Despite how hard she tried to concentrate, Nari’s eyes kept drifting towards the door, eager for class to end so that she could satiate the hungry gremlin inhabiting inside her stomach. She had pulled an all-nighter and ended up waking up late. As a result she did not have time to have breakfast and now, after four hours of consecutive classes, Nari could feel any residue of strength seeping out of her body, leaving an empty shell of bones and flesh behind.

“That’s it for today.”

The professor’s voice resonated throughout the lecture hall and the words acted as a spring that catapulted Nari out of her seat. Ungraciously staggering out of the classroom, Nari shuffled along the corridors and glanced out the window to observe the students outside in the courtyard. Her eyes instinctively zoned in on a familiar bob of hair mingling amongst the sea of students.

From the third floor of the art department, Nari had somehow managed to inadvertently locate Taeyong who was walking through the courtyard and towards the art department. Nari contemplated opening the window and call out to him, however the girl knew how much Taeyong disliked attracting unnecessary attention — which was rather ironic when taking into consideration who his closest friends were. Mentally visualising the distance between them, Nari concluded that if she hurried down the stairs, she would run into Taeyong at the entrance of the building.

Swirling around, Nari came to a halt when she realised that her path had been blocked by a looming shadow. Lifting her head, she came face to face with a familiar pair of smiling eyes. Arching an eyebrow, Nari’s eyes trailed down the nose, lips, neck and finally landed on the hands that was holding onto a box of pizza.

“Lunch?” Johnny grinned, shaking the box of food in front of Nari’s face so that the rich aroma would waft into her nose, tantalising her.

her lips, Nari instinctively looked out the window again in search of Taeyong only to find him engaged in a casual conversation with some people she was not familiar with. Seeing him chuckling and integrating so well with those people, the corners of Nari’s lips curled into a subtle proud smile.

As if sensing someone’s gaze on him, Taeyong raised his head in the general direction where Nari stood. There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes as his pupils drifted left and right, though ultimately he showed no outwards signs of having seen Nari standing there with Johnny behind her. Instead, Taeyong allowed his classmates to pull him away towards some newly