August 2018

 

“...Jin.”

 

I thought I heard someone calling my name but I just muffled them out. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder.

 

“Heejin.”

 

And then there was a gentle nudge.

 

“Heejin!” my friend Hyunjin whispered right next to my ear. And when I didn’t respond, I felt a shove right at my head, which was enough to wake me up.

 

“What?” I said, disoriented from just having woken up from a nap. I looked to the front to see the teacher’s desk still empty, and I frowned. “The prof’s not even here yet.”

 

“I know, but she will be,” Hyunjin replied with a look at her watch. “The class will start in around five minutes,” she said as she frantically rummaged through her backpack, procuring a notebook and three different pens, each a different color. 

 

“Relax,” I said, resting my cheek on my palm, ready to doze off again. “I don’t even know why you thought it was a good idea to come to class twenty minutes early.” I eyed her desk before leaning in to , “What are you gonna take notes of? The syllabus?”

 

“How are you so calm? It’s the first day of college.”

 

“Which means the prof’s only gonna talk about the syllabus.” 

 

“Still, we’re in college now! I don’t know what to expect. We’re miles away from home and it’s a completely new set of people.”

 

“We’re all college kids. All students here with the same goal of graduating, so I don’t think it’ll be much different,” I sighed, already completely awake at that point. No use in trying to nap again.

 

Hyunjin kept looking at the door every time it opened, only to reveal another freshman nervously picking their seat. We made sure to sit next to each other, just in case the professor decided to make the seating arrangement permanent immediately.

 

“But the teacher— professors! What if the subjects are so much harder?”

 

“We managed to survive senior high. I’m sure we can survive this, too.”

 

“You’re hopeless,” she said as she opened her notebook to the first page, busying herself and writing the date on the top right.

 

I shrugged. And just when I thought I could fish out my phone to do some mindless scrolling, she paused with realization.

 

“What about the… you know.”

 

“The what?”

 

“The… The boys, Heejin,” she whispered. The confusion on my face was probably showing, so she sighed before continuing, “There’s guys here. Guys our age!”

 

“And so?”

 

“What do you mean, ‘So?’ Did we spend eleven years in the same all-girls school or not?”

 

“What’s so weird about that?” I said, rolling my eyes at her. She looked around warily, then leaned into my ear.

 

“What if they’re gross and messy? I bet they’re super loud. Oh, God. What if they hit on us?”

 

“But you’re not that pretty, Hyunjin.”

 

“Well, I’d never met any guys my age before! But you,” she said with a scoff, resting her chin in her hand. “Ugh. You have that friend, Jaemin.”

 

And the mention of Jaemin rang something in my brain. Jaemin was going to the same university as us.

 

“A lot of our friends also had guy friends. I don’t know why you always refuse to interact with boys,” I said. Except I did, and that was because it was all women in Hyunjin’s family: she had a sister and a mother.

 

“I just don’t know how to talk to them, okay?” she mumbled. “Speaking of Jaemin, is he in this class, too?”

 

Oh, right.

 

Jaemin actually messaged me a week before, when we first got our schedules. We sent each other our timetables, hoping we’d finally be classmates, but we weren’t, not even for one single class. My heart sank after finding out I wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with him as I’d liked.

 

“Nah, he’s in the afternoon section,” I sighed. “He did say we could get lunch, though. Wanna come with?”

 

To that, Hyunjin looked deep in thought. Back in high school, I’d tried to get the three of us to hang out, but Hyunjin always found a reason to get out of it. Over time, I’d simply accepted that Hyunjin and boys just didn’t go together. Venus and Mars, oil and water, whatever, so the answer I got was a shock.

 

“Um, sure.”

 

“Oh,” I said, speechless. I got even more excited to see Jaemin after this. “That’s… that’s great. You’ll love him.”

 

The class went by quickly, and it was amazing how Hyunjin had managed to actually take notes for syllabus day. I watched her tidy her things before I followed suit, and as soon as I finished Jaemin had already found his way to the room to pick me up. 

 

“Jinnie!” he called out.

 

I smiled when I saw him, because it was quite an experience seeing him within the same campus. I was so used to meeting him anywhere but in school, and it was so strange, that my heart started beating in excitement at the sight of him. Meanwhile, Hyunjin stole uneasy glances at him before picking up her bag.

 

We went out of the building, and she stopped in her tracks when she saw another guy coming up to meet Jaemin and me halfway. She took the spot beside me, away from the two boys.

 

“Forgot to tell you. Jeno is in the same class as me,” Jaemin explained.

 

“Heejin, long time no see,” the guy, Jeno, said as we did a little fist bump.

 

“Jeno, how did you manage to end up here?” I teased. He shrugged as a reply, before I realized, “I totally forgot, Hyunjin, you haven’t met Jeno yet, have you?”

 

Before Jeno could reply, Jaemin, talkative as ever, joined in on the conversation.

 

“She hasn’t officially met me either. Hi, I’m Jaemin and this is Jeno,” he said with a thumb pointing at said guy. “He’s a friend of mine.”

 

“Hey, nice meeting you, Hyunjin,” Jeno turned to her. “How come we’ve never met? I hung out a lot with Jaemin and Heejin.”

 

Hyunjin was shocked at the sudden attention towards her, overwhelmed at her first ever encounter with guys, and she couldn’t form any words. I was about to step in and speak for her, but Jaemin beat me to it.

 

“She just lives a bit farther away, so that’s why she couldn’t hang out with us after school,” he said. Then he looked over to Hyunjin with a friendly smile, like he always did when meeting new people. “Right?”

 

She replied with grateful nod at Jaemin.

 

And in that moment, I knew this was the beginning of our friendship.