Joohyun really, really wished that boys would stop walking up to her on campus while she’s trying to read.

        After shooing away the fourth newcomer of the week from the table she’s settled at, Joohyun pushes her black wire framed glasses back up the bridge of her nose and huffs to herself in quiet exasperation.

        All she wanted to do that afternoon was get a little bit ahead of her reading for her English course. The college junior was tucked away in one of the Student Union’s quieter levels, but it looked like the universe had held different plans.

        Shifting further into the sinking cushions of her chair, Joohyun returns to the page of her novel she had left off at. As her eyes flit over the words printed across the page, she reaches for her paper Starbucks to-go cup resting on the small, circular table in front of her.

        Carefully, she takes a tiny sip of the still piping hot beverage, reveling in the warmth radiating through her fingers through the flimsy material. This particular winter was bitter, sending every college student on SM University’s campus scrambling to come up with long forgotten pairs of gloves and beanies stowed away in the depths of their closets.

        The dragging footfalls of the latest young man Joohyun had sent away were still echoing within the large structure. He had been one of the more persistent of the few Joohyun’s encountered so far. It wasn’t that he did anything to frighten her, however.

        Rather, the young man merely kept on babbling on about how fate seemed to be bringing both of them together. He talked so much that that Joohyun could hardly get a word in herself in order to stop the conversation from going any further.

        When she found her voice to interrupt him, his once jovial face transformed into one of complete seriousness. Luckily, the young man hadn’t exploded into some sort of rage filled fit after she’d politely declined his offer to exchange numbers to go out that upcoming Friday.

        He did, however, get slightly bitter, saying that the entire encounter was merely a joke and that he’d never consider going out with the likes of someone like Joohyun. Joohyun smiled up at him, thanking him with enough sarcasm laced in her voice to make even the most oblivious understand that she didn’t give a care in the world what he thought about her.

        Though Joohyun did her best to not allow it to bother her how offended these young men always seemed to be that she wasn’t interested, Joohyun soon became too worked up to think about anything else. Hastily, the college student shut her book and settled it atop her lap, slowly nursing her coffee while zoning out.

        How in the world these boys got it into their heads that somehow they were more interesting than the book she was currently immersed in, Joohyun couldn’t seem to understand. Seconds before the young man playfully snatched her book from in between her hands and delivered his opening line, there had been imaginary bullets soaring over her head and bombshells erupting around her.

        But now, rather than standing in the midst of a fictional battlefield, Joohyun was back in reality’s embrace. Who on earth was raised to think it was perfectly acceptable to disrupt a stranger in that manner? Rather than bursting out laughing, as she assumed the young man had hoped she would, she merely stared him down until he passed her book back to her.

        Frustrating. Refusing to think about her latest encounter any further, Joohyun tuned out her thoughts. She listen