Chapter 9

After the two of them left, Yoori heard Yuta call out, “Youngho!” so she turned to look if her friend was there. Youngho stood with his tray full of food and Yuta motioned for him to come over and sit with them.

“What you got there?” Yuta scanned Youngho’s tray.

“Just some sandwiches and a sprite. Want some?” Youngho kindly offered as he put his bag down and sat beside Yoori.

Yuta was poking through Youngho’s food, “Yah, you just ate a whole sweet bun and half my bag of cookies! Stop eating off of someone else’s food!” Yoori scolded the former.

Youngho just laughed, “It’s fine, I’m not that hungry.” He picked up one sandwich and said, “This should be enough, you can have the other one!” he nudged it toward Yuta.

“Thanks, Youngho!” Yuta smiled widely and nabbed the sandwich.

“Hey, Yoori did you finish the essay for later? I really had a hard time making mine.” Youngho said as he opened his lunch.

“What essay?” Yoori’s eyes widen.

“The English essay that was due today.” He said with a mouthful of sandwich.

“.” The girl had realized her ill fate. Yoori then brought out some paper and her pen.

“Oooh, you forgot?” Yuta mocked as he ate his sandwich. “Looks like I’m actually a level better than you. Maybe I shouldn’t work with you?” he continued.

Yoori stopped paying attention as she was already speedily writing words on the piece of paper.

After finishing his sandwich, Yuta said his goodbyes and headed for his own class. “Glad I’m not you, Yoori!”

“Shut up and choke.” She muttered to herself as she looked at her phone for some additional information for her essay.

“I’m gonna try and finish this as gracefully as I can, but you can go to class without me. I don’t wanna drag you into my mess.” Yoori faced Youngho for a second then right back to her work.

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll wait for you. I don’t like sitting alone in the classroom.” Youngho turned his back on the table so he could use it as a backrest. His back was now turned to Yoori.

“What are you talking about? You can chat with the other people in the room.” She said without even lifting her head from the paper, which was now a two-page paper.

“I already told you, I have trouble engaging in those type of conversations.” He had brought out his phone and was randomly scrolling through it.

“Normal conversations?” Yoori sarcastically asked.

Youngho managed a chuckle, “Yeah, I guess. But hey, I already have four new friends, I think that’s more than enough.” He stretched.

A few more minutes pass and the two of them made it to the classroom safely, with both their essays ready for submission.

“I was in real trouble, that essay was worth a lot of points. Good thing you reminded me.” Yoori thanked Youngho who now sat beside her.

“It was nothing.” He grinned.

Every time Youngho smiles, his eyes would follow too. It was as if his whole face was smiling and it was so refreshing to see. Yoori thought about this before she faced the front of the room again.

That night at the apartment, Yoori and Yuta decided to start their homework which was due by the end of the week. Both of them were wild procrastinators so it was already 10:30 in the evening before they even started really working on it. They positioned themselves on the dining table so they could easily ask each other questions when they needed to. The work was almost like a make-shift thesis so it did require a lot of work and research. When neither of them had an answer, they’d go and bother Jaehyun for an answer.

At around 12:30AM, the two were really weary but since they felt guilty for goofing around for the first six hours they wanted to at least finish an eighth of the work.

“Hey do we have any snacks?” Yuta asked as he peeked from his laptop screen.

“I don’t think so. We’re really low on snacks because Taeyong said they weren’t a necessity so if we want some, we buy some from the convenience store nearby.” Yoori muttered sadly.

“I’ll play you rock, paper, scissors to see which of us has to go and buy the snacks!” Yuta actively offered.

“What the hell? Why can’t we just both go?” Yoori asked, frustrated.

“Because I really don’t want to go outside. It’s cold.” He snickered.

Yuta held out his clenched fist and Yoori just complied, confident she would win.

“Get me some candy bars and a yogurt drink!” Yuta bellowed as Yoori was angrily putting on her jacket as she stood by the door, defeated by a game of rock, paper, scissors.

The door to Jaehyun’s room pulled in and opened, “You’re going out?” he asked Yoori.

The girl was genuinely surprised at seeing that he was still awake, “Huh? Oh yeah, I need to buy snacks.” She said reluctantly.

“What, alone?”

“Yeah, Yuta said he didn’t wanna go out because it was cold. Want anything?” she offered as her hand was already on the doorknob.

Jaehyun looked at Yuta and rubbed his forehead at thinking about how stubborn Yuta can be, “I’ll go with you.”

Yoori didn’t think to stop him because she really didn’t want to go alone, but she wanted to be polite, “Are you sure?”

“Yep.” Jaehyun uttered as he put on his thick jacket.

There was a 7/11 at the next block where they lived so it wasn’t that long of a walk and they could still see two to three people walking by, students probably.

“What are you two working on anyway?” Jaehyun had his hands in his pockets and asked without looking at Yoori, walking beside him.

“It’s this paper for our class. We’re supposed to work on it for an entire week because of the instructions and we only started at 10:30 tonight. We’re only half done on the first part.” Yoori narrated away as she kept her shoulders tensed because it really was cold outside.

“You two aren’t really good at time management, huh?” he kidded.

“No, not really.” Yoori answered shyly. “I mean if I was working with someone more diligent, I’d be influence too. But if it’s someone like me, it’s a different story.” She explained.

When they arrived at the brightly lit convenience store, Yoori picked out several snacks, a coffee drink, and Yuta’s damned requests. She decided to get an extra bar of chocolate too.

The two of them walked home with snacks in their bags but as they were about to enter the door to the apartment, Yoori reached into her plastic bag and took out the chocolate bar she had gotten, “Here! Thanks for coming along, Jaehyun!” she grinned as she held out the chocolate to the guy. “I know you usually get better chocolates from other girls but I just wanted to give this one to you.”

Jaehyun smiled at her gesture and accepted the chocolate, “Thanks.”

When Yoori came back to the dining table, Yuta was almost laying in a pool of his own drool on the table. She slammed the plastic bag of snacks on the table which made it rattle. Yuta shot up awake and wiped the drool off his face.

“Sorry I woke you.” Yoori smiled sarcastically.

Yuta just frowned at her and reached for the plastic bag full of snacks and drinks. Jaehyun had already closed himself off in his room.

A/N: Hi, sorry just one chapter tonight hehe. I'll try again next week. Thank you for reading! I love and appreciate all of you :)