Date Completed: 12th November 2017

Song Recommendation: Charlie Puth - Then There's You

Minor Pairings: JoyGi, TaeNy

Hi! I'm back after two months and this time, I'm updating with a fic that is really really special for me.

This is the first WenRene fic that I'd ever written (I got the idea in class because of my ex crush lol) and I finally finished it after more than a year!

Some of you might recognize this from a WenRene writing competition that was held recently. Thank you for those who voted and love the story! I was the first runner up. This is the original, uncut version of the story. I had to shorten the other one because of word limit lol. Enough of my rant, I hope you enjoy the floof after my last update :3 Forgive me if the quality is bad, a huge chunk of this was written when I just dabbled back in writing back then.

Wendy was pleased when she managed to answer Dr Kwon’s question. When the lecturer resumed her teaching, Wendy sneakily turned around and stole glance at a girl sitting a few seats behind her; slightly taller in position due to the way the seats in the lecture hall were arranged. She should be focusing again like she always did in class after managing to answer any lecturers’ questions, but this one class was special. None of her other class had a girl with long purple ash hair looking down and silently scribbling her notes; all the while biting her lower lip, trying her best to hide a smile that was threatening to come out.

Wendy held her gaze and she was not disappointed. When the girl raised her head to look at the notes on the screen in front of the lecture hall, their eyes met and the smile that she held just now spilled out, directed to Wendy. Her smile was proud and she was almost grinning. In return, Wendy ‘Seungwan’ Son beamed back at her before turning to the front and started to focus on the lecture once again.

When Wendy and Irene first met, the latter thought the younger girl hated her. It was during the first week of Irene’s fourth year in university and Wendy’s first week in her first year. Being a senior and a freshman in two different courses should not give them any opportunity to meet but due to some miracle (or screw up, depending on who you ask) in the university’s schedule, the seniors in Computer Science Department had to share the compulsory Modern English subject class with the freshmen from Art Department.

Came Friday, Irene’s course mates were buzzing with anticipation. Some were excited to meet new friends and form ‘meaningful’ relationship while some dreaded the thoughts of working with ‘snotty, immature kids’. Regardless, they had no choice. For Irene, she did not mind working with freshmen but the idea of meeting new people made her anxious.

The reason was because Irene Bae was breathtakingly beautiful. She was not bragging, it was a plain fact. She knew it and while she was grateful to be grouped in the attractive people spectrum, it was not something she was proud of. Throughout the years, she had grown accustomed of being stalked, receiving confessions left and right from people she had never seen before in her life, had people gawking at her and invading her personal space besides being loved and hated just because of her look.

She had even received confessions from her course mates, ones she rejected politely as she did not want to make her academic experience being an awkward one. Over time, they understood and respected her decision. Although that was the case with her friends, she hated the thought of having to go through the initial awkwardness with new classmates all over again.

When she first walked in the class with Solar and and Yixing by her either side, she heard gasps and whispers all around from the freshmen that were already in the class. Solar gave Irene her eating smirk while Yixing chuckled in a low voice. Irene was mentally smacking her two best friends in her mind while keeping an awkward small smile plastered on her face.

“Here we go again, Yongsun.” Yixing whispered to Solar. Irene, who stood in between them, could definitely hear it and she gritted her teeth as she hissed.

“Shut it guys. If you dare leave me for any reasons whatsoever and let me fend for myself, I will murder you.”

Solar and Yixing just snorted when they heard that. Not that they doubted Irene’s ability to murder them; it was just fun when they saw THE Irene Bae became so lost and quiet when she was surrounded by her admirers, compared to the usual Bae Joohyun who usually bickered with them over anything and everything under the sun.

“That would be an interesting idea wouldn’t it, Yixing? I heard we had group project and discussion throughout this whole course. I bet later the new edition of ‘Hunger Games’ will start in this class. Except this time, they will kill each other to be in Goddess Bae’s group.”

Irene’s two best friends laughed while she herself was exasperated.

“Let’s just get a seat alright? You guys are so unbelievably annoying.”

Irene muttered under her breath and walked off to find a seat under the scrutiny of so many younger students surrounding the lecture hall. Solar and Yixing smirked at each other and hurried to Irene’s side.

“I am sure that many of you here have already known how this class will work. I will give a lecture for an hour and use the other hour to give you a topic for group assignment or discussion. At the end of the class before you leave, you will have to hand it your tasks and I will give marks on every single one of your group works.”

Dr. Kwon Boa said firmly. She was famous as a lecturer who was strict but caring, unyielding but sympathetic.

“Now, since there’s an hour left, I would like all of you to form a group. Since there are more first years here, I want to see a group of 4-5 people with only one senior in each group, the rest will be the freshmen. You will use the time to get to know each other. Choose wisely, you’ll have to work together for roughly ten weeks.”

Irene’s jaw fell slack and Solar and Yixing stared at each other in horror. That would mean they could not help Irene to fend off her admirers. Usually at least one of them would squeeze herself or himself to be in the same group as Irene but this time, there would be no leeway. Irene turned left and right to look at both of her best friends.

While they were having silent mental breakdowns, the freshmen started to approach them, like wolves hunting in packs. It was not long before the shouting started. The three of them were very popular, considering they were all good looking and had top ranks in class. However, popular as Solar and Yixing were, their fans were not as obsessive as Irene’s. The other seniors threw them sympathizing and amused looks. They were all used to horde of fans surrounding the three students.

Within minutes, Solar and Yixing were grouped with some freshmen that they managed to recognize from their extracurricular activities. Irene glared at them, her feeling of betrayal increased proportional to the sounds of shouting and desperate pleading of the freshmen surrounding her when they realized she was the only one left among the popular trio. Both of her best friends sent her apologetic looks before they ran off with their group members to sit somewhere below, at the front seats to avoid the crowd surrounding Irene.

Irene Bae sighed and started to look at the faces surrounding her, hoping she would faintly recognize at least one of them but to her dismay, none of them looked familiar. Irene was about to just close her eyes and pointed to a person when a familiar voice called out to her amidst the confusion.

“…unnie! Joohyun unnie! Bae Joohyun unnie!”

Irene looked around to see the person who was calling out her name and almost cried with relief when she saw Kang Seulgi, her junior in her dance minor waving excitedly at her.

Although this was Seulgi’s first year in the university, she had been attending dance classes there since her high school days. She was young, yet no one would deny her immense talent in dancing. That was how Irene got to know Seulgi and became close with her. Seulgi looked different from the last time they met a few weeks ago before the term started. Back then she still had her natural black hair. The Seulgi that was grinning and waving at her sported a dark orange hair, a colour that might not suit many people; yet, it somehow fit her bubbly personality well.

Irene waved back at Seulgi and waited while the younger girl squeezed through the people that were standing near Irene. Some of them grumbled while some were still trying to talk over each other’s voices, trying to make Irene notice them. Only when Seulgi finally stood in front of her Irene noticed that the bright girl was not alone. Her hand was clasped together with another girl; a beautiful brunette who looked flustered and seemed uncomfortable. She was looking everywhere except at Irene.

For some reasons, Irene could not take her eyes off from the girl. Her dark hair was deeply contrasting her pale skin and her pink lips and bushy eyebrows were so cute, Irene had to hold a squeal from coming out. Irene chose not to dwell longer on the girl’s sharp jaw and instead tried to look at both of their faces. Unfortunately, the cute expressive eyebrows that attracted Irene were frowning at that moment.

“Unnie! Can I join up your group with Seungwan here? Please please pleaseee. You’re the only senior I know here.” Seulgi spoke in a loud voice, accompanied with a pout.

Her companion, Seungwan (Irene was amused that such a beautiful girl had a boy’s name, she thought it was cute) turned around to look at her so fast; Irene was surprised she did not break her neck in the process. Seungwan glared at Seulgi and albeit being looked at as if she was going to be swallowed whole, Seulgi’s expression did not change. She grinned happily while looking at Irene, her eyes disappearing due to her wide smiles.

“Seulgi! Luckily you’re here as well. I don’t know anyone else here. It will be easier to have discussions since we know each other already.”

Irene returned Seulgi’s grin with one of her own. Her words were however received with groans from the students that were standing around her, hoping to be noticed by senpai.

“And Seungwan…if you don’t mind, can I join your and Seulgi’s group as well?”

Irene directed her attention now to the brunette standing beside Seulgi, who looked flustered to be addressed suddenly. None of them paid any attention to the buzzing of other students surrounding them. Both Seulgi and Irene were looking at Seungwan, waiting for her answer.

Seungwan looked uncomfortable with the attention on her and she mumbled to herself before she cleared . Irene could not quite catch what she was talking but she was pretty sure she heard something that sounded like, ‘Lucky that bear meat is tough’ and ‘My name is Wendy, you dumb bear.’

“Urm, sure sonbae. I mean, sunbae. And please call me Wendy. Seungwan is….weird.”

Wendy scrunched up her nose and Irene could not help but to giggle at the cute sight before her. Seulgi hummed a song underneath her breath, being happy for reasons only known to her.

“Call me Irene or Joohyun unnie then. I prefer Joohyun, since that’s how Seulgi calls me but it’s up to you.”

Wendy became flustered and mumbled again but Irene was sure she heard Wendy said she would address the older girl as ‘Joohyun unnie’, which made Irene giddy. But she took a deep breath and try to keep her cool; it would not do with her cold beauty image if the people surrounding her saw the sight of her cooing over the cute, shy Wendy.

Seulgi, ever the excited one, broke the awkwardness that was starting to creep in between Irene and Wendy. She let go of Wendy’s hand that she was holding previously (Wendy squeezed her hand so hard while she was talking to Irene, it was a miracle she managed to keep her cheerful facial expression) and she clapped her hands once, catching the attention of the people nearby.

“Right, there are 3 of us so far. We just need one more. Unnie, is it alright if I choose someone since you don’t know any freshmen?”

Irene nodded to this and just like that, the intense pushing and shouting started again. Seulgi sighed and squinted her already small eyes to look around for their final group member.

“Alright…just one more person…a first year. Let’s see…who’s going to be the unlucky one with me…”

Her eyes wandered around as she muttered under her breath. She looked pass the hungry crowd that was calling out to her and lo and behold; she saw a vertically challenged boy jumping at the back of the crowd, trying to see what was going on far above him.

“That’s right…we need the icebreaker…” Seulgi muttered again with a smile creeping on her face.

“MJ! Kim Myung Jun! Come here and join my group!”

Gasps were heard all around and MJ, the boy that was summoned by Seulgi looked confused. He looked around before finally looking at Seulgi and pointed at himself, his face full of questions. When Seulgi nodded to him, he skipped happily to where Seulgi, Irene and Wendy were and smiled widely to all of them. The crowd around them had started to disperse and started to form other groups with other people.

“There, now our little group is complete.”

Seulgi said as she looked at each of them with a glint in her eyes.

Meanwhile, Irene caught the eyes of Solar and Yixing and saw them smirking at her meaningfully, to which she responded with a deathly glare. The pair gulped and quickly turned back to focus on listening to their group members that were introducing themselves.

Wendy looked as if the soul had been out of her.

Their first week in uni had begun.

No one was quite sure how they all ended agreeing to have their first discussion as a group in Joy’s house. Seulgi kept insisting that Joy’s house was the most ideal place to have their discussion since it was huge and Joy’s parents were rarely home. The only people there were usually Joy and her younger sister, Yeri with some of their helpers. Wendy seemed like she was about to counter Seulgi’s suggestion when suddenly Seulgi turned to her and told her with a mocking face t