A year has already passed and not much had changed. Friends had come and gone. Classmates that you didn't even interact with go on with their lives anyway. College is a place to experiment and explore. There's a bunch of new people to meet. That doesn't mean you'll automatically cut all connection with your friends. But all of you can safely grow in different ways and at different rates together.

Nayeon's entry into a college after she had completed her school education was an important event in her life. A few weeks after she received her acceptance letter from the college she applied to, Belmont University, she jumped for joy. She told everyone who were important to her about the good news. Jeongyeon was elated for her.

But, they were going to different universities. Jeongyeon wanted to study culinary arts and was accepted to several universities that offered the classes she wanted. She was thinking about taking the one in Europe, but seeing that the time zones would be implausible, she decided to take the university that was only a couple of hours away by plane. Of course, Nayeon, only wanting what's best for Jeongyeon, persisted on her going to Europe and that they would always find a way to talk despite their time zones. Jeongyeon shook her head and said that she was still going to become a chef either way and own a restaurant of her own. And if that meant spending more time with Nayeon then so be it. Nayeon couldn't argue with her anymore after that so she just smiled.

Nayeon felt very much excited on the very first day. She found that there was a great difference between school and college life. The world of her high school was narrow and limited. The world of the college was large. Most of the teachers in college lived in the world of ideas and books. They had students of all kinds in college. They discussed the current affairs, art, cinema and sports. Some of them neglected text books but they didn't miss the daily newspaper or the running commentary of a football game going on in some part of the world. Some of them would even engage the teachers in class in a political topic and discussed it fully.

There was a lot of freedom in the collage than in high school. Nayeon was busy from the first period to the last. But in the collage, she attended classes for three or four periods. Even being late for the classes was not punished. She absolutely loved that. Although, she was never late to class before in her life. Jeongyeon could vouch for her on that. If anything, it was her who was the reason Nayeon skipped classes one time.

College life had given a lot of societal awareness; Nayeon surprisingly had also got good grounding in audio engineering. Some time there were strikes in the college. The strikes were engineered by some senior students who were either punished or fined for misbehaviors. They wanted their fines to be remitted but the principal would not accept their demands. So they would force other students to go on a strike and paralyzed teaching work. It looked like Trade Unionism.

Nayeon didn't like that one bit. What she did like was the college life for its freedom, intellectual awakening and its various academic and extracurricular activities. She had already thought that even after completing her education, she would never forget the happy days she spent in the college.

For now, she was unpacking the last of her boxes. Regardless of her already being in the university for a year, she didn't have much of a busy schedule and actually had a lot of free time on her hands for only being a freshmen.

A big difference she had to be aware of was the time structure. She had a science class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10:10–11:00 am. Then, she had a Spanish class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:15–3:00 pm. Her Introduction to Education class on Wednesday evenings from 6:30–9:00 pm. Sometimes on Mondays she'll have three classes, and on Tuesdays she'll have two classes. There will always some courses that were only offered on certain days at certain times, but for the most part, there were a lot of options.

Nayeon was a morning person, that's how she trained herself to be because she wanted to go home and sleep right after. Because she had become a morning person, she wanted to schedule her classes to be done by noon. And she definitely didn't have to be in class for seven hours straight.

One of the most interesting stages in life that gave her an opportunity to explore was the 'college phase.' Life at college is the time when the teenage years end and we all dive deep into the ocean of new beginnings and possibilities. This golden period better equipped her for all the challenges she'll face in life and created a strong foundation of knowledge.

Her experience so far had taught her one fundamental thing – life is unpredictable. It might be good, it might be bad, it might be weird, and it might not interest bet at times, nonetheless, Nayeon still expected anything to happen. Life in high school had prepared her for all of this. It was a perfect blend of joy and hardships. She met different people, she interacted with them, she learned about their cultures and grew as a person. She understood how to talk to different people, how to judge their behavior, thus helping her with important life skills.

She learned to sit through a boring lecture; she trued to cope up with the surprisingly strenuous syllabus, and she had the opportunity to learn from some great research minds. Academia, as they say, never lets you go free. People had tried to motivate her by telling that she needed to study only through her high school years and chill during the college life, but that stick true to Nayeon.

She had just finished throwing away the last of her boxes. A piece of paper was stuck in the inside of the one she was carrying to the dumpster. She picked it up and found out that it wasn't actually paper. It was a Polaroid of a group photo that Jeongyeon took as a selfie of herself, Nayeon, Momo, and Dahyun. They were on a camping trip and stayed in a cottage that her family owned. Nayeon when she saw the picture from the high school of her and jer friends having a good time, she definitely landed up smiling silently. Stuffing the picture into her back pocket, Nayeon made her way back to the dorms.

The door opened and she heard her phone ringing. She had forgotten that she left it on the counter when she went to throw the box. Jogging over, she checked the identity before smiling widely. Jeongyeon's name and picture flashed brightly, wanting to FaceTime. In a panic, Nayeon went to see if her hair and make-up were fine in the mirror. She swiped the screen and Jeongyeon was stirring something in a pot with a wooden spoon.

"Hi, baby." Nayeon waved at her enthusiastically, leaning over the counter after she propped her phone against the column that supported the counter.

She was exhausted from cleaning around her dorm. Her roommate was away and didn't know when she'd be back so Nayeon decided to do all the cleaning for the day instead to save her roommate the trouble. That's how considerate of a roommate she was.

"Wow, what you're cooking looks really good right now."

Nayeon could see a little peek of the pot that Jeongyeon was stirring. It look like some kind of soup.

Continuing to stir cautiously, Jeongyeon gave Nayeon a weirded out grin.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. The only thing that looks good here is you."

At this, Nayeon burst into a fit of laughter, covering . She hadn't gotten used to Jeongyeon's random compliments. And being far away from her made her miss her and crave her company even more. Jeongyeon laughed along with her. Afterwards, she moved out of from to grab a jar of something to sprinkle it into the pot.

It was around 3 here in Tennessee and Nayeon wanted to go grab some brunch since she skipped lunch due to her obsessive cleaning. Jeongyeon actually had the same idea, saying how she wanted them to eat together as if they were on a date. Nayeon adored the idea.

They found out that their time zones wouldn't be that different. It was only an hour apart and they could have all the time in the world talking and FaceTiming whenever they liked.

Kookeu had woken up from Nayeon's ear-splitting chatter. With a sour pinching stare, he trotted over to his owner who was sitting on a chair at the counter, talking to Jeongyeon. Somehow, he wanted to get Nayeon's attention because he was hungry. Using his tiny body, he jumped on the counter on his hind legs, pushing his claws into the side to make a loud scratching noise.

After Nayeon's