The incidents of the night had been brushed away as drunken affection. Minah had had such experiences with some of the drunk entrants to her apartment building. While these were mostly female, Minah realized how little physical affection she had been exposed to growing up and that she didn’t know how to react to such situations except to gape into space till her brain switched back from the buzz of white noise to some semblance of normalcy.

Minah’s brain was thrown back to momentary confusion when Taekwoon approached her in class. Haneul looked equally confused when she heard Taekwoon’s soft voice calling Minah’s name and Minah’s entire frame going frigid.

“You dropped your student id in my car.” he said, handing her the small plastic card while Haneul shot her a look. While Minah had briefed her about the happenings from the weekend (and Haneul had successfully strangled Hongbin for abandoning Minah) she wasn’t entirely sure of what to make of the weird atmosphere between the two.  

“Oh, uh. Thanks!” Minah replied, feeling some of the stares of her classmates. Something about what Taekwoon had said back on Saturday had deeply unsettled her. Kang was being an absolute prick to Taekwoon for no particular reason except for the fact that she thought him incapable. She reached out to take the card from him beforet taking a deep breath “why don’t you sit here?” she asked, pointing to the empty seat beside her causing several eyebrows to shoot up. Taekwoon regarded her silently before slipping into the seat and opening his laptop.

“Email id?” Minah whispered as Professor Kang made her entry. She eyed Taekwoon’s new position in the second row with suspicion before turning to set up the system. He quickly whispered his email id to Minah whose fingers quickly flew over the keyboard of her laptop. Taekwoon’s email notification alerted him of the arrival of a new email which he tried to hush by initially waving frantically at his laptop and then hitting the mute button.

He clicked open the notification to see Minah’s name on the screen with “Myths and Folklore Notes - Invitation to Edit” written on it. Taekwoon turned to briefly look at Minah who was looking straight ahead at Kang. He clicked open the Doc to see bulleted notes for all the readings, simplified and occasionally humourous. The chat window opened on the doc.

“Today we’re talking about Frazer’s theory of Myth Ritual. Don’t get too daunted, the general premise is that people had certain traditions (magical rituals) which they used to explain nature, this evolved into myths to justify the ritual. He goes on to say that  myth then evolves into religion which is then refuted by science which is the evolution of the same.”

“Got it.” Taekwoon typed back “Thanks ^_^.”

Minah held back a giggle. Jung Taekwoon used cute emojis.

“So Taekwoon, what do you understand of what Frazer has to say? ” Kang’s voice was directed at Taekwoon whose eyes widened momentarily before he took a deep breath eyes fixing themselves on the screen in front of him. The little bar flashed next to the words that appeared with Minah’s fingers gliding over the keyboard.

“You’ve got this.”

“Well, he said that myths were used to explain rituals and justify them which in general was in relation to nature. But I was wondering if this could be applicable in a situation not based on this ‘natural law’ he speaks of? Like, what about rituals not based in nature?” Taekwoon processed and thought out loud. Minah could feel a swell of pride surge through her chest.

Kang gaped at the silver-haired man  for a few seconds before recovering and clearing “uh, yes, we’ll be covering that in this class.”

Taekwoon glanced at Minah who was beaming. All of the sudden, going to Kang’s class didn’t feel so terrible. He looked back at the screen which was quickly filling up with notes. The little message on the chat made him smile. He was going to be okay.

---

“I am not okay, what is this paper?!” he groaned as Minah hissed at him to be silent in the library.  He had taken to sitting in her vicinity to ensure that he wasn’t entirely screwing up his papers. He waved the reading over his head, leaning closer to her “can you please tell me who this Melonpiss is and why his name is that?”

“I can’t help you with this one! We all had to choose different topics!” Minah groaned “plus we have a general body meeting in like half an hour for the fest, so get as much of it done as possible.  Use JSTOR and Google Scholar and put in the bits you DO understand. Kang may be a , but she appreciates effort.” while Taekwoon depended on her to make sense of the readings, she was happy to see that he was an attentive listener and grasped concepts quickly. Given the right push, he could easily tackle one of the readings on his own. She smiled softly to herself, Taekwoon may have been labelled a jock, but he didn’t really fit the trope. He was redefining the term for her.

Taekwoon grunted before turning back to his laptop. This was the second time he had to skip gym in his whole course at the university to finish a paper and both times it was for Kang’s course. With the college fest coming up, there was no way he could keep up with the no gym, no sports regime. Plus with his new position as head of soccer for the fest, he’d have to sit down and make calls to other university representatives to invite them for the fest. He looked at Minah from the corner of his eye, there was no way she was the type to take part in the fest, it involved sports and cultural events neither of which Taekwoon had seen her take part in. But since she had mentioned the general body meeting, maybe she was taking part in some weird event.

He casually switched between tabs to watch the livestream of a regional soccer match. , he had to go for the basketball team practices as well. He sighed.

“Taekwoon,” he heard Minah’s voice calling and he turned to see her still busily typing away “get away from the soccer tab and finish the paper. You have a weird look in your eye.”

It was funny how they had picked up on each other’s odd habits from just sitting close to each other. Taekwoon found it strange that a few months back, he had no idea who this person was. Minah was decidedly not someone of major consequence so to speak. Not a lot of people knew her except for members of the music club or people who shared courses with her. She was definitely not a part of the crowd he usually hung around with, but he quite enjoyed her company.

Taekwoon blinked, quickly switching tabs, trying to ignore the giggle that left her lips. Minah checked her phone and sighed, stretching out before shutting her laptop and getting up. Haneul and Wonshik joined her from the mezzanine floor with the isolated cubicles with grins on their kiss swollen lips. Clearly movie date night had gone of pretty well. Taekwoon shook his head, shutting his own device down and heading out of the library.

The general body meeting, from all of Taekwoon’s experience was always chaotic as hell. Having so many people crammed in a single room was bound to make it noisy. Sober Taekwoon did not like noisy in any shape or form. He cringed when he entered the hot room, grinning when he saw Joonmyeon and Himchan standing up front. Hakyeon was handling all cultural events and Doojun was handling the sports events. Joonmyeon was the chairman of the fest. Doojun bumped into Taekwoon’s side with a giant grin.

“Yo you er, are you ready to trash our rivals this year?”

“Of course.” Taekwoon rolled his eyes as Doojun thumped his back. Joonmyeon blew into the microphone for silence. Taekwoon busied himself with his mobile phone, checking the score for the matches he had been watching before. Minhyuk, who had just appeared, peered into the screen and grunted approvingly.

“Great match man.”

“Yea-”

“Could I please have the head of soccer here! We need the rest of the soccer department to join him!” Joonmyeon called out, causing Taekwoon to hastily shove his phone into his pocket and saunter forwards.

“Each team will be assigned a person from the registrations team who will assist you in your calls to teams outside the uni. Once you’ve noted down the people on your team, head over to Sooyeon who’ll tell you the person who you’ve been assigned.” Hakyeon instructed as Taekwoon blankly stared at the group of admiring eyes that had surrounded him. Pulling his phone out, he grunted to them to give him their names and email ids. The whole process took him about twenty minutes before he told them to disperse and headed over to Sooyeon who was known to be a tough nut on the campus (other than being Lee Jaehwan’s girlfriend). With her strong communication skills, there was no wonder she was heading the registrations department since they would be the point of contact for most of the incoming players and participants.

“Uh, Sooyeon,” he called for her attention as she spun around to look at him “registrations incharge for soccer?”

“Oh! Hold on!” she said, scrolling through her phone “I’ve assigned you Kim Minah, since you have a giant team to help and you have experience, I thought it would be best I assign her. She’ll have enough time to juggle between heading the creative writing event and doing registrations for soccer as well.”

“Sooyeon, so I might go missing from the registrations tent every now and then, I just got selected for the tennis team. Also which department did you pair me with?” Minah piped up from behind Taekwoon.

“That’s fine,” Sooyeon called to Minah before turning back to Taekwoon “Taekwoon, this is the registrations member I’ve assigned you with. Since we already have a database for phone calls and emails, you can start making them as soon as possible. Minah, you’re helping the soccer team out since they need the least manpower.”

“Oh?” Minah turned to Taekwoon and he shrugged.

“Help me with the paper while you help me make calls?”

“ right off.” she grumbled as he grinned.

“I’ll get the team together to make calls on Thursday.”

“Sure, I have tennis practice for an hour from 5. So does 6:30 sound okay?” Minah asked in a business-like tone. Taekwoon looked at her for a moment. He had never really thought about Minah actually playing a sport, let alone tennis. But something about it fit.

“Uh, yeah.” he replied.

“Alright then, I have to talk to my team, so I’ll see you.” she replied, hurrying to the two people standing and waiting for instructions from her. Taekwoon’s gaze followed her before being distracted by Minhyuk asking him for a treat for being made the head of soccer. Shoving him with a grin he asked him to “go eat at the cafeteria.”

---

Acoustic night was surprisingly a success. Minah smiled to herself as the crowd of college students dispersed slowly leaving behind the dewy lawn with mattresses and bedsheets Minah had borrowed from the staff for this very purpose. Wonshik and Jaehwan were helping return all the sound and light equipment to the facilities manager. Haneul had carried away the fairylights they had had installed for the evening and now Minah was left smiling at the empty lawn, deeply satisfied with her work. The evening was chilly and she had to get to picking up the sheets to return them. Even though there were clouds in the sky, you could see stars and the moon shone on the damp grass. She sighed, leaning down to pick up a colourful sheet, probably from the lost and found donated graciously to her by the facilities staff. She shook it to get the grass off before folding it. It was a slow monotonous process, but she got done with half the sheets before wondering where the the rest of her team was.

“Why didn’t you sing?” a soft voice caused her to jump and nearly drop the folded sheets in her hands. She spun to spot Taekwoon now picking up a sheet hidden somewhere far in the corner before looking up to meet her eyes “you sing, I saw you sing at the freshers talent night, why don’t you sing anymore?”

Minah sighed, dropping a bunch of sheets in a stack “stage fright. Besides, there are way better singers than me, it’s better promoting them.” she hurried over the large expanse of the lawn to find another sheet thrown haphazardly.

“I’m surprised you have stage fright,” Taekwoon said, dumping a set of sheet on the stack Minah had created “I thought you sounded good on talent night.”

“You don’t even remember talent night.” Minah laughed slumping down heavily on the last open sheet beside the pile of sheets, exhausted by all running back and forth. Taekwoon dropped the last sheet on her head making her exclaim as he took a seat beside her.

“You sang a song in both Korean and English, I thought it was pretty impressive.”

“So you do remember,” Minah sighed, face colouring at the memory of her having so many audio issues and spending most of the week beating herself up for sounding terrible “how come you came for acoustic night, thought you had practice.”

“Yeah,” Taekwoon sighed, leaning back “ I did, we broke early so we could come for acoustic night. I hit the gym in the morning since Wonshik said he might need my help with the sound systems in the evening.”

“Thanks,” Minah smiled at the stars, exhaustion getting stronger as she groaned out “last favour, do you mind if I lean against you? I’m so ing exhausted.”  

Taekwoon turned and Minah gaped at his back “rest your back against mine, it’s more comfortable.” Taekwoon said, looking at the sky, hearing her exhale heavily before feeling the warmth of her back resting against his. The crickets were loud as the moonlight shone on the two of them. “So, stage fright.” Taekwoon began making her chuckle, a pleasant sensation rumbling against his back. He decided he quite liked her laugh.

“Long story.”

"I have all night.” he replied picking at the frayed end of the bedsheet.

“Till curfew.” she corrected, twirling the damp grass between her fingers.

“Till curfew.”

---

Minah glared at Taekwoon as he tried to avoid her gaze. It was 7:30 on Thursday and not one member of his twenty member team had turned up to make phone calls.  Now here they were with a giant database to make calls from and little to no help to do it.

“You have a ty team.” she grumbled, spinning the tiny mobile phone which had been bought for the very purpose of these calls. They had made about forty calls in the last hour and while a few were hits, many were misses. What made it even worse was that both of them hated making phone calls.

“I know, I know. I'll buy you dinner to make it up to you.” Taekwoon offered as she shook her head.

“There's really nothing to make up. I don’t mind.” she shrugged, slumping forward onto her laptop. Taekwoon shook his head before reaching across the table to pat the top of her head.

“Coffee?”

"You spoke the magic words.” her voice was muffled, making him laugh.

“So I can treat you to coffee?” he asked, making Minah look up.

“Oh I thought you were going to be gallant and use your energy to run and get me some coffee,” she chuckled “that sounds great. You can buy me a coffee for every paper of yours I’ve had to go through.”

“They weren’t so many!” he whined, amusing her no end as she stood up.

“Alright alright, I’ll pay for my coffee.”

“That’s not what I meant!” he grumbled, standing up and following her out of the library. Spring was nearly upon campus and the weather was fine. Minah wasn’t entirely sure as to what to make of Taekwoon’s behaviour. This was definitely not expected, especially when she could feel all the eyes on them as they walked across the campus and entered the cafe.

“Yo Taekwoon…” Minhyuk, who had been lounging in the cafe began greeting Taekwoon but paused at Minah’s appearance before raising his eyebrow at Taekwoon.

“Minhyuk, you didn’t turn up for registration calls. We were stuck calling dimwits.” Taekwoon threw a sugar sachet at him, ignoring the look as Minhyuk’s suspicion subsided and he smirked at Minah. “What will you have?” Taekwoon called to Minah as Minhyuk furiously typed away at his mobile phone, Minah peeled her eyes away from the suspicious behaviour.

“Just an espresso.” she mumbled making Taekwoon narrow his eyes.

“Are you really ordering the cheapest drink here because I’m paying?”

“I’m ordering it because I happen to like espressos,” Minah laughed as Taekwoon ordered a latte “unlike weak people who need copious amounts of milk in their coffee.”

“Shut up, this is probably why you’re so short. You don’t drink enough milk.”

“No Taekwoon, this is called genetics.” Minah rolled her eyes, taking the coffee from him before heading to a seat to settle in. Taekwoon knocked Minhyuk on the head before taking the seat beside Minah.

“How many calls left?”

“About forty, after we go through the first round of calls and then some more registrations, you’ll have to make the second round of calls.”

“.” Taekwoon groaned, considered the fact that his team would not show up.

“Yeah, that. Plus I have to make my own calls for the Writing event, so I’m hoping your team turns up, or I’m going to ask to be reassigned.” she shot him a wicked grin.

“You know I will trouble you in class right? I’ll talk to Sooyeon so you can’t be reassigned,” Taekwoon retorted, taking a deep sip of his coffee before turning to Minhyuk “you heard her, the team needs to assemble tomorrow for calls. No excuses. If people don’t turn up, they’re off the team.” he instructed, taking his phone out and typing out a message on the group. He looked at Minah who gazed out of the window, the heat of the espresso fogged her glasses momentarily.

“Ye ye, we’ll be there.” Minhyuk grinned at Taekwoon who grinned back.

“You’d better be.” he paused turning to Minah “wait, do we have a reading for Kang’s class tomorrow?”

“No, we don’t. Which is why I agreed to making calls today.” she looked at her phone and cursed “, I need to head for my meeting. Thanks for this Taekwoon, I’ll see you tomorrow?”  she said, downing her coffee and scalding her tongue in the process.

“Wait, I don’t have your number!” he called her back and she frowned.

“You wanted my number?”

“Yeah, it’s easier to just arrange meetings and stuff. Plus I was told to add the registrations rep to the football team group.” he explained, and Minah nodded holding her hand out for his phone and punching in her digits before calling herself and hanging up.

“There you go, see you around.” she smiled, hurrying out.

Taekwoon grinned at his phone as he leaned back in his seat.

Taekwoon chuckled when the first message came “I swear if you call me in the middle of the night to help you out with Kang’s papers, I will not answer and I will leave you to die in her class..”

“Animal memes?”

“I’m always game for animals and memes.”

Minhyuk did not miss the looks, and couldn’t help but wonder why Taekwoon and Minah seemed closer than people just working together for the fest.  

Which was one of the reasons why Minah was a little confused at the curious stares of the rest of the team when she arrived to make calls. All twenty of the members seemed to be analysing her from top to bottom, making her incredibly uncomfortable as she settled down and pulled her laptop out. She looked around to search for Taekwoon who was missing and she sighed. She missed having him around her, a thought which surprised her.

“Right, so I’ve shared the database with you. We need to make calls to the last forty on the list. Those who confirm get highlighted in green, those who don’t in red, and those who are not sure in yellow. If there are people whose names have previously been highlighted in yellow, call them back and re-check. I’ll draft the email you’ll need to send out from your committee to those who have confirmed. So please divide yourselves accordingly.”

There was a silence between the group as they stared at her like she was speaking in a foreign language. Some showed a sense of defiance making Minah sigh and rolled her eyes before getting to her work. She paused when an all too familiar scent hovered behind her, placing a small cup beside her laptop. Minah could feel her cheeks involuntarily heat up and hoped to god that it wasn’t very apparent.

“Espresso.I’m assuming you’re coming from practice.” he said nonchalantly looking over the rest of the group. Minah was hyper aware of how everyone was looking at Taekwoon giving her a cup of coffee “are you guys not working?” he asked the rest who seemed to snap back to reality and quickly get down to making calls.

“Taekwoon,” Doojun began, hovering close to Taekwoon, before exchanging a look with Minhyuk “remember that chick from the party at Jaehyun’s place? Been hounding me for your number after that night.”

“It’s odd when you say hounding. Either way, I’m currently not interested in anything.” Taekwoon replied, looking over the database on one of the laptops.

“What, has Kang’s course killed your libido? Don’t tell me you’re turning into one of them” Doojun pointed his thumb at Minah while gaping at Taekwoon, horrified. Taekwoon frowned.

“If by that you mean that he’s getting academically inclined, then that is definitely the case. Taekwoon is turning into an all-rounder, intelligent on and off the field.” Minah replied, eyes still fixed on the screen as she put the finishing touches on her email.

“I really didn’t ask you…” Doojun began as Taekwoon glared at him, gripping his arm.

“Enough Doojun.”

“See, instead of surreptitiously pointing and assessing whether I’m worthy of being around your captain, you could just tell me to my face that you’d rather have him satisfying his libido with anyone who would have him than simply spending time with me to get through his course. Sorry I don’t meet your beauty standards, unfortunately for you I’m not a dimwit who misses your gorilla signals. Give him a break, let him make decisions about his friends on his own.I think he’s ing smart enough to do that.” Minah stood up, a little shorter than Doojun as she glared at him and Taekwoon could see Doojun physically shrink as he stepped away from her.

“Minah,” Taekwoon began as she turned to him, slightly red in the face.

“Sorry, I’m just sick of people acting like the only thing you live for is sports and . I’m sure there’s more substance to you than that. Anyway, those were my two cents, I’ve shared the doc with the email with you. If you need me to send them out, I can do that as well.”  

“ing hell she’s scary.” Minhyuk mumbled as Taekwoon placated Minah and sat down beside her to go through the email.

“Is it odd that I find it a wee bit attractive?” Jaemin, a first year student seated beside him asked.

“It just means you’re ed in the head. Taekwoon needs more...enticement, he’ll nail some chick who comes in during or after the fest, you’ll see. He won't last long on this friendship bull. Especially when it looks like that and is boring as hell.”

---

“Taekwoon, you need to focus. We need to get these presentations done and you need to do your damn part.” Haneul grumbled glared at Minah who sheepishly smiled. Kang’s classes always involved one group presentation and Taekwoon had begged Minah and Haneul to team up with him so he wouldn’t royally be screwed.

Except when they actually got down to working, he seemed terribly distracted, causing a great deal of aggravation for his teammates.

“Sorry, I woke up late and missed breakfast and now the whole day is messed up for me.” he grumbled, truly trying to look back at the points he had come for a comparative analysis of Persian and Greek myths. Minah let out a snort, momentarily distracting him again.

“I’ll wake you up in time for breakfast since your soccer team practices are going on till late night. But you really need to focus right now. Your main task is to summarize and smile. Kang likes your pretty face now that you’re speaking up in class. We’ll use it to our advantage.”

“Are you objectifying me?” Taekwoon narrowed his eyes.

“Yes, for a reasonable group grade. Which you will share. Plus take the compliment, I’m calling you attractive.” Minah smiled so brightly at him that he was momentarily stumped.  He sighed turning back to the screen, his stomach rumbling as he scanned the document shared between the three of them. He couldn’t wait for this course to end, but he wasn’t so sure when Minah grinned at him, nudging him as she placed a meme about Zeus in the powerpoint presentation.

The two joined their chairs when they switched to his laptop (clearly the superior one) to finalize the presentation details. She leaned her head against his shoulder comfortably so Haneul could peer at the screen from behind.

“Shift the picture to the left.” Haneul nodded as Taekwoon dutifully moved the image destroying the layout in the process.

“ this.” he grumbled as Minah chuckled and he could feel the movement against him. He tried once again succeeding after several tries. Minah cheered, shifting to stand.

“Finally, I have two shifts at the registrations desk today. I thought I’d never make it.”  she said, patting Haneul’s back, looking at Taekwoon. Joonmyeon had come up with the idea of the college holding a concert to draw attention to the university as a means of promoting the college fest. Which meant that there would be a registration desk and the team needed to man it. Sooyeon had broken up the concert hours into shifts so the team could get work done while enjoying the concert as well. Joonmyeon and Hakyeon had gotten a popular indie group to play for a reasonable price and tickets were being circulated around the city as well as within the campus.

“Oh yeah, , I was going to go check out the food stalls too. Heard that Myun managed to get that gourmet pizza dude.” Taekwoon remembered absently as Haneul nodded.

“My shift is first, then I’m going to hit the food stalls. Need to get my face in place. ” she said, stretching as she stood up and headed out of the library.

“I guess we’re mostly done here, I’m going to head to the desk and see if they need any help there. I’ll see you around then?” Minah patted Taekwoon’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I’ll hit the gym, take a shower and head for the concert. Text me when it begins, or if you need pizza during your shift. When do you get done though?” he replied, yawning and shutting his own laptop.  Minah smiled, ruffling his hair.

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that, I should be done at around 8 or 8:15.” she smiled, waiting for Taekwoon to pack his stuff up to leave. They parted at the entrance of the library as Minah hurried to the concert location. There wasn’t very much to be done, posters needed to be put up and the team was given a general briefing of what they needed to be selling to the visitors. She ended up being trapped there for the first shift, her loose t-shirt and jeans and haggard face attracting zero registrations.

Minah hurried back to the room noting the open windows of the gym on the way. Minah’s eyes quickly took in the vision of  Taekwoon lifting weights, mind focused entirely on his posture, his muscular arms flexing making her go slightly dry.

Minah realized she was gaping and shook her head and hurried back to the room. On entering, she took a deep breath and sat down on her bed, picking up her phone to take a look at the time. Maybe she could conduct a social experiment, a simple one with very known results. She grinned, standing up whilst stripping her shirt off and stepping into the bathroom.

Minah stood at the registrations desk with a smile, she’d gotten eight registrations so far and she had to marvel at the magic of a little red lipstick and a tight black t-shirt. But she could feel herself getting increasingly uncomfortable when one particular man got increasingly persistent.

“You never told me there was a b-boying event! Why didn’t you tell me?” he rambled on, it was his second time by the desk and Minah was now simply getting creeped out.

“It’ll all on the brochure, I couldn’t explain all forty events to you.” she explained “but if you sign up on the sign up sheet there, you’ll be emailed all the details.”

“Why don’t you give me your number?” he smirked as Minah cringed, but tried to keep a smile on.

“I could give you the registrations number, if you wish.”

“Is that yours?”

“Excuse me,” Taekwoon seemed to loom over the man as he nudged past him, meeting Minah’s eyes to check if she’s alright “ Minah it’s 8:30, let’s get some pizza.” as Minah sighed in relief as she a registrations card into the man’s hands before hurrying to Taekwoon. He squinted at her in the dim light, pausing as he tried to process the image.

“You’re wearing makeup,” Taekwoon said, brushing a stray strand off her forehead making Minah freeze for a second “it’s nice.”

“Y-Yeah?” she stuttered as Taekwoon nodded.

“Yeah, looks nice.”

“Pizza?” she asked quickly trying to divert the topic as Taekwoon nodded.

“Yeah, sounds good. Wanna stay through the rest of the concert?” he asked, placing a hand on the small of her back to lead her away from the crowd and  towards the concert area.

“Mhmm, but not to late. Need to wake you up for breakfast.” she grinned as Taekwoon grinned back at her.

---

Minah discovered that Taekwoon sounded bloody cute when he was half awake, slurring as he picked up her call, mumbling something incoherently. She had to prevent herself from melting to his pleas to let him sleep just a little longer. It was odd to hear someone who had always been an image of macho masculinity be so...adorably whiny. She steeled herself, breathing out.

“Taekwoon, breakfast.”

“Hmmmm.” he mumbled into the phone. Minah could feel the strong urge to coo bubble up .

“Up, now.”

“I’ll see you in ten.” he whined, audibly rolling off the bed and falling with a loud ‘oof’.

“I made coffee for you, come before it gets cold.” she chuckled into the device as he mumbled something about blessing and ending the call. Soon enough Minah saw him dragging his feet into the dining hall, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. For someone who had just woken up, Minah had to admit he looked quite nice (to say the least). He smiled when he spotted her, momentarily causing her brain to shut, picking up a full set breakfast before joining her.

“Hey.” she said, pushing him a mug of coffee whilst chewing on her toast “basketball practice yesterday?”

“Soccer and basketball. Need to hit the gym today too.” Taekwoon replied, taking a sip of his coffee as a comfortable silence took over the largely empty space. Taekwoon gazed at Minah thoughtfully before shedding his hoodie, he had expected the morning to be cooler, but it was warm and sunny. The sunlight seemed to catch the high points of her face just right, falling like drops of light on her eyelashes as she absently looked out of the large window of the dining hall. Probably thinking of how long her day was, or whether her spot in the library had been taken by someone else (probably not, it was too early in the semester). There was something oddly riveting about the view that it baffled Taekwoon. It was odd how the two of them, so different in terms of social circles had become oddly close.

Minah eyed Taekwoon, trying very hard not to think of how attractive she found him. This was definitely not what she was expecting, Taekwoon was a distant dream and finding him attractive was only the beginning of painful trouble because there was no way mutual attraction was even possible. She looked back out of the window, trying to think of something that would get the thoughts out of her mind.

Chewing thoughtfully, he opened his mouth to address something he had been wanting to talk to Minah about for quite a while now. There was something about her presence which made him feel like he could tell her this oddly personal fact.

“Minah,” he had her attention, making her meet his gaze, a warm sensation filling his chest “I have an odd question.”

“Yeah?” she asked, sitting straight, indicating that she was listening and taking him seriously, something that Taekwoon found rather comforting.

“Is it… odd that I’ve never really been attracted to anyone? Does that make me weird?”

Minah frowned, pursing her lips. This wasn’t really something she expected him to say, but she was glad he trusted her enough to tell her about it.

“No… I don’t think it’s odd.” she said, still frowning. With Taekwoon’s reputation of having a strong libido, this wasn’t really what she was expecting him to ask her.

“I mean...I’ve never really thought of relationships beyond...you know, . There’s never been emotions involved to the extent that I want to be with someone...this whole crush thing just goes over my head and you know, people just think it’s weird.” he trailed off, trying to collect his thoughts, pausing breifly when Minah placed her hand on his.

“There’s absolutely nothing weird about it. There’s nothing weird about you. Some people just go on in life not being attracted to other people and that’s okay. Life’s not a checklist where you tick these kinds of stuff off. If it’s meant to happen, it will. You have your family and friends who are all great relationships to have if you ask me. Your emotional needs have been fulfilled. Plus you have me, which is pretty awesome in itself.” she grinned, trying to lighten the situation.

“How do you know when you’re attracted to someone?” Taekwoon asked, making Minah’s eye narrow, deep in thought.

“I suppose it's different for everyone...for me...they make me really happy and I feel safe around them, and I just want to be with them, spend time with them. I think they’re adorable with all their quirks and oddities. Occasionally I do want to kiss them.” she chuckled “but, as my mum said, you’ll just know when you find them.”

Taekwoon found himself smiling at her, Minah was endearing. It was always a sense of ease and comfort. He enjoyed that about their dynamic. He loved spending time with Minah, she often knew the right thing to say at the right times. Taekwoon reached across to poke her nose with a soft smile and Minah found herself melting.

Yet Minah found herself crying into her pillow that night. She couldn’t like Taekwoon. It was out of the question. Taekwoon was a good sweet man, but with his reputation and his confession of his inability to find someone attractive, it would only lead to heartbreak.