Kyungwon knew how to apologize. She certainly did. She knew it was a basic human thing to do when someone did something wrong. But now that she found the current situation she was in, she didn’t really understand why it was so hard to utter an apology, or even worse, a single word.

 

She could only bewilderedly stare. She was nervous, scared.

 

She couldn’t believe she was really that wild, still couldn’t believe she had just banged someone’s head with her own head, like, she was just taking books out of her locker while talking with Eunwoo seconds ago? But Eunwoo would not be Eunwoo if she went through a day without telling one of her stupid anecdotes to Kyungwon, and Kyungwon was that type of person who was admittedly very easy to amuse, so she was not really sure how it happened because she just laughed like how a normal person would and threw her head to the back with a strong force.

 

Strong force. That was not good at all. She knew for a fact that her head was hard as hell; it could break anyone’s nose – She had tried it when she was still a kid.

 

Now she felt even guiltier. She figured that she really had to say something, but the victim’s glare shut her instantly before she even tried to muster up the courage to open .

 

Kyungwon couldn’t believe she was experiencing that particular ‘first sight’ moment where all those typical main characters in novels found their words stuck in their throats and unable to function as a whole.

 

The difference was, those fictional characters were in love while she was scared less.

 

“Um…ah, I…” Kyungwon started, mentally slapping herself for being a mess when she was supposed to say something coherent, an apology at the very least.

 

She meekly looked at the other girl who was still rubbing her red-blotched temple right where Kyungwon’s head last came in contact with.

 

The victim was seen inhaling an ample amount of air and sighed it out through her nose.

 

“Forget it,” then she walked away.

 

Kyungwon’s eyes followed the retreating figure until the girl was out of sight. She brought a finger up to rub her nose out of habit before pushing back a few pesky strands of hair from in front of her face. That girl – a senior probably – was attractive, unfortunately Kyungwon was the reason behind that soon-to-be lump.

 

Kyungwon groaned, suddenly feeling embarrassed and mad at herself. She didn’t get to apologize and now she would be known as the rude girl Kang Kyungwon who didn’t apologize after knocking a stranger’s head. People were still looking at her. She never felt so humiliated her whole entire nineteen years of life.

 

She sighed exasperatedly and turned her head to Eunwoo who was standing a good distance away.

 

“Uh. You had a pretty good aim,” Eunwoo whispered in a secretly manner but still loud enough for Kyungwon to hear.

 

“You might just as well pretend to not know me if you’re embarrassed.”

 

Eunwoo blinked and nodded, quickly turning around to walk away.

 

Kyungwon cursed under her breath. Eunwoo was the reason why she got into this mess in the first place. What an .

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

“She what?!”

 

“You heard me right.” Nayoung closed her eyes and slumped in her seat, bearing herself to hear another round of laughter from her friend.

 

Nayoung shoved Minkyung hard when the latter still couldn’t stop laughing.

 

“But Nayoung, that was gold!” Minkyung patted her shoulder, still letting out one to two giggles.

 

“Right. My head swelling is funny to you.”

 

Minkyung clicked her tongue. “I’m concerned, but can’t say it’s not funny,” she paused to smile, “and to think that it was your first interaction with your crush.”

 

“She’s not my crush.”

 

“Oh Nayoung, you literally sighed dreamily everytime you caught a glimpse of her.” Minkyung bit back a smile.

 

“She’s not my crush,” Nayoung firmly repeated.

 

Minkyung thought that she should probably tell Nayoung that there was no point in denying her feelings for that sophomore anymore when she was that obvious.

 

“On Mondays, you would spend an unnecessary longer time to finish your lunch because you knew she would always come late on Monday’s lunch breaks. On Tuesdays, you would take a different and longer route to our Psych class just to catch a quick look of her sweating in her PE uniform. On W–“

 

“Alright stop,” Nayoung slammed her hand onto Minkyung’s blabbering mouth. “Yeah I did, still, doesn’t mean I have a crush on her.” Nayoung continued to defend herself when she saw a raise of eyebrow from Minkyung, “I don’t have a crush on her…”

 

“Nayoung, do you even listen to yourself?”

 

“Oh my god, Minkyung, shut up? Stop talking about her.”

 

“Bet you’ll be back to daydreaming about her again once you see her.”

 

Minkyung finally shut when she felt a sharp kick to her shin.

 

As if on cue, their professor came in after being twenty minutes late and hurriedly started the lecture.

 

Minkyung was right. Not two minutes into the slides, Nayoung already found herself thinking back to her encounter with Kang Kyungwon.

 

Kyungwon had her hair tied into a loose ponytail and she honestly looked so good. She had a nice scent too. That black hoodie looked perfectly good on her. Oh and her nervous eyes when she realized she had banged her head, and those jittery hands were just a little bit too cute, and that unintended lip biting–

 

Nayoung heard a mocking scoff followed by a whisper: “Weak Nayoung is daydreaming.”

 

But what could Nayoung do? Minkyung was right.

 

Nayoung was just like any other girl who was infatuated. Though she only took secret stares and liked in silence, because that was what she was best at.

 

No greed to make a move, no greed to be bold.

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

The electric bell rang at two sharp. Kyungwon jolted awake and saw the others were already on their feet making a bee line to step out of the classroom.

 

She checked her phone for any notifications and found there was one from Eunwoo that was telling her to come to the campus’ canteen.

 

Without a second thought, she gathered all her things to put them inside her tote bag then walked out to the hallway.

 

Eyes trained on the floor as she walked, one hand gripping the strap of her bag. It was dismissal time for all classes, making the hallway packed with people she knew and did not know.

 

A sudden thought came to her mind, she lifted her head to lazily skim through the area and she was not sure if this was real but it had happened several times before. The girl whose head she accidentally knocked last week was on the other end of the hallway. To say that she was not creeped out would clearly be a lie because, just how could she spot the girl in a sea of people only in one try?

 

After the incident from a week ago, it was hard for Kyungwon to not notice that pretty senior. She was suddenly hyperaware of the girl’s existence, like her senses greatly heightened whenever the older girl was around. Kyungwon would often effortlessly find her in the crowd, be it in the canteen, in the hallway, or basically everywhere in the campus, just like right now.

 

The girl (her temple was nothing like a bruise anymore, thank god) along with her friend were walking towards her direction. Kyungwon immensely prayed that the girl did not notice her or she would feel extremely awkward.

 

She did, though, from the look of it.

 

The girl always did, and Kyungwon knew that the girl would like to pretend that the incident never happened from the way she darted her eyes to anywhere else but her every time they bumped into each other.

 

Kyungwon still felt bad. She couldn’t count the number of times she would contemplate to just go over and sincerely apologize to her. But the way the older girl acted made her think that she didn’t want to have anything to do with her.

 

The two girls were nearing and Kyungwon fished out her phone, pretending to be busy.

 

“…You’re so hopeless, Nayoung.”

 

It should be vague and unclear with all the crowd noises in the buzzling hallway, but Kyungwon heard it clear enough, like the girl’s friend purposely said it right in her ears.

 

Nayoung. Her name is Nayoung.

 

 

 

––

 

––

 

 

 

“How do you apologize to someone?”

 

Eunwoo stopped slurping her soup for a second to answer. “Why do you sound so particularly dumb right now?”

 

“Eunwoo.”

 

“Well, okay, ugh.” The younger girl straightened her back and folded her hands. “I don’t know what is so hard about saying sorry. You know, that thing about offering a handshake for peace and flashing an apologetic smile?”

 

Kyungwon dropped her head on the table.

 

“I would’ve done it if it really was that easy.”

 

“Aw, poor you, my dear friend,” Eunwoo cooed as her hand reached out to pat her older friend’s head. “But hey, when will you get over it? It’s already been like, what, two weeks?”

 

Kyungwon slowly roused as she swatted Eunwoo’s hands away.

 

“Did you see her face when I knocked her head? I got chills, Eunwoo. I got chills! She was the scariest!”

 

“I mean, you did knock her head after all. What did you expect?”

 

Kyungwon indecently groaned and once again landed her head on the table with a loud thud.

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

It was Monday. Chaotic and tiring Monday.

 

Kyungwon just got out of her last class of the day. She peeked at her wristwatch and noted that it was almost the end of lunch break. With her beloved cheesestick in mind, she brought herself to the canteen.

 

She’d always favored Monday’s lunch breaks more than any other day’s. It was always more enjoyable when there were less humans chattering at the same time. She should probably be a bit more grateful towards Mr. Shim for coming up with the idea of making their session thirty minutes longer.

 

Or not.

 

Kyungwon almost stopped in her track when she saw a familiar brunette sitting on the table close to the entrance of the canteen.

 

Shouldn’t let this prohibit her from getting her cheesestick.

 

Kyungwon was headed straight to the counter, forefinger and middle finger peeking out to indicate that she wanted two boxes of cheesesticks. The staff nodded absentmindedly, as if this whole thing about Kyungwon only showing two fingers to order without having to say anything had been repeated countless times.

 

Kyungwon nodded back and smiled. While waiting for her order to be ready, she let her gaze went over to the girl who was still sitting at the table by the entrance. Her eyes were closed. Earphones attached to her ears. Her expression was as calm as it could get. It made her kind of want to go over and ask what song she was listening to. But who was she kidding? She hadn’t even apologized for causing her a bruise.

 

And more over, Nayoung seemed to hate her.

 

Kyungwon shifted her attention back to the staff to get her order. After handing over the right amount of money, she walked to her usual table where it was a bit farther into the area.

 

There were only a few people left in the canteen, which was understandable considering break time was already over two minutes ago and all classes would’ve started by now.

 

Kyungwon’s eyes went back to Nayoung.

 

Is she sleeping? She doesn’t have classes to attend?

 

And Kyungwon started to wonder if the girl fell asleep waiting for her next class. Should she wake her up? But wouldn’t it be rude? She kept pounding over and over while munching on her cheesestick.

 

Nayoung honestly looked so cute sleeping with her palm supporting her cheek.

 

Kyungwon was starting to feel like a creep for staring at someone sleeping for so long but it was not like there were more interesting things to look at.

 

All so abruptly, Nayoung jerked up. Kyungwon would’ve laughed at the funny faces Nayoung was doing if not for the sudden attention on her. Did Nayoung just catch her staring? Kyungwon quickly looked down at her other untouched cheesesticks. She heard Nayoung’s angry what? and for a moment, she thought Nayoung was talking to her. She made it as natural as possible to glance over to the front and saw that the brunette was conversing over the phone, earphones now unplugged.

 

So from what she managed to get out of Nayoung’s whispery voice, the latter indeed had a class.

 

Kyungwon again secretly watched Nayoung pack her things before getting up, and she almost choked on her cheesestick. A loud crack was heard. Nayoung was seen holding her left hip while sporting a pained look. Kyungwon was partly worried and partly amused.

 

Seconds after, the other girl standed up straight on her two feet and speedwalked out of the canteen.

 

Kyungwon found her amusing. Cutely amusing.

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

“I think I need to woman up and talk to Nayoung,” Kyungwon determinedly said.

 

Eunwoo looked at her quizzically. “Who is Nayoung?”

 

Kyungwon took her phone out and fiddled with it, Eunwoo just shrugged before smiling at her acquaintances here and there.

 

Kyungwon showed her what she had on her phone right when they were about to turn a corner. Eunwoo stopped to take a closer look, then leaned in as she asked, “why do you have her picture saved on your phone?”

 

Kyungwon was taken aback. Why did she have Nayoung’s picture saved on her phone?

 

“Ah.. is it weird?” Kyungwon sheepishly looked at her friend.

 

“Weird? It’s gay!” Eunwoo exclaimed and snatched Kyungwon’s phone out of her hold. Not only did she find a picture of Nayoung that was just showed to her, but she found another five more. “I take it back. This is hella gay. You’re in love, Kyungwon!”

 

“What? No! I’m just…interested. And I accidentally found her instagram account and I just felt it’d be such a waste if I din’t save the pictures.”

 

Eunwoo cackled in a way that Kyungwon found it offensive.

 

“Tell that to your six pictures of Nayoung,” Eunwoo retorted and resumed her walk with Kyungwon tailing behind.

 

Eunwoo surely found this situation fun. Teasing Kyungwon was fun.

 

Kyungwon dejectedly sighed. Eunwoo was annoying, but there might be some truth in her words. She couldn’t get Nayoung out of her head ever since that one time she found her sleeping in canteen.

 

Back to her initial resolve. She was going to woman up and talk to Nayoung.

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

Nayoung was probably going to go crazy. Getting out of bed to go to morning classes was already a thing, but having Kyungwon seated chairs away from her? That was totally uncalled for. What was she doing anyway in her class?

 

Nayoung swore the frequency of seeing Kyungwon a day shot up so high it frightened her to no end. Normally, Nayoung had to put in an extra effort to catch a glimpse of Kyungwon. But these days? Kyungwon would show up so often without her having to search for the younger girl. And she could see that Kyungwon always noticed her presence.

 

Of course Nayoung was happy. Seeing Kyungwon was like taking vitamin (Minkyung was going to cringe hard if she ever heard of this) but really, she was a panicked gay. Who wouldn’t though, when the whole existence of her longtime crush was merely two meters away from her.

 

Still, if there was anything she was good at, it would be her ability to mask her panic with blank face. So act like you didn’t see her!

 

But, taking a brief look wouldn’t hurt, right?

 

Nayoung slowly gazed to her left to where Kyungwon was. Cute and beautiful as ever. Just as she was about to turn her head back to the lecturer, Kyungwon looked over her way and smiled. Kyungwon smiled at her.

 

Nayoung was never really trained when she was faced with this situation, so she snapped her head to the front without ever looking back at the younger girl.

 

The lecture went on for another hour. When it was dismissal time, Nayoung bolted out of class so fast she left the shoulder-length haired girl no chance to talk.

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

“I don’t know if I should laugh or slap you.” Minkyung frustratingly scoffed.

 

“You don’t understand! It’s not easy, Minkyung!” Nayoung half groaned half shouted.

 

“First of all, it is. You basically just needed to smile back. How are you even going to handle yourself when you two start dating in the future?”

 

Nayoung rarely blushed. But when she did, she blushed hard.

 

“Oh, look at you. Oh, Nayoung. I don’t know what to do with you anymore,” Minkyung raised her hands up in surrender.

 

Dating Kyungwon? The image of being able to hold her hands anytime she wanted was wild.

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

 

When Nayoung said she was going to go crazy, she really meant it. No. She sure as hell she was losing it.

 

Here, the cause of her heart doing mad jumps and the major reason why she went malfunction was here standing right in front of her.

 

“Hi Nayoung-sunbaenim?” Kyungwon flashed an uneasy smile.

 

And now Kyungwon was talking to her. Kyungwon knew her name!

 

Nayoung internally screamed. She might as well scream for real so Kyungwon would get shocked and she could flee from this place.

 

“Sunbaenim?” Kyungwon called out once again.

 

Alright, Nayoung’s going to try. Kim Minkyung better be proud of her after this.

 

“Hi.”

 

“I’m Kyungwon,” the younger girl timidly introduced herself. “I-I want to apologize for–you know, yeah…” Kyungwon trailed off, eyes looking at everywhere else but Nayoung.

 

When nothing was coming out of Nayoung’s mouth, Kyungwon thought Nayoung was very mad, so she quickly added, “I swear I didn’t do it on purpose! I was just laughing and, and suddenly you were behind me. I’m really sorry about that. I’m also really sorry for taking so long to apologize to you, but I am a girl with a lot of sincerity, please believe me.”

 

Kyungwon didn’t realize she’d rambled rather embarrassingly but she thought it was worth it when she not only saw Nayoung smiled, but also heard her chuckle.

 

“It was a month ago. I had even let it slip away from my mind.”

 

“You were not mad?” Kyungwon dumbly asked.

 

“I was. And now that I thought more about it, the bruise was so ugly.”

 

Kyungwon grimaced for a second, recoiling how hard she banged the older girl’s head.

 

“I’m sorry...Ah, I really want to properly offer my apology.”

 

Nayoung thought yesterday’s Kyungwon was the cutest with her yellow ribbon tying her hair into a ponytail, but she was wrong. Today’s Kyungwon was undoubtedly more adorable.

 

“It’s alright. I’m fine now.” Nayoung brought out a tiny smile.

 

“You acted like you hated me so much.” Kyungwon murmured.

 

“Did I? Um, it must be a misunderstanding. I don’t hate you.” Definitely not.

 

“Will you let me buy you a meal? Please?”

 

What? “What?”

 

Nayoung never knew an expression could change so fast. Kyungwon now totally didn’t look like the guilty girl she was seconds ago. She had a confident smile on. Eyes inviting.

 

“Let me treat you to a meal. Not the I’m-sorry-I’ll-offer-a-free-meal-as-an-apology meal, but the I-want-to-know-you-better meal,” Kyungwon firmly stated.

 

“…Why?”

 

“If you hadn’t realized it, sunbaenim, I am… interested in you.” Kyungwon was optimistic at first, but the unexplainable emotion on Nayoung’s face depleted her spirit.

 

She couldn’t turn back now, could she?

 

“You can say no if you don’t want.” At least she’d tried.

 

Time passed in complete silence between both of them. Kyungwon grew more anxious by each second. Is this too fast? She knew it, asking Nayoung out after having just apologized was clearly a bad idea. Screw you, Eunwoo.

 

“I’m craving cheesestick.”

 

Kyungwon widened her eyes.

 

“Let’s have the you-want-to know-me-better meal that you want,” Nayoung smiled, “and I want two boxes of cheesesticks,” her smile broadened as liquid of courage flowed through her.

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

A meal turned to two meals, to three meals. And to many more of countless meals.

 

Kyungwon didn’t know how it was like a dream to Nayoung for them to be hanging out like this. Kyungwon certainly didn’t know that Nayoung had already imagined them holding hands for a lot of time back then. Back then when she could only took secret stares and liked in silence.

 

She would tell her one day. Maybe she would bring it up over warm coffees at their frequented café, or on one of those chilly days where they would be lying together on her couch.

 

Nayoung contently sighed when she felt slender fingers slowly crawled to fill in the gaps between her own.

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

 

“I think you need to lessen the amount of time you throw your head to the back when you laugh.”

 

“What? You know I can’t really control it. Reflex mechanism. Hah.”

 

“We can’t afford to have other people getting knocked out, Kyungwon.”

 

“I banged your head once and that’s all you ever about,” Kyungwon sulkily walked away.

 

Later, when they were sitting in the dark watching late-night romcom drama, Nayoung wished so hard that Kyungwon would never lose her habit of throwing her head back when she laughed.

 

Kyungwon looked absolutely lovely doing that.

 

 

 

––

 

 

 

“Anyways, why were you in my philo class?” Nayoung wiped off a chocolate stain on the corner of Kyungwon’s lips.

 

“When was I ever?” Kyungwon more of her ice cream.

 

“When you still hadn’t apologized to me, few weeks into the incident, two years ago?” Nayoung wiped again another stain off Kyungwon’s mouth. “Gosh, can’t you eat in a not messy way?”

 

“Cannot. I love it when you clean after me,” Kyungwon winked. Nayoung got flustered. Kyungwon laughed. “I sneaked in to see you.”

 

“For real?”

 

“Yeah, I had wanted to apologize on that day, and also to ask you out. You ran away, unfortunately.”

 

“I panicked, okay! You smiled at me out of the blue.”

 

“Oho, was my smile that blinding? Huh unnie?”

 

“Shut up.”

 

 

––

 

 

 

It was late at night. They were on the brink of sleep, limbs tangling. Nayoung had her hand caressing her girlfriend’s back. Kyungwon’d always liked it when she left light and tingling touches on her skin.

 

“Kyungwon-ah,” Nayoung softly called and received a long hum in response.

 

“I’ve liked you, since a long time ago, long long time ago.”

 

She felt Kyungwon’s lips form a smile against her skin.

 

“Really?”

 

“Really.”

 

Nayoung pulled back a bit to imprint Kyungwon’s serene face on every space of her heart. She sighed and leaned in to place a kiss on Kyungwon’s forehead, couldn’t hold in the amount of endearment and the weight of love that she had for the younger girl.

 

Kyungwon would possibly not remember about this talk the next day, seeing how she’d dozed off so fast. But that’s okay, because Nayoung would tell her again, tomorrow.

 

 

——

 

I kinda forgot this was saved in my draft for months...