Seungwan yawned as she walked into the lecture hall. It was pretty standard as a college student to be tired but because she was a college student, she thought it’d be a good idea to knock out everything that needed moonlight on the same night so it wouldn’t interfere with homework. She’d found a nice clearing off campus to lay out spell components that needed to be imbued and mix up potions that similarly needed to be done by moonlight. She hadn’t found her way to bed until 5 in the morning only to be woken up three hours later for her 9 am psych lecture.

That was why she had an extra-large iced coffee in hand, a baseball cap pulled low over her bare face to hide deep undereye circles, and her eye on a seat at the far end of a row. Unfortunately, this meant she had to push past people already sitting to get to her coveted seat.

“Excuse me, excuse me...” She did her best to push through the narrow gap between the seats and the row in front of them. But partway down the row, her tiredness betrayed her, and she tripped right into someone’s legs.

The lid of her coffee popped off. Half the contents inside sloshed out of the cup. Seungwan herself ended up sprawled on the stranger’s chair’s little attached desk, only just managing to not swipe the notebook onto the coffee covered floor... or the coffee covered lap of the owner of said notebook.

Seungwan sprung uptight with a start, almost dumping the remaining coffee in her cup on herself. “Oh my god I’m so sorry. How can I help? Your poor skirt—“

She reached out a hand— to do what, she wasn’t certain— but she found herself with an arm across her waist pushing her back into the chair beside her coffee typhoon victim. When the back of her legs hit the seat, Seungwan sat down automatically, too stunned to do otherwise.

“Can I help? Can I get some towels for you?” she tried, grimacing at the large coffee puddle.

“Just stay put,” said the girl. She stood up, and Seungwan’s eyes followed to catch the face of the girl she’d drenched with caffeine.

The worried frown on her face disappeared, her jaw dropping open.

Even only catching her side profile, the girl was breathtakingly beautiful. Her dark hair framed a soft rose-colored cheek that made Seungwan’s fingers itch to touch. Her dark eyes gleamed even with the low light of the auditorium. Seungwan found she couldn’t pull her gaze away until the girl has passed by altogether. Even then, she found herself frozen for a moment as she processed what had just happened. Between the lack of sleep, the coffee disaster, and the appearance of a literal goddess, Seungwan’s brain felt like a washing machine in a spin cycle.

The girl returned with her hands full of paper towels. While waiting, Seungwan had spaced out, gaze floating out to the front of the room. She shook her head, trying to stand as the girl leaned over to take care of the spill.

“Please let me help! It’s my fault—“

The girl held up a hand before Seungwan could get to her feet. “I can handle it.”

“But—“

The girl shook her head. Seungwan watched the girl’s gaze go to her hand which made Seungwan realize she still was holding the other half of her coffee, now lidless.

“You look like you should’ve stayed home today.”

With the flat tone, Seungwan couldn’t tell if it was intended as an insult or sympathy. “I... uh.... Yeah, probably. Sorry.” She decided that the best course of action was to sip at her coffee and hope the remaining caffeine would make her more of a person.

She tried one more time when the girl stood with the sodden paper towels, floor as clean as it would get without a mop. “Can I at least toss those for you?” She only got a blank stare before the girl squeezed past her again. The girl said nothing when she returned, even as Seungwan squeaked out another ‘sorry’, so she gave up and tried to focus on the lecture.

In some ways, it was lucky that she was so exhausted. She hadn’t taken the opportunity to move to the far seat, too stunned by the sequence of events, and so she was still sitting next to the singularly gorgeous girl. Normally she’d be struggling to not let her eyes drift to the side despite her embarrassment, trying to fight away a blush because she was useless like that. But today, she was more concerned with not falling asleep. At the end of class, she skittered out without looking back, deciding that she deserved to skip the rest of her classes after the morning she’d had. 

“Please accept my apology!”

Two days later, Seungwan held out a small shopping bag to the girl whose skirt she’d ruined. She had spent the day after the disastrous psych class fretting once she’d had the energy to do so. The most reasonable thing to do would be to buy the girl a coffee, but that seemed like a bad move when apologizing for dumping a coffee on her. A far less smart idea, and the one Seungwan decided on, was to run around the mall all afternoon and pick up a skirt that looked similar. Even as she headed to campus, she questioned her own sanity— why would the girl want a new skirt? But she had committed to the decision, going so far as to wash the new skirt and tuck a charm in the pocket for luck.

“What’s this?” the girl asked with a frown, taking the bag tentatively.

“I felt so bad about the whole coffee thing and I wanted to try and make up for it somehow.”

“Oh, on Monday...”

Seungwan nodded, watching as the girl slowly opened the bag and pulled out its contents.

“A skirt?”

“Yeah, to replace the one I made a mess of.” The expression on the girl’s face was still impassive, which made her nervous. “I mean, I wasn’t sure what else would be a good apology. I just... it’s okay if you don’t like it. Or think it’s weird…”

The girl held up the skirt, seeming to inspect it closely. Seungwan couldn’t tell what she was looking for. Eventually she set the skirt down on her lap, digging into the pocket and pulling out the holey stone Seungwan had placed there. She held the stone out in an open palm, frowning at it.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a good luck charm,” Seungwan explained with a nervous chuckle. She chanced taking the stone from the girl’s hand, being careful not to make skin contact. Holding the stone up between them, she ran her finger around the inside of the water carved stone. “When a stone gets a hole like this carved through it naturally, it can help ward off bad influences. Folklore also says if you look through the hole, you can see through faerie glamour.” She held it up to her eye as demonstration. Regardless of the stone viewing port, the girl’s beauty remained just as enchanting.

With a shrug and another awkward laugh, she dropped the stone back into the girl’s palm. “It’s kinda silly, but I have a habit of putting charms in gifts. I like the idea of passing on well wishes.”

The girl still didn’t comment, and Seungwan sensed she had rambled on too long to try and explain the oddity. However, the girl wrapped her hand around the stone before dropping it back into the skirt’s pocket. She folded it up and tucked it back into the plastic bag before putting it away in her backpac