As I enter our dorm, I hear sounds coming from inside the living room. As the sound got clearer, I realized the noise was coming from the television.

Good timing. I miss having company.

I quickly walked towards the living room and only see one person chilling and watching television in there. She was lying on her side on the sofa and she’s covered by a blanket. She looked like a rock to be honest and it seemed like she hasn’t moved from that position for weeks. I walk closer and smile when I see who it is.

“You’ll get bed sores if you stay in that position for too long, Mina unnie.”

She looked up and was obviously flustered by my greeting. She stood up and sat down hurriedly not really looking me in the eye. I found that strange since she’s usually really collected. I decided to sit on the one person couch adjacent to where Mina unnie was seated. I looked at her and she’s just watching television, is she not going to say hi or something?

Is she usually this quiet?

I look at my hand and realize that I had brought bread. I looked at her and decided to give her some.

“Here you go. I picked it up on the way here.” I tossed her the bag containing the bread gently. I subtly smile at her. She gives me a side glance and then she smiles, subtly too. As if she didn’t want me to see her smile. 

She’s not very good at being subtle.

“Why are you sitting so far away?” She looked at me, of course, I’m staring back at her. “Come sit here, beside me.” She pats the spot next to her. I nod and plop right next to her. She looks at me and then she smiles, a warm smile. It’s as if she’s telling me she’s glad to have company.

“How come you’re home early unnie?” I look at her. She just looks at me blankly. “I mean, usually you’re not here at this hour.” I try to save our conversation. She suddenly smiles, it’s nice seeing her smile like that. I think it looks refreshing of her. 

“Are you keeping track of my time?” She says teasingly. My eyes widen, I mean her response was quite amusing and unnecessary. I just smile at her, trying to be polite. 

“Eh? It’s not like that!” I protest, my tone slightly becoming higher for every word that comes out of my mouth. 

“Why? Don’t you like it when I’m here?” She teasingly says as she opens the bag of bread that I bought. She looks at me and pops a bread roll in , I assume she’s waiting for an answer. 

“Eh? I mean …” I trail off as I try to figure out what to say. I mean, I like it when I have company. Who doesn’t like a little company from time to time? What type of question is she asking? What is she trying to do? Questions started filling my head.

She suddenly smiles and ruffles my hair gently, her hand slowly sliding from the top of my head to my cheeks. She then does something unexpected, she pinches my cheeks. All I could do was stare at her, as I feel my cheeks started to feel a little hot. I feel like I’ve been choked, figuratively I mean. Is she even real?

“Goodness, I’m just messing with you.” She takes her hand back. She then turns her attention back to the television. “I don’t have class today. Since the faculty is having some type of meeting. Our professor did not have a substitute.” Mina says without looking at me.

I look at her. Isn’t this a coincidence?

“That’s funny because I didn't have my class today due to the same reason!” I blurt out.

“That’s because I also go to Seoul National University, Chaeng.” She stares at me. I look at her, I was obviously confused. How does she know which University I go to?

“Did I ever tell you I go to Seoul National University unnie?” I look at her. I never remembered telling her where I study. I wait for her to answer. She looked a little shaken when I ask her how she knew which University I attend.

“That’s because…” She trails off, she gave me the side-eye. “You know, Minatozaki Sana.” She then nods her head as if trying to agree with what’s coming out of . 

“What?” I ask her since she’s not making any sense. She’s completely talking in phrases. “Use your words, Unnie.” I nudge her gently and teasingly, I see form a small smile but it quickly faded. 

“Minatozaki Sana is very talkative. Words just come flying out of .” Says Mina. She then turns her attention to the television again.

She’s not wrong though, Sana Unnie does tend to talk a lot. I assume Sana Unnie found out where I study since Tzuyu and her are pretty close. I just shrug and believe whatever she said.

“It’s a shame I don’t see you around the University.” I mutter under my breath, she looks up and I see her nod. 

“Maybe we’ll bump into each other some time.” She looks at me. “I’ll treat you and Tzuyu to lunch if we ever bump into each other. If that’s okay with you?” Mina unnie asks. 

“I can’t say no to free food.” I smile at her, she smiles back. Her smile, it was timid but how do I describe it? It’s timid but I know she meant it.

“Anyway, I’ve always wanted to know. What do you major in?” I blurt out without hesitation. Even I am taken aback by how fast my thoughts travel to my mouth when talking to her.

At this point I really just want to save our conversation. Usually, I do not make an effort in conversations. If it dies, then it dies. I couldn’t care less when there’s dead air between me and the person I am talking to. 

However, for some reason, I do not want my conversation with Mina to end. It’s probably because I want to know her more. Halting our conversation felt wrong. I just want to talk to her. To me, she seemed like a very interesting person. She seemed really cool, I guess I just don’t want her to stop talking. Hearing her voice when she talked and also looking at her made me feel at ease. Talking to her felt soothing. I don’t want this feeling to stop.

She looked at me and then she reached for the remote control. She pressed the power button and then placed the remote on the coffee table. She faced me and tried to sit more comfortably on the sofa. I scoot a little bit back to give us space. It just felt like there wasn’t enough space between us, I wasn’t comfortable with that.

“It felt rude to have the television still running while talking to you.” She mutters and I nod in agreement. “Well, I am currently studying Political science as my pre-law course.” She mutters.

“But why?” I ask her, almost automatically. She tilted her head to the side, she had his confused look painted on her face.

“What?” She chuckles softly. 

“You know, how did you decide to take up Political science as your major?” I was genuinely confused. How can someone be this cool? She’s obviously gorgeous and she studies Political science? How cool is that? 

“Well, for one, my mom is a lawyer in Japan.” She answers enthusiastically. She pauses for a while as if she’s left out something. “I’m from Japan anyway.” She mumbles. I chuckle with what she later says.

“Of course I know where you’re from unnie. You think I wouldn’t have figured that out?” She looks at me coyly at first and then she just transitions to smiling brightly.

“So you must have done your research about your roommates, huh?” She asks me. I snicker and nod.

“Of course. I have to at least know you guys a little.” I answer. 

“Was your informant Chou Tzuyu?” She asks. I smile at her mischievously.

“And Sana Unnie is your informant. I think it’s only fair for me to have my own informant.” I snigger at her. She gives me a well-played look. “So I guess you’re always busy?” I ask Mina.

“You could say that but what type of college student isn’t busy, right?” She answers as she runs her fingers through her hair. She then turned her gaze to me and pressed her lips together. Her gaze, it always seemed to pierce through me. It’s as if she’s trying to figure me out.

“You’re majoring in Fine arts, right?” she asked. I just nod and do not question how she knew what I major in. I’m pretty sure her informant is nonother than Sana unnie.

“Why? Do you want me to draw you?” I jokingly ask her. Her eyebrows suddenly lift up. I’m not sure but she seemed pretty intrigued. She then smirked at me.

“Sure. I want to see how well you can draw me.” She answers in a daring tone.

“Wait. I was just kidding. ”I smile at her coyly.

“You shouldn’t say things if you can’t actually do them.” She pretended to look disappointed but I knew, in reality, she’s just waiting for me to actually respond to what she’s saying.

I stand up and grab my bag which contained a notebook and a ball pen. I sat right next to her again and I pretended to measure her face using my pen. I was pretending to angle her face, but honestly, it was just an excuse to look at her more. She chuckled with what I did while shaking her head. She must be thinking that I’m some type of idiot.

“Please draw me well, Chaengie.” She says in a cute way. I throw her a disgusted look. Did she really just act cute in front of me? It wasn’t bad but it felt weird.

I started to draw lines until a figure started to form. It felt like she was trying to peek at my sketch so I continuously had to hug my notebook from time to time.

“No peeking!” I try to say in a serious tone but ultimately fail and I end up chuckling as I hug my notebook. She then would just act as if I’m accusing of something nonsensical.

“You still don’t have a nickname in our group chat…” she mumbled. I look up from my notebook and I look at her. I just nod and then go back to sketching.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, you look like a baby beast.” She softly says. This time I wasn’t really talking much, I was still trying to focus on the sketch that I am doing.

“Whenever you smile, your canine teeth stick out so cutely and it makes you look like a baby lion or tiger. You look like a cub.” She mutters.

I briefly pause when she said that but then continued moments later. Did she just say I look like a cub? Whenever I smiled? Does that mean she’s looking at me whenever I smiled? I try to brush off whatever she said and continued sketching but my cheeks, they cannot lie, they started to feel hot. I try to regain composure but I ended up grinning, subtly. Good thing my head was still facing down at my notebook.

“Did Sana unnie tell you that?” I ask her while my head was still looking down at my notebook. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself.

“Yeah, she talks about you a lot.” She replies flatly. I sigh. That wasn’t the greatest response but I guess that’ll have to do.

I finish my sketch moments later and I look at her. I smiled as I viewed my work. It completely looks like her, I smile to myself.

“Done. Are you ready?” I ask her. She looks at me and nods. I rip the sketch from my notebook and then hand it to her. I look at how she would react.

She looked at me and we both laughed. What I drew wasn’t exactly her portrait. Well, I drew her that’s for sure but not in her human form. I drew a cute penguin. At first, I was really supposed to sketch her but when she mentioned I looked like a cub, I just decided maybe she’d love a drawing of a penguin.

“You drew me so well.” She smiles.

“It’s like I’m seeing two of you.” I chuckle.

“You did great. I love it. I might even frame this and hang it in my room.” She says.

It felt nice to draw something for someone. I felt somehow proud that Mina unnie loved what I drew for her. Suddenly, my phone buzzed. It was a notification from Kakaotalk. I turn my gaze to Mina unnie who was already looking at me. She was obviously eyeing my reaction. 

[KAKAO TALK]

*Penguin has set Son Chaeyoung’s name to Simba*

“Do I really look like Simba?” I ask her. She nods. I look at her and she’s still holding my drawing carefully.  “Want to make the others jealous?” I ask her.

“Eh? How does that work?” she asks genuinely.

“Let’s send them a pic of us while you hold my sketch!” I beam. She looked at me funnily, as if what I just said was too childish.

“Are you sure you’re not just bragging about your drawing skills?” She asks me teasingly. I look at her and shrug. I immediately grab my phone and click the camera. The moment the front cam points at us she holds my sketch out and we both take a picture. I scoot closer and lean my head closer to hers. She leaned her head on my head and I take a picture.

I send one of our pictures in the GC and type in a caption.

[KAKAO TALK]

Simba: Look! I sketched Mina Unnie! Don’t they look exactly the same? HAHAHA

Goddess: I want one too!

Goddess: Promise me you’ll draw me like one of your French girls

Penguin: ._.

Snack: I never knew you drew so well!

Goddess: Doesn’t she draw well? Daebak …

Penguin: She drew me well~

Demon Tree: She wouldn’t be an art major if she’s at drawing.

Simba: Thank you, Unnies! <3

Simba: Shut up, long limbs.

Snack: Yah, Son Chaeyoung. Promise me you’ll sketch me some other time too!

Goddess: Me too! You’ll be blessed with my beauty. I’m clearly the visual in our house.

Demon Tree: You’ve got huge teeth. What’s visual worthy about that?

Penguin: Chou Tzuyu!

Snack: HAHAHAHA NAYEON UNNIE DOES HAVE CUTE FRONT TEETH

Simba: Yah, Chou Tzuyu. I bought you bread. Come home, so you can enjoy these.

Goddess: CHOU TZUYU! I HOPE YOU GROW UP TO 6 FEET!

Demon Tree: I hope your buck teeth fall off! :P

I look over Mina Unnie and I see her laughing as our thread continues. I just look at her. I notice how delicate she looked. I smile to myself. She suddenly looked up and noticed I was looking at her. I immediately take my eyes off of her. I look at the ceiling and an awkward silence follows. I lean my back on the sofa and look over Mina unnie. She’s laying her head on the sofa.

“Sleepy?” I ask her. 

She looks up, she had a way of looking at people. When she stared, her eyes pierced through people. I notice a lot more things about her face. Like how every time I get to see her this close I always fixate my attention at her moles. Every time I look at them, the more they become charming. Her bangs effortlessly fell over her forehead. How can someone be so effortlessly elegant? 

Can I please at least look half as attractive as her?

 “Quite the exact opposite, really.” She mumbles as she closed her eyes while on the couch.

 “How come?” I bug her some more.

“I’ve been having difficulty sleeping these past few days.” She says weakly. She sighs and opens her eyes. “I just can’t sleep.” she adds. 

“Maybe that’s because you’re overworking yourself.” I suggest. 

“Maybe.” She answers flatly.

“You know, drinking tea and taking a hot shower helps me sleep.” I tell her, softly.

“I haven’t tried those things.”

“I should give you a bath.” I say. She suddenly looks at me straight in the eye. She looked shocked, her cheeks flushed. I realized I unknowingly said something stupid.

I should give you a bath? What the hell Son Chaeyoung? Are you a ing animal or something?

“A what?” She lifts her head up and looks at me.

“A bath bomb. I should give you a bath bomb.” I chuckle, hoping she wouldn’t detect the nervousness in my voice. “You didn’t let me finish.” I laugh and she just ignores me.

She sits straight and nods. I looked at her. She looks tired like she hasn’t slept for days. But nonetheless, she still looked elegantly amazing. She stands up and heads for her room. I stand up and head for my room, since now I’m obliged to get her bath bombs because I can’t get my thoughts right. I hold it tightly around my fingers.

 “I should give you a bath?” I mockingly whisper to myself. “I’m such a waste of space, damn it. Who the hell says that? Oh, God. She must think I’m a ert.” I whine. I hit my head with my hand. I’m such a mess.

I head straight out of my room and place the bath bomb on the kitchen table. I walk over the stove and start heating water. 

“I’m doomed.” I whisper to myself.

I walk towards the kitchen table and sit on it while waiting for the water to boil. Moments later, the kettle echoed which meant the water is ready. I quickly grab a cup and a teabag from the cupboard and prepare the tea.

Right after I’ve prepared whatever she needed, I walk towards Mina unnie’s room with a cup of tea on my right hand and my left hand clutching on the bath bomb. I knock on her door using my left hand. There was no answer. I’m pretty sure she’s still inside waiting since I do not hear the water running inside the bathroom. I knocked again, this time there was still no answer. I’ve decided to just go inside her room since what I am carrying wasn’t getting any lighter. The door was unlocked. The moment I entered her room, I see Mina lying on top of her bed. She looked asleep. The lights were . I place the tea and the bath bomb on her dresser.

How can someone look like an absolute angel when asleep?

I just look at her. I didn’t dare go near her. I don’t want to wake her up. She needed sleep. So I turn off the lights and turn on the ceiling fan.

The poor girl’s so stressed, I wish she’d take it easy on herself.

I gently get out of Mina Unnie’s room. I made sure to close the door behind me gently. The moment I step out of her room I see Tzuyu sitting on the couch munching on the bread I bought. Good thing I was in a composed state because if I wasn’t, my soul would’ve jumped out of my body. She noticed me and didn’t really greet me. She even grabbed the remote for the television and pressed the power button.

“When did you get here?” I ask as I walk towards her. I sit next to her.

“Before you and Mina unnie got here, I was already home.” She nonchalantly answers without looking at me. “Because unlike you guys, I actually read announcements sent to our school emails.” She looked at me, she gave me a domineering look while still eating the bread. I give her an annoyed smile.

“You like the bread rolls I bought for you?” I ask her with the remaining patience I’ve got for her.

“Yeah, they’re pretty tasty.”

“So shut up and just eat it. You don’t have to ostracize me all the time! ” I smack her shoulder. She gives me a deadpan look that sent shivers down my spine.

“Anyway …” I trail off, trying to change the subject. “Why didn’t you just come out of your room? You could have joined us.” I ask her.

“Are you kidding?” She looks at me. “We both know you wouldn’t want that.” She looked at me teasingly. I frown at what she said.

“What are you saying? Of course, I love spending time with you.” I tell her in a cute way. I even attempted to lay my head on the Demon Tree’s shoulder but decided doing so would be too cringey.

“Sure you do.” She flatly responds. “Anyway, I’m sure I’d be left out of the conversation if I joined you guys.” She looks at me.

“That’s not true, we would’ve totally had a great time.” I tell her with an assuring voice.

“Did you have a great time?” she asks me, her eyes, they were teasing me.

“Yeah, you could say that.” I nod in agreement with myself.

“Exactly.” She smirked at me as if she’s telling me something. “I’m your ‘informant’, right?” She sniggers as she pops a bread roll in . Her eyes were smiling. She’s obviously teasing me.

“Yah, Chou Tzuyu! Were you listening to our conversation the whole time?” I ask her.

“I got bored.” She flatly replies.

“You’re just so sly, you know that right?” I laugh at her.

“You’re even more cunning than me. We both know I’m not your ‘informant’. You’re obviously stalking Mina Unnie.” She smiles at me freakily. My mouth gaped open.

“Yah. Don’t be stupid. I’m not a stalker!” I look at her seriously.

“Yes you are.” She’s nodding her head as she says this.

“Why? Because I know she’s Japanese? That makes me a stalker?”

“Yeah.”

“Her last name is “Myoui”, it screams Japanese.” I tell her.

 “Hey, that’s ing racist.” She shakes her head, her tone was teasing.

I get a hold of her arm as I whisper. “Sure, maybe I looked her up a couple of times. Who cares? I said a white lie.” I whisper as I squeeze her arm gently. She looks at me blankly, she then yanked her arm away from me.

“I was just joking, Stalker. Quit being so violent, geez.” She smiled. 

EH?

How dare this giant talk about violence when she’s basically almost a masochist. All of a sudden I heard the front door open and footsteps coming towards our direction.

“Who hurt Tzuyu?” Sana Unnie blurts out.

Just moments after Sana came in, Nayeon followed with a confused look on her face.

“Yah, be realistic Minatozaki.” Nayeon unnie puts her arm around Sana unnie’s shoulder and looks at our direction. Sana unnie looks at Nayeon with a cute and confused look.

“Realistic about what, unnie?” the girl who looked like a Shiba Inu asked.

“If you look at them…” Nayeon points at me and Tzuyu. “Tzuyu would probably be the one actually trying to kill Chaeng here.”

“Don’t spout nonsense, unnie.” Says Sana.

“Yah, would it make sense if Short-limbs tried to strangler Tzuyu here?” Argues Nayeon.

Is she trying to defend me or is she trying to diss me?

“Son Chaeyoung! My name’s Son Chaeyoung!” I protest but they were clearly ignoring me. I look at the giant beside me but she’s clearly having a good time listening to the unnies banter.

“You’re right; I bet her fingers wouldn’t even meet if she ever tried to strangle Tzuyu.” Agrees Sana. I look at Tzuyu who obviously loves the burns I’m getting.

“Unnies.” I call them in a hushed voice. They both looked at me and they just laugh. I knew they were just joking around, but I pretended to be hurt. I’ll be sure to get back at them though. I’ll burn them real bad. After they were done burning me to the ground, both of them plopped on the sofa with us. Sana Unnie sat beside Tzuyu while Nayeon Unnie sat beside me.

“Don’t take this personally but, when you threaten me, I feel like I’m being threatened by a cupcake.” Says Tzuyu to me. I look at her and smack your shoulder gently.

“Yah! Where’s all the violence coming from?” asks Sana as she tries to shield Tzuyu.

“It’s probably all the pressure trapped in her tiny body.” Replies Nayeon unnie.

“All that pressure has got to get out one way or another.” Adds Tzuyu. I give them all the death glare and they all ended up hugging me. I knew they were just kidding, but it felt like I almost wanted to hit them one by one.

The night went on with us just talking in the living room. It was fun, really. This would sound crazy but even with all the rambling from Sana unnie, the judgemental look we all got from Tzuyu, and all the weird that came out of Nayeon Unnie’s mouth, I can say I had fun. We talked about anything under the sun. Weird , really. We talked and ate. As usual, Nayeon Unnie ordered take-outs. No one in the room knew how to cook and well, it’s much easier to pay for food than cooking food.

After some time has passed, we all realized that it was already late at night. All of them wanted to sleep in the living room. They wanted us to spend more time together, but I told them maybe we should do it next time when we’re all complete. It just didn’t feel right doing something when we’re incomplete.

As the night ended, we all headed to our separate rooms. Just as I was about to sleep, I received a notification from my phone, an unknown phone number texted me. I hurriedly opened my phone to look at what the unfamiliar number texted me and was greeted by someone I’ve forgotten about after I entered our dorm.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER]

Hey, I had a great time today. I never expected to have fun.I hope you had as much fun as I had. I hope to meet you again. Up for a second date?

-Jung Min Woo

I look up from my phone. Holy , I totally forgot about that guy. I scratch my head in confusion. What does he mean by a second date? Did he just assume we had a date a while ago? But it clearly wasn’t a date. It was lunch. I shake my head in confusion. How the heck did I get myself into this again? Questions started to march inside my head.

Only one thing’s certain though, Mister Pretty boy is starting to make his move.