The small flicker of infatuation for Kim Minseok is still somewhere deep inside you, and the possibility of seeing him, if Junmyeon is telling the truth, makes you a little excited. There is a skip in your step as you walk to your locker to retrieve your books, with Junmyeon in tow. He was adamant in showing you that he was telling the truth, and insisted on walking together to your locker and to the café.

He looks confused at your cheery attitude. “Are you that excited to be spending more time with me?”

“Nope,” you reply playfully, deciding to tell him the truth. “I’m excited to be able to see your brother.”

Your answer makes him even more confused. You can imagine the gears turning in his head, wondering if you were just joking or not. It makes you laugh.

He looks like he is mulling over whether to dig deeper into your words as you look through the books in your locker. As you slam the locker shut, he jolts out of his thoughts and nods dumbly when you look at him expectantly.

Unfortunately, your selection of books seems to be a bit too heavy, and it causes you to fumble around with them before you can get the right balance. It must look like you are tripping over your own two feet, because Junmyeon suddenly grabs the books out of your hold.

“Look at you,” he laughs, balancing all the heavy books in his arms like it’s nothing. The both of you start walking out to the school entrance. “You can’t even carry a few books?”

“I just slipped! I can perfectly handle that weight.” You reach for them, but he is much faster. Seeing the teasing look on his face, you can already guess that he is going to say something along the lines of You were doing this on purpose, weren’t you? “And no, I did not do this on purpose for you to carry my books for me or whatever.”

“I didn’t even say anything.”

“You were going to, and that’s all that matters. Besides,” you reach for the books again as he avoids your hands. “I am capable of carrying a few reference books.”

He grins good-naturedly, and you can see how his eyes curve upwards and how his pearly whites show. “C’mon, what type of person do you think I am? I’m capable of carrying your books too.”

“What type of person you are? Well, Kim Junmyeon as the school’s resident gentleman doesn’t really sound right.”

He narrows his eyes at you. “I will carry your books whether you like it or not.”

“I knew chivalry wasn’t dead.”

He makes a show of carrying your books, and even swipes at your bag to swing over his shoulder. Luckily for yourself, you are quick to dodge at his hands. The both of you end up in peals of laughter, making jabs at each other as you walk out of the school compound onto the street. The unusual sight actually garners attention from the students walking past, but the both of you are having too much fun to realise.

Before you know it, Junmyeon stops at a nice-looking café and you can already smell the aroma of coffee and pastries. He grins. “Smells nice, doesn’t it? What do you want to drink?”

“Hmm,” you scan the giant menu printed on the wall as the both of you queue up. “I think I’ll get the special frosted tea.”

He adjusts the books in his arms. “Not a coffee person? I would’ve guessed.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Typical good girl with good grades who don’t like unhealthy things like caffeine.”

You shoot him your best glare. “For the record, even tea contains caffeine. And I don’t dislike coffee because it’s bad for you, I just don’t like the taste.”

He chuckles. “Okay, okay. Why don’t you go save us a table first? This place is going to get packed soon. I’ll order for you.”

You nod, taking your books out of his arms, fumbling a bit in the process. Balancing the heavy books, you set off to find a seat. Junmyeon peers over the customers’ heads to watch you clumsily walk with the books and snorts under his breath.

You manage to find a nice booth, and finally set everything down. Not wanting to waste any time, you fish out one of your modules, together with a few pieces of scrap paper. Your left hand flips the book open to pick up where you left off, while your right hand turns the calculator on.

Suddenly, there is a groan coming from behind you. Junmyeon makes his way to the booth, two drinks with him, as he slides in beside you. “Already doing homework?”

“You should get started on yours too,” you sniff. “Before your brother comes along.”

The tone of your voice lets him know that you don’t believe him in the slightest about meeting Minseok. It was just excuse after excuse, spewing out of his mouth. But then again, he wouldn’t have brought you all the way here…

Junmyeon rolls his eyes. “You’ll see for yourself.”

You take a sip of your drink and it actually tastes really good. “How much was the tea? I’ll pay you back.”

“There’s no need for that,” he waves a hand airily. “I can treat you to a few dollars.”

“Ah, it’s alright, I can pay for myself,” you quickly dig into your bag for your purse.

Before you can even get the purse out, he gets his Maths homework out of his bag. You gape at him. He gets his pencil case and calculator out too, and with a sip of his drink, he declares himself ready to learn.

“You can pay me back by tutoring me.”

Shaking your head, you admit defeat. It is a rare enough sight to see Junmyeon willingly accept a tutoring session, so you take advantage of it before it’s gone.

“Okay, where do you want to start? Which part are you unsure of?” you ask, flipping through your own book.

“Start from the beginning.”

He hadn’t been listening since the start of the term? You don’t want to discourage him by reacting negatively, so you turn to the very first chapter of the book and turn to him with the brightest smile you can muster.

“Okay, so basically, this is all about graphs. Here, let’s look at this example…”

You explain to him slowly and steadily, like how you usually tutor your juniors. However, the juniors who come to you for help are those struggling with understanding the topic. Junmyeon, on the other hand, seems to grasp the concepts fairly quickly, like he didn’t need a tutor at all.

As he does some practise tests, you take your time to stare at him for a moment. Why doesn’t he put his skills to good use and actually listen in class? With a brain like his, he could achieve far better than his usual results.

“If you wanted a picture, you should’ve just asked,” he remarks, a lazy smile hanging off his lips. You didn’t realise that he already finished all of the questions.

You groan. “I just spaced out, I wasn’t staring at you.”

“Okay,” he shrugs and leans back like how he always does in class. “Whatever makes you happy.”

You check over his answers, choosing to ignore his last statement. Much to your surprise, he manages to score four out of five, with the last one being a careless mistake with the negative sign.

“Not bad at all,” you say, pushing the book back to him. “Honestly, if you just listened in class, we wouldn’t have to-”

He cuts you off. “I’ve heard that lecture from Miss Jung already. I don’t need to hear it from you. Can we take a break now? We’ve been doing this for ages.”

You take a look at your watch. “It’s literally been twenty minutes. Speaking of which, where is your brother?”

“Hmm, he must be really busy.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. Before he can say anything in return, your gaze shifts to someone behind him. It looks like Junmyeon was telling the truth, because right before you, is Kim Minseok in the flesh.

Junmyeon follows your gaze, and his lips split into a smile. “Hyung!”

“Hey Junmyeon,” he grins, ruffling his hair a little before turning to you. “And hello… Jaera, right?”

Your eyes widen and you hope you don’t look very red. “Y-yes. It’s very nice to see you, Minseok sunbae! I didn’t know that you knew me.”

He laughs, and it almost makes you swoon. “We see each other every year at the academic award ceremony and we were both in the editorial board at one point. It would be ridiculous