Winter holidays were over and much to Hayoon’s displeasure, she found herself rushing to a 9 am morning lecture on a Monday. Mentally cursing at whoever scheduled the lecture at such an ungodly hour, she yawned loudly, trying to shake off her sleepiness. Late last night she received a call from Soojung whereby the girl gave Hayoon a full update of her Christmas, gushing over Junmyeon and how he was the stuff of dreams.

“I think he’s the one,” exhaled Soojung. “I really do. I hope it works out.”

Humming as sign that she was listening, Hayoon remained silent, her mind reminded of the heartbroken Chanyeol and his declaration of war. It would appear that their third year would end as anything but peaceful.

Recalling the long conversation from the previous night, Hayoon rushed across the courtyard in wide strides — as wide as her short legs allowed that is — when a sudden rich smell of freshly roasted coffee beans swished past her. Spinning around immediately, Hayoon scanned around her in search of the heavenly smell, and eventually zoned into a short man walking away from her, with a large bag of coffee beans swung over his shoulders. Too shy to call out to the stranger (what would she say anyway? Dude with the coffee beans stop?), Hayoon craned her neck trying to take a closer look at the logo on the bag. Straining her eyes, Hayoon barely made out the shape of what appeared to be a stain or coffee splatter with a faint text written across. However she was too far away to read the text. Hayoon pouted in disappointment and resumed her journey towards the dreaded morning lecture.

・・・

Her disappointment did not fade once she was sitting in the lecture hall. Rather, as if enchanted by the mysterious coffee smell, Hayoon kept reliving the moment in her mind, trying to find more details about the logo and text on the coffee bag. However, memorisation was never Hayoon’s forte. Giving up on that task, she proceeded to spend the rest of the lecture surfing the web, typing in ‘coffee’, ‘stain’, ‘roasting’, ‘Seoul’ in an attempt to solve the mystery. She even narrowed down the geographic area to somewhere within walking distance to KNUA, assuming that the coffee beans were from somewhere in the neighbourhood. Even that however did not facilitate the process. She was still looking for a needle in a haystack. Dropping her head onto the desk in front of her, Hayoon let out a sign of resignation only the realise that the professor was wrapping up the lecture and everyone around her was packing up their bags to rush out of the room.

Annoyed that she had completely missed out on the lecture despite being physically present, Hayoon trudged her way to the campus main coffee shop where Chanyeol was waiting for her already. Seeing her approach, the tall male waved at her but stopped once he noticed her low morale.

“You okay?”

Kicking the grass in front of her, Hayoon let out yet another sign.

“I passed by someone holding the most amazing smelling freshly roasted coffee beans but I did not manage to see the name or logo and I just wasted my morning lecture Googling for it aimlessly and now I’m sad because I can’t get the smell of those coffee beans out of my head.”

Chanyeol’s eyes widened as he absorbed the chain of words that Hayoon had spit out all in one monotonous breath.

“Damn Sunshine, didn’t know you had such iron lungs in you.” Baekhyun whistled as he approach them.

Soojung was next to him, arms interlocked with his.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think that Hayoon had met the love of her life but missed her chance to get his name or number.” Soojung chuckled.

“But you don’t get it,” exclaimed Hayoon while grasping her hair. “That coffee could have been exactly that; the love of my life!”

“Okay, I think someone needs a drink,” replied Baekhyun while pushing Hayoon into the coffee shop. “And since it’s still morning and we are not alcoholics, we’ll have to stick with coffee. Nothing like a coffee made by Sehun to drag you back to reality, reminding you of the bitterness of life.”

Snapping her head back towards Baekhyun, Hayoon let out a frown.

“I’d rather drink instant coffee. Also, I swear I see Sehun anywhere but in classes. He’s supposedly in my same degree but I see him outside of lectures more than I see him in lectures. How is he not failing?”

“Yet again you wound me,” the familiar husky voice mused, “I do attend those lectures. Maybe you should pay more attention around you rather than staring at your computer screen. How can you not notice me in my full glory?”

Stunned, Hayoon slowly turned towards the counter, seeing Sehun looking at her with one eyebrow raised. His hands were tying an apron around his waist, meaning that he was just starting his shift. From his comment, it would also mean that he was indeed in the 9 am lecture with her and had witnessed her blatantly ignoring the professor. Embarrassed by the sudden realisation, Hayoon covered her face with her hair.

“We actually got some new beans.” Sehun chuckled. “Apparently we are switching suppliers. Freshly delivered this morning.Try some, it’s on the house.”

“Oh oh, me too, I want a free coffee too!” Soojung and Baekhyun squealed as they pushed Hayoon to the side.

Sehun gave them a long look before shaking his head.

“No ca