Shira sighs, leaning against the lab table. The procedure on the plasmid had probably worked, but the vector had to be extracted and purified. That required a lot of waiting around and Kim Taehyung hadn’t said a single sentence other than, “Hurry up and write your results so I know they match.”

Shira had plastered on a fake smile, processing her scribbles and neatly copying her results over on to the next page. She had just finished copying the last page when Taehyung snatches the notebook up, flipping through the pages.

Her irritation level rises and she chews on the inside of her cheek. So she slumps over, adjusting the dials on the digital pipettes for the next procedure before replacing the boxes of pipette tips.

The majority of the people had left the lab for the day, so it was just her and Taehyung, and the fact that he was still being ill-tempered was getting on her nerves.

“Just ten more minutes,” Shira mutters under her breath, walking away from Taehyung. “Ten more minutes until I can leave.”

“Make yourself useful and label your vials properly for storage.”

His words echo in Shira’s head, engraving themselves into the soft tissue. Make herself useful? That ungrateful little sh*t.  Shira seethes before reminding herself that outside the Korean underworld, she was Seok Sonha. She was a nobody. So she bites her tongue with a little sigh, “I labelled them already.”

Taehyung blinks almost comically, frowning, before a smirk unfurls across his face.

“You’re a little pliant, aren’t you?” Taehyung stalks towards her. Shira backs away slightly, hip bumping into the lab table. His face is just inches away, and that’s far too close for her taste. “Just an obedient little thing.”

“What?” Shira descends back into her character of Seok Sonha, blinking innocently back at Kim Taehyung, who looks like a predator.

“When are you going to stop playing this game?”

“What are you talking about?” Shira huffs slightly, pushing him away. “You’re being weird.”

Taehyung frowns slightly, turning away as the girl basically snubs him. That didn’t go according to plan at all. The same trick had been used plenty of times, making girls fall into his trap or letting themselves be used for his convenience. But this girl who was tripping over her too-long pants couldn’t care less.

The aversion that Taehyung had felt when he first met Seok Sonha amplifies. She’s nothing more than an accessory to his student life, and getting seriously in his way. She didn’t particularly like him nor did she serve a purpose—she just seemed to exist. Research credit was required for their major, and they just happened to be in the same lab at once.

And now she wasn’t falling into his cookie cutter treatment, and even though Taehyung knew that he had no right to be irritated, that didn’t stop the gaping pit of annoyance twisting in his stomach.

She puts her vials into the fridge, walking out the door with a simple, “You’re the last one in the lab, so lock up.”

Wordlessly, he finishes labelling his own set, placing his vials into an order into the foam of his box before clicking it shut and putting it on top of Sonha’s in the fridge. His phone buzzes, and Taehyung taps at it, lifting it to his ear.

“You ready to go?” Jungkook yawns. “I’m tired.”

“Mm, yeah. Just finished,” Taehyung rubs his own eyes, locking the door of the lab behind him. “Give the phone to Jimin, will you?”

A bit of rustling echoes into the speaker before a “What’s up?”

“My irritation because of my research partner.”

“She shot your typical attitude and mind games down, didn’t she?”