Kibum isn’t sure what that feeling in his gut is, but by the end of the reading he can sense a heavy weight he cannot get rid of. It makes him feel uneasy for unknown reason.

After the end of the lecture, the student hurried to the closest library, sat on a random spot and took out his laptop. In only a few clicks he was on the web platform of the course provided by Mr. Kim and, as the latter had said, the first text had already been scanned and was waiting to be read by the students for the next lecture. And so he did. Kibum read it once, twice, three times even. Indeed, that first text was short. One of the shortest he had to deal with in three years of academic readings (halle-freaking-lujah). And also, one of, if not the weirdest ever.

A curse. It was about a curse, related to a homoual relationship? What in the world? The student frowns at the monitor of his computer. But what has he expected anyways, the series talks about two soulmates. Of course, it would be some sappy romance.

“But a homoual relationship as starting point?” he mumbled for himself. What a weird set-up…

Kibum went back and forth between the text and notes, trying to complete everything for Yongjoo. Even if, honestly, he’s sure she wouldn’t need that many details.

At the bottom of the last page of notes, he adds one last comment:

Protagonists of the series:

Kim Jonghyun, successor of King Wiman, cursed one.
Kim Kibum, reason of the curse.

__

The next day, Kibum has only one course in his schedule, which relieves him somehow. The previous day put him on so much stress, running back and forth from a building to another. He hopes he’ll get used to it and be able to follow through without massive problems. In the meantime, he’s getting late for his 10AM coffee with Minho but doesn’t rush himself, the frog can wait for a couple of minutes. He joins him at the cafeteria where the taller waits for him with just one cup.

“Thanks for the coffee” Kibum says, taking the cup from Minho’s hands and drinks some of the warm beverage.

“Yah, you really need to learn to greet people” Minho groaned “And give me back my coffee, thank you very much.”

“Oh, it’s yours?” Kibum asks with a fake surprised expression. “I though you got it for me. I’m disappointed you haven’t thought about your friend.”

Minho gets up from his seat and takes his cup away from the other, telling him to buy himself one. Kibum just shrugs at his friend and sits down, putting his bag on the chair next to him. He observes his long-lasting friend; the usually annoying bubbly and happy Minho is nowhere to be seen.

“Damn you are grumpy today, you won’t even let me share your coffee with me, was it that bad this morning? Where are the others anyways?” Kibum asks.

“Dunno, guess Taemin is oversleeping his again and Yongjoo must have lost herself AGAIN in a makeup store. Just as usual…”

Kibum snorts at Minho’s reply. Typical of these two, he thinks. Although he hasn’t known them for as long as he’s been stuck with the tall man in front of him, both Taemin and Yongjoo became a part of his everyday student life thanks to Minho. Ever since he started his relationship with Taemin, it was normal to have the boyfriend and his best friend joining the duo.

“What about our ol’ man?” Minho ask after sipping some coffee from his cup.

“Who, Jinki?” Kibum takes his phone and unlocks it. “He said he had a job interview at 9 and…” The phone rings in his hand, he opens the notification. A smile appears on his lips while reading the text he received. “And, apparently, it went well. And apparently, we’re eating together for lunch! Tell Taemin and Yongjoo to join us!”

“Bum, are you for real?” Minho arches his eyebrow.

“What? Why?”

The younger sighs while shaking his head. He then silently takes another sip of his coffee. It has turned a bit cold, but never mind. He’ll finish it either way.

“You are aware that he’s into you, right?” Minho decides to finally answer to his friend’s incomprehension. “Like seriously into you and he asked you to meet up!” To which Kibum bursts out laughing and hits the table with his hand.

“Y-yah!” He tries to talk. “What?! Jinki? Into me?” Kibum crouches down in a silent laugh. He holds himself to the table.

Minho rolls his eyes and sips at his coffee, waiting for his friend to finish with his moment. Poor Jinki, he thinks, at least he’s not there to have his heart broken by seeing his feelings being laughed at by the object of his affection. That could turn into such a mess, and the fact that his friend doesn’t take it seriously somehow annoys Minho.

“Nevermind.”

“Aaah, Minho!” Kibum is back on feet and wipes some tears of laughter from his cheek with the palm of his hand. “This one was fun. Dude, Jinki is dating someone!” He announces. “Didn’t you know? And you, !” He shoves his phone with the conversation with Jinki in Minho’s face. “He explicitly asked me to tell you guys about tonight!”

__

That only course is a living bloody hell.

Kibum’s head hurts like never and it hasn’t even been half an hour since the lecture started. Still, the student tries to take notes, but they make no sense. Half of his sheet is filled with random doodles and geometric signs. He wonders how is he going to endure 13 weeks straight like this. He promised to not skip a single lecture unless it was something unavoidable. At least he’s not the only one stuck in boredom. Three rows down in front of him, he spots a girl on some clothing webstore, apparently shopping for a party. A bit closer from him, he spots a dude already booking a flight for good knows where. He tries to identify the destination: is that Macao or Manila? He can’t tell for sure.

After long (just five actually) minutes of battling with himself to not fall asleep, he gives into temptation and lays his head on his papers and closes his eyes for a bit. Fortunately, he’s in the back of the hall; the professor won’t see him. And it’s “just for a few seconds, anyways”. During these few seconds, he doesn’t think of anything, just let’s his mind wander into nothing. His headache dissipates in an instant and a small smile of contentment appears on his lips.

His mobile phone pulls him out of his reverie. It’s a message from Jinki asking whether the others are coming. A second message appears on the screen with the address of the restaurant. Jokbal it is. Taemin is going to be the happiest.

“Okay everyone, 15 minutes break. See you at 13h15” The professor barely finishes his sentence that all students stand up to leave the hall.

__

On Friday afternoon, Yongjoo calls Kibum again. As usual she speaks so fast it’s not understandable. The student walks out of the building with his mobile phone between his ear and shoulder, first week finally over.

“Yongjoo, how many times do I have to tell you? Slow down! I don’t understand a thing of what you’re telling me!” He scolds “Now start again.”

“The notes. From the lecture you went instead of me the other day, remember? You haven’t given them to me. I need them to decide which one I’m going to register in” Yongjoo summarizes.

“Oh.” Kibum stops in his walk. “The one about the Gojoseon-books, right?”

To be honest, he had almost completely forgotten about that course he went earlier in the week. The notes were all reworked and ready to be given to Yongjoo. But, everything was so hectic and unorganized this week that he had just forgotten about so many things already, and the notes were one of them.

“Look, do you need them right now?” He asks, resuming his walk to the bus station.

“Uh, well, it would be cool if I could have them today.” She answers. “But, if not Monday is okay too, I guess.”

“They’re at my place. Give me an hour and I’ll scan them to you, okay?”

“Sure, thanks Bummie!!” She hangs up without giving the chance for the other to say goodbye, but he’s used to it.

One hour later, he indeed opens the door to the students’ residence he lives in. Shoes off, he walks into the silent space and goes for his room. He puts the pink small badge on the reader to unlock the door and heads straight to his bed. He throws himself on it, and sighs in satisfaction. How comfortable the mattress and the pillow are! So comfortable he falls asleep without noticing.

Once again, a series of notification emited from his phone wakes him up from his nap. It’s Taemin, and Jinki in the group chat talking about going out to celebrate the end of the first week because “can you imagine? We survived to it!” Well, yeah there are still twelve left but that doesn’t matter, right? The other text messages are from Yongjoo.

Kibummie?

Hey! My notes! Please I need them!

Have you forgotten?

Yah! Hurry up!

Kibum, are you there?

Yah! Why aren’t you answering?

KIM KIBUM!!!!!!!!!!!!

-typing-

Kibum stops her right away with a “just had a nap, don’t worry I’m sending you the damned notes, god calm down already” and grabs his computer out of his bag and puts it on the desk to connect it to the printer that he . He then grabs the notes he neatly prepared and scans them, page by page, making sure everything is in the right order and visible. The student decides to use his university e-mail address to send the notes. He attaches the file and finds his friend’s e-mail. Before clicking on the send button, he types a small note saying: “you better take that course, I didn’t spend two hours of my life for nothing!”

On the upper left corner, a bold 23 in the inbox section mocks him. Again, various promotional e-mail from different student associations and reminders from professors, he guesses. He’s tempted to ditch this whole thing and just take a shower and get ready for a round of drinks with his friends, but he wants to get rid of the rubbish.

He’s right, it’s all promo e-mails, automatic e-mails reminding his subscriptions to the platform of his courses and some reminders. He selects the e-mails one by one, just to make sure he doesn’t delete by mistake an important one.

Kibum stumbles upon an e-mail notification from a certain Kim Jonghyun. At first, he frowns reading the stranger’s name, but quickly remembers when he reads the object of the e-mail. He subscribed to his platform, right.

Dear students,

I’m sorry for disturbing you all already, but while I was preparing the lecture of next week, I realized that the first text will not be enough for us to get to the heart of the matter. Therefore, I will ask you to read the second text I added on the platform before joining the lecture.

Regarding to the issue with the lecture hall, I was advised to wait until the beginning of October, to see how many of you will register and remain (I hope you all stay, though). Thank you for your understanding.

Have a nice week-end.

KIM J.H.

The student doesn’t know why, he’s doing it. It feels like an automatism; opening a new tab, enter the platform, click on the course’s name, selecting the folder with the texts and finding the new addit