chapter 17
the psychology of good students“Jooyoung,” Kyungsoo’s voice rings through her phone. He’s been calling a lot recently. And also keeping his promise about being more assertive in denying any romantic relationship with Krystal — she’s accidentally seen him do so a few times, and perhaps Krystal’s also not blown up the situation further, because the number of students talking about it have decreased tremendously (at least no one obnoxiously talks about it in her classes anymore). Or maybe it’s just because all gossip dies down eventually, even if it is juicy because it’s about well-known people. Anyway, she’s glad it has, so it doesn’t really matter how.
“Why are you calling me again?” Jooyoung groans teasingly into the phone. Hearing his voice while comfortably tucked underneath her blanket is really soothing.
"You're free now, right?" He asks. It’s a Saturday and as usual she has weekend readings to do before the next week's lessons but she isn’t planning to do them until Sunday night. It’s not like she does anything on most Saturdays except laze around.
"Uh, if you count lying on my bed playing SimCity free, then yes.” She was having loads of fun making the Sim of Do Kyungsoo go through a series of ordeals, for example sleeping on the bench and eating five plates of eggs in a row... all until the real Do Kyungsoo called.
The sound of keys dropping on the floor, then of jingling, then of opening a door can be heard, and she can very nearly predict what he’s going to say next. "Good. Come out of your room. I'm taking you to lunch,” he says.
He sounds so noble, but she knows better. So she sighs. "I don't have money today, Do Kyungsoo. I can't treat you."
"Who says you're treating me?" He sounds amused.
"You're such a scrooge I have to treat you every time anyway,” Jooyoung deadpans.
"But today I wanna treat you instead."
She shoots up. “Really?” This would mark the momentous second meal ever that Do Kyungsoo is going to treat her (the first was the pie in London). But she remembers he doesn’t know that she’s forgiven him already. So she leans back against the bed frame. “No. I’m still mad.”
Kyungsoo is silent for a while. For a second Jooyoung doesn’t know what is happening — has he hung up? But then with just the right amount of heart in his tone to make it sound so hopelessly sad, he asks, “Still?”
It sends an immediate wave of guilt to her heart, and she decides to stop fooling around. “Okay, honestly, not really,” she admits bashfully.
“I knew it,” Kyungsoo cheeks, his voice suddenly rid of any sadness whatsoever. “See you.”
“Where are we going?”
“Myeongdong okay?” He confirms.
“Let’s go.”
And they do, unintentionally wearing matching faculty shirts. Jooyoung scolds him for that because now they look like a cheesy pair, but inside, really, she’s all shy and gooey.
They’ve merely reached the area when Jooyoung spots a photo-booth, the kind where you can decorate the photo and make your eyes look bigger and your skin clearer.
“There,” she directs, pointing at the booth. Kyungsoo scrunches up his nose and shakes his head. She drops her hand down and rolls her eyes.
“Don’t tell me you don’t want to only because it’s a waste of money,” she says flatly.
He nods, like it’s supposed to be obvious to everyone. Sometimes Kyungsoo seems to forget he’s not the only person living in this world, or that most other people living aren’t nearly as miserly as he is.
“I’ll pay, okay?” She tries to convince exasperatedly. “I just want a photo to put in my wallet.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything then, and lets her drag him to the small booth. When they’re inside he is awkward and tries to escape at first, but when she slots the money in he reluctantly starts to get serious.
In the first photo he merely smiles his usual photo smile, the kind without his teeth. Jooyoung shouts at him to try something different, because without a reminder he would probably stand as straight as a statue, his face identical, in every shot.
So as the countdown for the next photo starts he panics and slings his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. She’s shocked by the sudden pull so it turns out ugly anyway, with his look of panic at the time limit and her look of surprise at his sudden action.
His arm remains on her waist for the next photo. But he smiles — and this time Jooyoung is the one looking bad and shocked, still unable to get her mind off the close contact. She’s looking directly at his face, feeling stupid for not being able to move, but at the same time, how is she supposed to function when they’re literally pressed up against each other?
“Hey, you just ruined a shot,” he laughs, and turns to look at Jooyoung. But then something about how Kyungsoo’s holding her, something about how close their noses are, something about the look in their eyes, that lock their gaze in place, and the both of them can’t recover in time for the next photos. There’s a breezy silence as they explore each other’s features.
The last two shots are exactly the same — Kyungsoo and Jooyoung staring at each other with the most transfixed gaze ever.
“There isn’t a single nice shot,” Jooyoung complains when they start to choose the photo they want to decorate and print. She’s embarrassed at how she looks in all of them, especially the ones where she’s staring at Kyungsoo. Honestly she feels dumb at how she looks so absolutely lovesick in all of them.
“I disagree,” Kyungsoo says, taking the stylus. ”This one’s nice.” With a single click he chooses the last one — the one where they have their eyes locked.
“Kyungsoo!” She exclaims in shock. That photo is the worst — that one looks slightly like a cheesy romance movie poster (the kind she would look at and avoid). But now there’s no way to choose again. Kyungsoo’s already beginning to decorate the photo, even.
“What,” he asks absently, his attention on writing the both of their names using a glowing pen effect. When he’s done he looks at his piece of art with a satisfied look on his face. Then he passes the stylus to Jooyoung.
“You do it,” he offers.
“I’m going to turn this into a masterpiece.” She places a border around their photo, then adds a few other things, before stepping back and giving the stylus back to Kyungsoo.
“Add some stickers,” he says, then goes to the stickers section himself. He picks out some hearts before putting them all over the photo, including one between their two names. Jooyoung doesn’t want to say it out loud, but now she’s quite liking how this photo is turning out. It looks like they’re on a typical couple date, which brings funny flowers blooming in her heart. And besides, the heart between their names now makes it look like it writes “Kyungsoo loves Jooyoung”, which is pretty cute.
The photos come out nice. Jooyoung happily slots hers into the visible pocket in her wallet, and Kyungsoo holds his in his hand, looking lost.
“Where are you going to put it?” She asks, bouncing along beside him. He shrugs, his head down to look at the photo. Then he starts to dig for his phone, and removes its case. He places the photo behind the phone, and then replaces the clear cover. Now their photo is visible to everyone, almost like a new phone case.
“You’re really putting it there? Really?” She asks, unable to contain her happiness. Somehow this is so cute she wants to pocket this memory forever. A couple-esque photo of the both of them on the back of Kyungsoo’s phone!
“Didn’t we get it so we can display it,” he mumbles, then heads straight to a roadside stall without looking back at Jooyoung. He fumbles to put his phone into his pocket, and stops right in front of the stall, which is selling socks at a discounted price. She tags after him, biting back her own smile.
Kyungsoo picks up a pair of boring black socks tagged at 30 percent off. He takes two pairs, but before he can give them to the shop assistant to pay for them Jooyoung pulls his hand back.
“You have thousands of this pair already!” She chides. Kyungsoo has a standard ensemble every day, and black socks form part of his look. It honestly doesn’t look that bad (nothing can compare to khakis) but she finds the need to get him to at least wear something different from the day before, and the day before.
Noting his hesitance, the shop assistant points to a special sale section a little further from where they are standing. “There’s socks of other designs at two for the price of one there,” she recommends, and just like a magnet Kyungsoo is drawn to the display in an instant. Of course he would never be able to resist great deals as such.
Jooyoung trails after him and picks out a pair of socks with small cherries on it, pointing it out to him. “How about these ones?” She jokes, knowing well enough that he would never buy such a pair.
But frankly they’re one of the few pairs with the best designs which are applicable for the discount already, and Kyungsoo seriously considers them. He takes the socks from her and picks up a pair of socks with small watermelons on it as well, and deliberates for a while.
“You’re seriously going to get these?” Jooyoung asks in a half-whisper. The socks are cute and all, but definitely not something she would ever imagine him wearing.
“They’re so cheap,” he says in wonder. Then he s both pairs at her. “Which is nicer?”
She points at the one with the cherries. He nods and goes to pay for both of the socks anyway, and she is puzzled. But then when he comes back he takes out the pair with the cherries from the bag and passes it to Jooyoung.
“For you,” he says, almost shyly. His hand grips on the socks as if he is hesitant about this. “Now we have matching socks.”
She feels a smile creep up her face. This day has been crazy so far. This doesn’t feel like two friends coming out to shop together. The socks don’t seem like friendship socks. And the way he’s looking bashful isn’t an expression a friend would show another after buying a gift.
“You are quite cute,” she admits brazenly, not knowing what had come over her. He bows his head to hide his expression and she swears she can see a tinge of pink on his cheeks. It makes her heart swell.
“Thank you, Do Kyungsoo.”
Later on he brings her to the cinema, claiming that it is the main reason why he dragged her out in the first place — to catch the new Pixar animated film together. She pays for both their tickets and they settle into the cinema hall early, and have to watch the pre-show ads.
“You’re finishing all the popcorn already,” Kyungsoo scolds, taking a handful from the bucket in Jooyoung’s hands.
She playfully moves the bucket away from him. “I paid for it. I can choose if I want to share it with you.”
He continues eating the popcorn in his hand, ignoring her. Then he reaches over to grab more but Jooyoung decides to play around with him some more.
“No,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him and hugging the bucket in her arms.
“Yes,” he laughs, reaching over some more. But she doesn’t budge, so he sits back in his seat and crosses his arms. “Fine. What do I have to do to get more?”
She pretends to mull over it. She figures it’ll be fun to see his reaction if she asks him to pay, so she decides to do just that. But for some reason her heart takes over her head this time, without warning.
“Kiss me,” she blurts.
The air is filled with a sudden tension, and it’s stifling and almost awkward. It’s way too dark in the cinema, and their seats are way too close. She hears Kyungsoo gulp.
“No!” She exclaims a little too loudly, her face flaming. “No! I mean, just, I... um, that was a mistake.” She is so embarrassed. What is wrong with her?
“So you don’t want me to kiss you?” He asks suddenly, leaning over slightly.
“No! I mean I do! Wait, no. Yes?” She sputters, her brain a mess. She shrinks into her seat, deciding not to speak anymore. The more she speaks the worse the situation would get. She closes her eyes and passes the entire bucket of popcorn to Kyungsoo, not wanting to continue this.
The weight of the bucket is taken from her soon enough, and she brings her arms back to her body. And then she feels soft lips tentatively pressing against her cheek. The world around her stops.
He removes them a moment later, and then goes to eat his popcorn like nothing happened. The ads, the sound of people moving into their seats, the crunch of popcorn beside her all becomes background noise. Now she can hear only the beat of her heart gone insane.
His lips are so soft. The more she thinks, the more she doesn’t open her eyes, the more her heart goes into overdrive. So she forces herself to open her eyes and look directly at Kyungsoo, forsaking her poor heart.
“A-Are you crazy?” She asks, the words leaving involuntarily. She hits him lightly on the shoulder, and he looks stunned.
“What? You asked me to!” He claims, wronged, but then his expression changes completely and he laughs. “Did I kiss the wrong place? Where did you want your kiss?”
She feels a blush filling her cheeks again. “Stop joking around.” She smacks him one more time on the arm. He merely laughs and pops a piece of popcorn in his mouth, before feeding her one as well.
Kyungsoo disappears to the toilet after the movie, and when he returns he’s holding a bag in his hands. He passes the bag to Jooyoung casually, and she peeks inside it to reveal a shirt featuring the main character of the Pixar movie they had just watched.
“It was on sale. A really good deal,” he says as an explanation, although no one asked for it.
“Aw! How much was it? Do I have to pay you back?” Jooyoung pulls out the shirt out. She doesn’t really pay attention to his answer (if any, even) because she’s burst out laughing. The shirt is a kid’s shirt — way too small for her or even her youngest cousin. Which leaves just a shirt which can’t be worn by anyone she knows.
“Why are you laughing?” Kyungsoo looks confused at her amusement, and she’s confused (and thoroughly amused) at his motive. Why would he buy a kid’s shirt just because it is on sale, even if it’s of the character of the movie they’d just watched? And now is he really being confused at why she’s laughing?
Jooyoung holds the shirt against her upper body. It covers about a little more than a third of its area. “I can totally wear this, man,” she says sarcastically, still recovering from her laughing fit.
She sees Kyungsoo getting slightly flustered, but he laughs it off as usual. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, folding his arms. “It’s a little small, though.”
“A little?” Jooyoung exclaims. Now she holds it in front of her to scrutinise it. It’s really cute, and besides you’ll never see Jooyoung giving up on anything relating to an animated movie, but this shirt is so tiny it’s funny. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s just a little small for me,” she nods in mock agreement.
“Shhh,” Kyungsoo shushes this time. She can tell he’s getting a little more flustered now and it’s entertaining watching him work himself into a small flurry. Jooyoung places the shirt back in her bag and pledges to admire it when she reaches her dorm — not here, because they are out in the open and if she thinks about the shirt until she can’t hold back wanting to kiss him anymore, it’s going to be bad. So she needs to be alone.
“It’s not too small,” he insists, almost desperately, like he is trying to make his gift work. It’s rare that Kyungsoo gets out of his calm demeanour, and especially so, since it’s just because of something trivial like the size of a shirt. He’s the sort of person who would buy an ugly patterned shirt just because it was on discount, and not care about what others think of him when he wears it.
“The design is cute, though,” Jooyoung laughs, deciding she has had enough of teasing an especially nice Kyungsoo today — buying her lunch, socks and now even a shirt. A few months ago she would never have imagined Kyungsoo doing something remotely similar to what he had done today.
But he doesn’t satisfy easily. She thinks it should be quite obvious when she starts to scuttle away that she doesn’t want to keep talking about the teeny shirt anymore, but he just paces alongside her, rattling away.
“Have you watched those DIY videos on YouTube? They have bags out of these shirts! And some even do other cool stuff with them.”
Jooyoung holds the bag in her hand and doesn’t say anything back. Instead she just laughs to herself, continues walking, and decides in her head she’s not going to cut up the shirt ever to make a bag — she’s going to keep them in their original state, just because.
The next time Jooyoung goes out to do her assignment in a cafe, she sees Krystal with one of her minions, and the first thing she notices when she sits down is their matching stilettos. She scoffs and begins to take her materials out of her bag, deciding not to bother too much about them anymore.
But then she can’t help but look, still. And she realises Krystal looks drained — her eyes have lost their shine, and there is no hint of her usual bubbly smile on her face. She looks deadpanned, but not in a joking manner, and her friend reaches to grab her hand from across the table.
Jooyoung guesses it’s because she either stayed up too late last night partying, or she was playing netball at the court again. Either way, it doesn’t really matter to Jooyoung, so she plugs in her earphones and crouches such that her computer screen is all she can see.
It’s not the time to think about her. It’s never the time.
Jooyoung is so tired, but she can’t give up now. The danger of a failed test scares her still.
Her third cup of coffee of the evening is propped in a convenient location on her desk in her room. She has a mock test tomorrow for one of her classes which she has procrastinated studying for, so as usual she’s burning the midnight oil to complete it. As usual, she feels herself falling asleep, and cursing at herself for procrastinating. And as usual, she knows she can’t do anything about it except study now.
Everything is the same about the situation she’s put herself in. Except this time, she has another sleeping figure, whose head takes up half her table, beside her.
She desperately needs that space to put her textbook on, but she looks at how soundly he (Do Kyungsoo, obviously) is sleeping and decides not to disturb him, because, you know, she's considerate. Instead she folds her knees up and leans the book against her thighs to use it as a temporary table.
Half the time she’s falling asleep, and half the time she’s super concentrated on reading, and annotating, and re-reading, just to get as much information in her head as possible. So she doesn’t notice when Kyungsoo stirs and gets up slowly.
“What time is it,” he asks groggily. He stretches his neck, which seems to have cramped up from the uncomfortable position he was sleeping in.
Jooyoung distractedly s his phone at him, not looking up from her work. “Check it yourself.”
Kyungsoo does, and flops back onto the table. He doesn’t sleep, though, and from the corner of her eye Jooyoung can see him fiddling with his phone. She doesn’t pay much heed to him until he gets into a position which suspiciously looks like he’s taking a photo of her. Then she has to stare straight at him to ascertain what he’s doing.
His phone follows her as she moves and she’s sure he’s taking either photos or a video of her. Which is extremely strange.
“What are you doing?” She asks more like a scolding than a question, covering her face with the textbook. But Kyungsoo gently pushes it down, and apparently he’s strong, because she can’t overpower him to bring it up again.
“Hi,” he abruptly says as if he’s doing a long-distance call. He aims the camera at her, and she avoids any direct eye contact with it. Jooyoung covers the camera lens with her palm and continues writing with the other.
"Hey, stop it."
Kyungsoo dodges her hand and poises the phone right in front of her again, ignoring her request to stop. "This is Han Jooyoung," he narrates. "Jooyoung, say hi."
"Screw off," she says instead, refusing to look at the camera. She puts down her pen and covers her face with both her hands.
“What are you doing, Jooyoung?” He asks, as if he’s filming a documentary — which, if he was, it’ll probably be a animal-themed one of a lion, not only because of her crazy hair but also because of how she’s prepared to shout at him for being all weird on her when she’s studying.
“What do you think I’m doing?” She rolls her eyes and uncovers her face to lift her textbook to the camera. He laughs and dodges the textbook again, making sure the focus of the video is on her.
She groans, this time looking above the phone at Kyungsoo. She’s given up on covering her face since she’s getting tired of this anyway, and besides, covering her face won’t help much if every two seconds it gets uncovered by Kyungsoo. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Why else? You look pretty,” he answers nonchalantly. Then he smiles looking at his screen, which has captured the entire shocked look on Jooyoung’s face and her reddening ears. She hopes it doesn’t get too obvious on camera.
But is he kidding her? Firstly, so casually? She doesn’t understand how he does things like this all the time like it is natural — the entirety of his life happenings just seems to come naturally like this. And secondly, now? When her eyes are droopy and her hair a violent tornado and her face generally groggy and gross? Pretty?
She buries herself back into her books, now too self-conscious of the phone's camera on her. Jooyoung tries not to think about You look pretty, but it doesn’t really work. But it does give her the energy (that coffee didn’t manage to give) to continue studying. “Just don’t post this anywhere,” she mumbles when she finds her voice.
“For my eyes, and my eyes only,” Kyungsoo promises.
a/n: aaaaa you don't know how excited i was to post this chapter :'''''D
I OWED SO MANY OF YOU REPLIES i’m so sorry!! just replied to everyone i hadn’t replied to aaa but i hope everyone’s having a great 2019 so far! i think it’ll take a while before my next story because of circumstances.... but i promise i’ll be back :”)
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