immediately. The gothic buildings, the deeply academic environment, the professors who were actually interested in what he had to say- everything about that place was magical. He had been crushed but still slightly hopeful when he was waitlisted. 
On June 1st, Jinwoo sat in their small kitchen tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for the mailman. Like the overly traditional that he was, he had chosen to get his decision via paper mail instead of email. Other waitlisted candidates had gotten their decisions days ago, but here he was marinating in his anxiety. He heard the USPS van stop in front of their apartment building and raced outside to collect his mail. The grumpy postman shoved their mail at him without a word, but Jinwoo didn’t even notice because he was already sifting through the envelopes in his attempt to find the Albion letter. He quickly tore open the envelope, read the first line “Dear Jinwoo Kim, The office of admissions at Albion University is pleased to offer you a place in our class of 2012…” and jumped for joy.  “Mum. Mum! I got in! I’m going to Albion University”. His mother rushed toward him with teary eyes and pulled him into a tight hug, “I knew you could do it. I’m so proud of you”. Jinwoo took a day off from his summer job and sat on his couch all day, clutching his acceptance letter with shaking hands and staring at it in disbelief. 

He had actually done it. It could only get better from here. The world was not ready for the tornado that was Kim Jinwoo.

Jinwoo managed to convince his mother to let him move into his new dorm alone. He did not want her to have to make the long drive back home alone, and they both knew he had enough experience to handle the move himself. If it also meant they could share their tearful goodbyes out of the view of complete strangers, all the better. And the goodbyes had been very tearful. His eyes had been red-rimmed for the entire day because of how hard he’d cried when he had to leave. Jinwoo had always been a mummy’s boy; He had never known his father. She had been his confidante since he was a child, and living so far away from her would be very difficult. He would just have to deal with his own issues when they arose from now onwards.

“I’m as green as the ring on my little cold finger”

    Jinwoo had an average orientation week experience. He had decorated his new room, introduced himself to numerous people whose names he didn’t even remember, made friends with a couple of freshmen on his floor and gotten his class schedule. One thing that Jinwoo had not done was attend a frat party. There had been one every night, but he didn’t think missing important orientation events because he was too hung-over was a good way to begin his college experience. 

It was finally Friday night, and Jinwoo didn’t have anything scheduled for the next day. He could go wild tonight. Not that he was particularly sure how to do that; between his two part-time jobs, classes and his extracurricular, he hadn’t had enough free time to party when he was a high school student. This frat party would be a new experience for him. He looked at his reflection in the mirror noting the snug fit of his skinny jeans, the basic black t-shirt and his only accessory, a green ring on his pinky finger. This would have to do, he thought. He wasn’t exactly going there to hook up with anyone, so he didn’t have to dress to impress. 

    Jinwoo joined the horde of freshmen heading towards frat row. Most of them were already intoxicated- they had probably pre-gamed the party. That was a thing people did in college as the clingy drunk guy, Seungri, whose room was two doors down from his kindly told him on the walk there. 

    If Jinwoo thought that the thick haze of cigarette smoke and all the drunk people bumping into him on the way to the frat was bad, he was in no way prepared for the chaos that was his first frat party. The building was packed with people, and on his short trip into the next room to grab a drink, he had shared unnecessary skin contact with at least 15 different people. The room opposite him was the ‘club’ room. The dj was playing ty edm, and people were dancing –grinding- all over the dance floor. Although he could see that most of the kids there were terrible dancers, he knew that he’d be too embarrassed to showcase his stiff dancing in front of all those strangers. Maybe later when he was drunker, he’d stop by that room again. He wandered downstairs into the basement of the frat house. It was significantly less crowded with about a dozen guys gathered around a pool table. Unfortunately, it also smelled terribly- a mixture of cigarette smoke, and cheap alcohol. Jinwoo decided that he’d rather deal with this than any of the other rooms, and dropped into one of the sofas in the corner of the room, tightly clutching his drink. As he sipped the nasty concoction of vodka and what must be engine oil, he surveyed the room. The people in the room seemed to know each other. Maybe they were upperclassmen? He zoomed in on the person who seemed to be the center of the conversation. He was tall and tan with a muscular frame and a smile that made Jinwoo swoon a little, or maybe that was the alcohol’s work. Either way, he was one of the most attractive people that Jinwoo had ever seen, and Jinwoo couldn’t stop himself from staring at him from across the room. Every little movement the man made was poetry. He kept talking and laughing, and Jinwoo stayed glued in his position on the couch, silently watching him and memorizing his features. By now, the vodka was hitting him, and he could feel himself getting tipsy and a little drowsy. He closed his eyes briefly to attain balance, and drifted off into dreamland.

    Jinwoo was awakened by a tap on his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to see the object of his attentions sitting beside him. “Having fun?” the strange man asked, a mischievous smirk spreading over his face. “What good is an O-week frat party if it can’t even keep the impressionable freshmen entertained?” Jinwoo blinked blankly in response and stared at him in silence for a good minute before he mumbled a reply “It’s fine. I’m just a little tired. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” When the man directed another blinding smile his way, Jinwoo shrunk a little. He probably thought Jinwoo was an idiot. Who falls asleep at a frat party? “That’s cool. I’m not judging you. I just thought I should wake you up. Falling asleep in a building full of drunk undergraduates is probably not a good idea. What’s your name?”
“Jinwoo. You?”
“Minho, but my friends call me Huge Boy”
Jinwoo’s eyebrows almost hit his hairline when he heard that line. “Um… I think I’ll just stick with Minho. Thanks.”
He was startled by the sharp bark of laughter that escaped Mino. “I was just messing with you. No one actually calls me that. It’d be weird as .  Just call me Mino. You’re pretty funny, kid”
“Oh. Okay. Are you a sophomore?”
“Nah. I’m a freshman. I just know a couple of sophomore frat brothers from high school. You’re definitely a freshman. I can tell. You still have that innocent glow”
Jinwoo narrowed his eyes in response. He couldn’t tell if Mino was making fun of him or not.
“Do not”
“Do too”
“Do not”
“Do too”
‘How would you even know that? You’re a freshman too.”
“Oh, but I’m not an impressionable freshman, young padawan. I’m old and hardened. I’ve seen things.”
“How old are you?”
“18. You?”
“19. So you can’t call me young padawan anymore. It’s not my fault that I still have my youthful beauty and you don’t.”
Mino stared at Jinwoo for a few seconds with an amused glint in his eyes. It made Jinwoo squirm in discomfort.
“Deal. I just bummed a blunt off one of the frat bros. Want to go smoke outside?”
All the lectures his mother had delivered about drugs ing up his future and being a gateway drug flashed through Jinwoo’s mind. He hesitated then decided to go with a honest answer.
“I’ve never done that before. I don’t know…”
“Well, college is for new experiences. Let’s go learn a new lesson, young padawan”
Before Jinwoo could voice his complaints about the new nickname, Mino had already pushed himself off the couch and begun walking towards the stairs without looking back. After Mino got to the pool table, Jinwoo made a decision. A cute boy was offering new experiences with no hidden strings. How could he say no to that? He got up and followed Mino outside the building.

    It had gotten a little chilly outside in the short time that Jinwoo had been in the frat house. The cool breeze gave him goosebumps, and he surreptitiously rubbed his arms against his arms to warm them up as he followed Mino to a secluded corner behind the building. If he had been completely sober, he would probably have thought he was being lax with his safety, but his inhibitions were down and all he could think about was huddling close to Mino, the adventurous boy with a smile that lit up the world. 

    They stopped beside the outhouse, and Mino climbed onto the balcony, reaching out to pull Jinwoo up with him. As Jinwoo struggle to get comfortable on the cold concrete floor, he watched Mino pull a blunt out of his pocket, light it up and inhale deeply. When Mino passed him the blunt, he took it. He had watched numerous people smoke, but he’d never done it himself, and he wasn’t sure what the usual technique was. Mino already thought he was naïve, so he decided to just wing it instead of asking. Jinwoo tried to inhale the smoke, and immediately started choking and coughing as it went into his trachea. He was coughing so hard  that he barely noticed the hand on his back. “Are you okay, Jinwoo?” Through eyes blurry with tears, he saw Mino’s concerned face and tried to nod convincingly before he was overtaken by another coughing fit. Mino continued rubbing his back soothingly until it passed. “I thought you were kidding about the not knowing how to smoke thing. Come on, I’ll show you”.

    Mino’s smoking tutorial involved everything from showing him how to roll a blunt to actual smoking. Mino’s fingers unnecessarily brushing Jinwoo’s lips several times was just an added bonus to the lessons learned. They quietly smoked together after that. Jinwoo had started worrying about whether he should be trying to make conversation when Mino broke the silence. 
“So where are you from?”
“Chicago. You?”
“LA. It’s already too cold for me. I don’t even know why I decided it was a good idea to move to Boston for college.”
“If you think this is cold, you should experience a good old Chicago winter. We had a -30 degree day last January, and I still had to go to school. It’s hell, I tell you.”
“Noted. Is this your first choice college?”
“Yep. I’ve wanted to go to college here since I visited in junior year. Luckily, I got off the waitlist so I didn’t have to go to school in sunny California”
“Me too. Waitlisters unite. Must be fate that we met already. I always consoled myself by saying that the admissions office waitlisted me at first because they thought I was too cool to enroll here. I’m going to have to revise that excuse now”
Jinwoo playfully punched him in the shoulder, and they shared a smile of solidarity. 
“What dorm were you assigned to? I’m in Bastion”
“Me too. What floor are you on?”
“Third, you?”
“4th.”
“Nice. Guess we’ll be seeing each other often then, young padawan.”
“Stop calling me that. I’m older than you are. Yeah, I guess so. That reminds me. I need to get home soon. I have to be up before 11 tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll walk with you. This party is pretty lame anyways.”

The boys both vacated their seats on the balcony, and dusted their clothes off. “You’re cold. Why didn’t you say anything, tough Chicago boy? I have two jackets on right now. Here you go”
Mino shrugged off his jacket and handed it to Jinwoo, who put it on without a word. “C’mon. Let’s go” They made the long walk back to their dorm like two old friends, making inane conversation and laughing loudly together.

Jinwoo didn’t see Mino for the rest of the weekend. His head had been so fuzzy from the blunt and the alcohol on Saturday that he had forgotten to get Mino’s number before heading to his room. He had managed to convince himself that he had lurked on the 3rd floor throughout Sunday because he was trying to make some new friend, not because he was hoping to bump into a certain intriguing resident of that floor. 

He was currently headed to his first Honors Biology class on the other side of campus. Although Jinwoo still had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, he was considering a premed major. He liked helping people, and the job security was a definite plus. Jinwoo was so deeply immersed in his thoughts and worries about beginning his academic career that he didn’t hear someone shouting his name. Something solid and warm crashed into him from behind, making him jump in panic and fall to the floor. He looked up to see Mino staring down at him, a concerned look on his face as he leaned over to pick up Jinwoo’s backpack. “Are you okay? Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to say hi.” Jinwoo stood up, his face flooded pink with embarrassment.  “Don’t worry about it. It’s my fault. I’m already so used to this place that I haven’t been as vigilant as I usually am” He dusted the dirt off his trousers as he spoke, but when he looked up, Mino was looking at him like he actually understood. Doubtful since he was another rich partying kid from California. 

They began walking side by side. “Where are you headed”. Jinwoo turned his head to direct a quizzical look at Mino “To class… Like everyone else here. Are you by any chance going to the frat house on a Monday morning?”  Mino turned bashful, which was startling because Jinwoo had not seen that side of him yesterday. The switch was fascinating. “Shut up. I’m going to class too. I just want to know your class schedule”. Jinwoo gave him a small smile “I have Honors Biology right now and Humanities 101 after that.”  Mino flashed his usual wide smile at Jinwoo, and he felt himself go a little weak in the knees. “Honors bio? That’s awesome. I’m in that class too.” Jinwoo hoped his surprise he felt at that new information did not manifest in his facial expression. Honors biology here was hardcore, and only 10% of the students who took the qualifying exam got in. He had some trouble reconciling the easy going stoner from Friday night with someone who could display the amount of dedication, hardwork and intelligence necessary to get into the honors classes at one of the best universities in the world. Mino nudged him out of his thoughtful silence. “We’re a little late. I’m going to run ahead now. I’ll save you the seat next to mine.” Before Jinwoo could even reply, Mino had literally run across the quad and into the biology building. Mino was definitely an enigma that Jinwoo was invested in figuring out.