I know googling “how to tell if someone likes you” at three in the morning on a Monday sounds like a pathetic thing to do, but I am pathetic. I’m not ashamed to admit that—at least to myself—so here I am, crouching over my 2015 Macbook Pro that’s standing on its last legs with some of its keyboard keys no longer even working in Wendy’s living room, trying to absorb the answers google gave me to apply it later in real life situations when Baekhyun is around.

First of all, google doesn’t have a fixed, definite answer. About a dozen of articles show up after I clicked the search button, and from each article, there are about 5-10 points on how to tell if someone likes me. Being the busy twenty-one-year-old university student who doesn’t have the brains to understand what time-managing means, I decide that it would be smart for me write down the common denominators from all of these articles right now when I have a 7a.m class tomorrow. When I have about three papers due before Wednesday, because I’m that desperate.

After sifting through a couple of articles, I pick up my notebook to admire my great summarizing skills—if only I had the same focus and determination I have right now in all my classes. If only.

How to tell if somebody likes you, by yours truly:

1. They like to maintain eye contact.

2. They like to touch you.

3. Their body language leans towards you and mirrors yours.

4. They -block your interaction with other people.

5. They stay in touch with you all the time (e.g: always invite you to things, texts you all the time, etc.)

6. They laugh at your jokes.

7. They go out of their way to do nice things for you, even the small things.

“Wendy!” I find myself yelling, getting up from my crouching position, walking towards Wendy’s bedroom quickly. “Wendy Son!”

Opening the door to her bedroom, I wave around my brown notebook in my hand, pleased to see that she’s already up with a scowl on her face, reaching out to turn on her bedside table lamp. I throw myself onto her bed unceremoniously, shoving my notebook onto her hands. Wendy squints at me.

“So I kind of did a thing where I googled the, um, psychological hints that might tell if someone likes me, and, yeah,” I struggle to find the right words to make me sound less pathetic, but it’s too late anyway because Wendy is already glaring at me. She rubs her eyes harshly before staring at the book with an annoyed gaze, lips pressed into a straight line.

“It’s like, almost four,” Wendy starts, narrowing her eyes to look at her alarm clock sitting on her nightstand, “what are you even doing up? I thought you’d crashed here because you said you wanted a good night’s sleep and you don’t want to be alone with your thoughts tonight.”

“Well, I still couldn’t sleep, so please just read it,” I send her the sweetest smile I can muster.

“I did.” She deadpans, looking at me with a judgmental glare. “Sweetie, we’re not fourteen—my fourteen-year-old little sister doesn’t even google like this anymore. All of the things you wrote here is just common sense.”

“I—”

“Look, we’re not kids anymore. We’re almost adults and we’ve been in relationships—especially you with your serious relationships before. You can tell when someone likes you. I know that Baekhyun’s a special case, because he’s not straightforward with the things he does and what nots, but think about it. Baekhyun is an affectionate person. Don’t you think you would’ve realized by now if he’s interested in you or not?”

I blink. “But—”

“No buts. I’m sorry but I just want to sleep right now, okay? I have a morning class and you do, too, so you should sleep. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about this tomorrow or something.”

**

They like to touch you.

I know Wendy said that only fourteen-year-olds would give a about lists like the one I made this morning—but I can’t help myself. Not when the memory of writing down the stupid list is still fresh on my mind because I wrote it this morning.

Baekhyun puts his arm around my shoulders as he slides into the dining booth next to me, his free hand animatedly moving to support his theories about dinosaurs he’s been discussing for the past ten minutes with Jongdae. The small part of his wrist that ends up being pressed against my shoulder feels heavy and warm.

Sitting across me is Jongdae, Wendy, and Junmyeon—the guy that Wendy went on that Tinder date with last week. We’re having dinner in a newly opened American diner-themed restaurant, and we’d thought it would be cute if we invited Junmyeon to make fun of Wendy because she really seems to like the dude after that first date they had.

“Baekhyun,” I call for him, to test another theory I wrote down on that list on my brown notebook, smiling when he whips his head around to face me.

“Yes?” he answers, eyes looking for mine, brows raised. I wait, not saying anything. “Are you annoyed because Jongdae and I can’t shut up about dinosaurs? Sorry—I swear it’s only because we both stayed up last night watching this Netflix documentary about it.”

They like to maintain eye contact.

Baekhyun holds his gaze as he waits for me to say something, anything, but I just stare at him—partly because I’m holding out to test my theory, but partly also to marvel at how gorgeous he can truly be. My stomach flutters just the slightest bit at the sight of his face.

Wendy clears from across the table, and I snap out of my trance without even realizing that I had been stuck in one where I probably looked like a lovesick puppy staring at their owner.

“I’m just ing with you, Baek. Please do continue talking about your precious dinosaurs, I’m sure Junmyeon oppa would love to hear more of that,” I grin, sending Wendy a knowing look not before wriggling my eyebrows at Junmyeon.

Junmyeon blushes.

“Oh my god, we must’ve bored you to death. I’m sorry,” Baekhyun apologizes, now looking at Junmyeon. I’d be lying if I said I’m not a little disappointed that he’d broken eye contact with me.

Somewhere inside of my mind, I can hear Wendy’s voice nagging at me for being such a jealous brat when it comes to Baekhyun.

“No, it’s fine!” Junmyeon waves his hands exasperatedly, an embarrassed look etched on his face, “I love dinosaurs. Please keep talking about dinosaurs.”

Sehun actually giggles next to me, probably at how hard Junmyeon is trying to get on our good sides solely because we’re Wendy’s friends—we’ve been absolute to him ever since he stepped foot into Jongdae and Sehun’s shared apartment today, even when he’s two years older than us, and I kind of feel bad. Yet very amused at his determination.

“Oh yeah, me too. I’m especially fascinated of how dinosaurs sleep at night. Isn’t it super cool, Junmyeon oppa?” I look at him sweetly. Junmyeon blinks at me owlishly.

“Uh…” he trails, eyes darting unsurely between me and everyone else around him.

“You know, the scientific word for sleeping dinosaurs? I’m pretty sure everybody here knows it,” I press, making him squirm under my gaze. Everyone looks at me with a questioning look, but no one actually dares to question me—because they’re obviously curious and amused at what answer I’ll say to tease Junmyeon.

“Hyung?” Baekhyun picks up on my act, sending Junmyeon a questioning look.

“I—”

“There’s no scientific word for sleeping dinosaurs,” Wendy rolls her eyes, cutting Junmyeon off before he can attempt to answer, “stop being such to my date, guys. I actually like him a lot so please don’t scare him away.”

“But Wendy, there is,” I look at Wendy with a pout, which catches her by surprise. She squints her eyes at me right after, as if daring me to tell her what the scientific word is.

“It’s called dino-snore,” I say blankly. And then I laugh. The whole table goes silent, except for the sound of my own stupid laughter. For a few seconds, I thought I’ve made a fool out of myself for good, but then Baekhyun joins in on my laughter.

Baekhyun’s laughing. Time seems to slow down as I look up to look at Baekhyun’s face. His eyes have disappeared into these tiny crescent moons that I’ll never get sick off, and his square smile somehow still manages to make my heart beat erratically even when I’m in the middle of laughing.

They laugh at your jokes.

Maybe I should add “Perhaps even the stupidest ones.” on my notebook.

***

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