The evening sun cast its rays on the pile of notes sprawled on the table, separating me from my friend Minghao seated across. The boy had missed another lecture earlier due to oversleeping after his night shift. He's been living up to the "waking up late for college and hence napping in college and then sleeping late to catch up on college" life. The light seemed to enhance the dark circles beneath his bright eyes, and it pained me a little to see him working so hard, and that I could only help so little. 

"Could you explain the bit about social distance in speech again?" He pointed to the horrible scribbles on my notes, which was also vandalised by a random pinwheel that Mingyu drew while he was bored in class. Minghao didn't comment, but I knew he picked up on the fact that I was sitting with Mingyu in class that day. To be fair, why wouldn't I? It's always been as such. 

I regurgitated the lecture once again for Minghao, who was taking notes diligently. He seemed determined to catch up on all the six lectures that he missed over the past month within the two hours that we had in the library, which was next to impossible. We only had the booking to the study room for that long, and before we knew it, our session was ended prematurely by a soft knock on our door. 

"Jun!" Minghao looked up, surprised. Given the amount of work we've been doing that day, neither of us had noticed how fast time passed by. Jun smiled at Minghao brightly, waving a bowl of salad he got for him for dinner. 

"Are you on a diet?" I said disapprovingly. I carefully packed my notes into his pile of work, making last-minute markings on the pages that he had raised questions about. I guess tonight was going to be an all-nighter of compiling notes again. 

"I'm on a budget. Besides, I do love carrots," he grinned. The few of us (namely Vernon, Mingyu and me) have been used to laughing away these candid jokes away by now. Our private study sessions have gone on for a couple of days, and each time I would see Minghao eat nothing more than salad or bread. I sure hope his sister was making progress with her application for dance school. 

Minghao gave me a thank you hug before following the older Chinese boy out of the library, headed for his next shift of work. I recognised his T-shirt today as Mingyu's, which meant that he smelled less like grilled meat today. I'm guessing either Mingyu or Vernon had decided to casually put their clothes in the wrong pile, just so that the careless boy would change his meat-smelling clothes. I made a mental note for what to buy for him for his birthday. 

Clap!

I looked up from my notes to see Mingyu staring almost too closely into my face, seemingly amazed by my focus when doing work. He had clapped to catch my attention. "Hello!"

"Oh my gosh you scared me. If you scared me badly enough, I swear I would have gotten a trauma." I rolled my eyes at his mischievous smile. "How did you find me here?"

"Vernon told me you were having a study session with Minghao," he said, "how's he holding up?"

"I think he'll get the content soon enough, but he's been on a steady diet of bread and salad. That worries me. If he loses any more weight, he might be carried off by the wind soon." I tore my eyes away from Mingyu. It was a bit strange to notice how the rays settled in a perfect angle on his face, such that it complemented his