“I'd like to switch classes.”

Felix's voice trembled as the administration office worker gave him a murderous stare.

“Why?”

“They signed me up for an advanced singing class.”

“And?”

“I'm a rap major.”

“And?”

“And... I can't sing very well...”

“Isn't that what the class is for... to learn to sing?”

Felix didn't seem to be getting through to her. She not-so-kindly informed him that since he failed to sign up for any classes at all, his mistake not hers, he had been assigned to the few classes that still had space. In other words, all the nightmare classes nobody wanted to take.

How unfair, Felix had done everything he was supposed to. When he got the university's information packet some four months ago, the instructions clearly stated that the official sign-up period was three whole days. And Felix had even decided to err on the side of caution, smuggling his smartphone to class and going online when the teacher wasn't looking. He was so nervous he'd get caught that he nearly turned himself in.

Only a minute late, at 9:01, the system had already crashed. Constantly refreshing the site got him caught redhanded, getting a minus point on his record and his phone was confiscated for the rest of the day. When he checked back at the end of the day, all the classes were full. There was nothing he could do.

She didn't care about his sob story, so he had one week to either pray that a spot opened up in the classes he wanted or convince someone to switch with him. Both options seemed dire. Stumped, he admitted defeat and walked to his first singing class dragging his feet. There was no way he would survive this with his ego intact. It had suffered minor scrapes and scratches in the past, but singing in front of actual people would be its fatal blow. Even the kangaroos ran from his singing attempts.

There was a slight chill in the air, but it was a beautiful day. Felix tried to enjoy it, but he had a personal storm cloud stuck over his head. Thunder and lightning took turns terrorizing his brain while icy needles poked at his insides. He really didn't want to go to class.

Startled, he froze in his tracks. Something cold had touched his cheek. Before he could rub it off, it turned into a drop of water that ran down his cheek and the length of his neck, burying itself under the collar of his shirt. He shivered, pulling his poor excuse for a jacket closer. Back home it was his winter jacket, but it had nothing on the piercing wind of the Korean winter, that slithered under your skin and chilled your bones.

Felix turned in a circle to find the culprit. Who was attacking him with freezing water and why? There was no one there. He watched a couple of students run between buildings without their coats on, teeth clattering. No one else was crazy enough to stand still in this frosty weather. Then it happened again, a tiny twinge of cold on his forehead. And another on his chin. His eyes shot up and he watched as hundreds, no thousands of tiny white flakes fell from the sky. The sky had a serious dandruff problem.

“Snow,” he said with his mouth hanging open.

He had never seen anything like it. A couple of snowflakes flew into his mouth and landed on his tongue, melting instantly.

“Ha ha! It's snowing!”

He laughed and giggled, dancing amongst the falling stars, stretching out his hands to catch them all. He had once heard that no two snowflakes were the same. Watching them rain down from the sky, it was hard to imagine every single one of them was unique. But then again, there were billions of people in the world and none of them were identical. He wanted to follow each one's journey, but they all descended at once and quite a few of them headed straight for his eyes, blurring his vision.

“Felix, what are you doing?”

Felix blinked profusely, trying to see the dark blob more clearly that was tucking on his arm.

“Oh, Jisung,” he exclaimed, “Can you believe it? It's snowing!”

“Yup, it sure is,” Jisung chuckled, “... but ehm...”

Jisung pointed with his eyes at the crowd of students that had gathered around them, staring at Felix as if his welcoming the snow was an act of sorcery. Felix swallowed his excitement. Apparently, this was not standard snow behavior. How was he supposed to know? This was his first snow ever!

Shy, he took a step back. A pair of familiar eyes caught his attention. The pen thief. It felt as if he had been punched in the gut. Panicking, he locked his arm around Jisung's and fled in the opposite direction.

Poking a hole through the crowd, he ran until he reached the music department's building. That ugly clump of clay. His heart was racing so hard, he worried he was going to have a heart attack. He wasn't going to stop until they were safely inside, only the door had other ideas. Felix banged his head up against the glass, hard.

“Ough.”

He grabbed his head that was now spinning, the shockwave still traveling through his brain. That hurt.

He could hear laughter and whispers behind him. Oh no, just when he thought this day couldn't get any worse. Stupid automatic sliding doors. He had a difficult relationship with electric doors, or more accurately, they had a problem with him. They refused to acknowledge his existence. Back home the only establishment that had one was the supermarket and so he avoided it like the plague, singlehandedly keeping the small shop on the corner in business.

“This is definitely going to be a fun semester.”

Crying from laughter, Jisung waved his hand subtly and the door sprang open. Of course it worked for him. Felix was convinced everyone was part of some secret door-society that excluded only him. Red-faced, he entered with his tail between his legs.

“Aw, did you get stuck with this class too?” Felix asked with a sympathetic frown when Jisung followed him all the way to class.

“Stuck? I've been looking forward to this all winter break,” Jisung said with a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh...”

Felix told him everything.

“Yeah, registering for classes is harder than getting a concert ticket for BTS, you have to press the button at the exact time, not a nanosecond before and not a fraction of a nanosecond later. I feel for ya man, but hey, at least we can team up together. It's gonna be fun, just you wait.”

Jisung gave him an encouraging smile, but it had nothing on the cloud of doom in which Felix was stuck.

The single shimmer of positivity this day brought was the fact that the pen thief was not a member of the class. Felix would rather shuffle thousands of tons of roo poo than sing in front of that guy.

“Oh, look! The final project is a musical,” Jisung said and excitedly pointed at the class schedule that had just been handed out.

Help.

Felix felt his throat start to close up. If only it would stay closed and he could get a doctor's note saying he was physically incapable of making a sound, saving him from the biggest humiliation of his life so far. He would have dropped this class so fast if it didn't mean he would lose his student visa and would have to give up on the student exchange altogether. It was just one semester. He was going to fake it until he made it.

*

After the snow incident, there was no sign of the pen thief anywhere. He wasn't in any of Felix's other classes and there were no more chance meetings on campus. Thank goodness, Felix thought. But instead of the usual feeling of relief, a peculiar void filled his gut. Perhaps it was the jetlag, it hit him hard. The struggle was real. Other than going to class, he had barely left his room. He fell asleep the moment he came home from school and woke up at three in the morning, unable to move a muscle in case he woke up his roommate. And so he lay there in the dark, the loneliness slowly crushing his soul.

Before he knew it, he had survived a week in Korea. A whole week away from home. He wasn't sure he could do another one. The homesickness had burrowed itself so deep within him that it was now a part of his identity. And it didn't help that he was finally going to come face to face with the pen thief again. Not that he cared about the pen he lost, not enough to ask for it back at least. The only thing he cared about was not having to sit next to him ever again.

He entered the nearly empty classroom, realizing he was way too early. Not able to sleep, he had rushed to school without paying much attention to the time. The guy wasn't there yet. Felix wasn't sure what to do. His plan had been to choose a seat as far away from him as possible. If he sat down now, what were the odds that he would sit down next to him? Should he leave and come back a little later? Too late and he might have no choice like last time.

He took so long deciding that the few students who had already shown up were all staring at him. Forcing an awkward smile, he grabbed the next chair and sat down. Jisung appeared at the door, waving at him energetically before claiming the seat next to him. Along with the most horrible class of all, advanced singing, he also shared a hip hop dance class with Jisung, who had been so kind as to take him under his wing. He had introduced him to the school cafeteria and showed him how to book practice space, to spare his roommate from the torture that was his singing.

They passed the time chatting away, but Felix had one eye glued to the door. The seat on the other side of him was still free. They were sitting smack in the center and as the classroom started to fill up, the likelihood of the pen thief graduating to a seat thief was dangerously high.

The clock ticking away the minutes, Felix started getting restless. Where was he? Was he not coming? A student that didn't bother bringing a pen to class was likely not to bother to show up at all. Or he might have changed classes. All good choices. Still, he was uneasy. He had to know for sure before he could calm his heart.

With less than a minute to spare, the pen thief waltzed through the door like he owned the place. Felix jumped in his seat and tore his eyes away from that effortless smirk of his. It made him look cooler than his looks could afford. Although, he was more handsome than Felix remembered.

A couple of girls giggled in the back. Felix envied their freedom, to be able to giggle at will whenever someone took your fancy. He had never experienced that. He had only ever fancied one person and not only was he male, but he was also his best friend so giggling was out of the question. Not that a couple of giggles hadn‘t broken free at the oddest of times, making Chris believe he was a cheerful oddball that just couldn‘t stop smiling. Not entirely inaccurate, but he always smiled wider and longer when Chris was in the room.

Step by step, the pen thief drew closer. Felix held his breath. No, no, no. Not here. Please don‘t let him pick this seat, Felix silently pleaded.

Like a miracle, his prayers were answered. A girl in the far corner waved to the guy and he veered off course, sitting as far away from Felix as humanly possible.

Felix waited for the relief to wash over him, but instead, a little, blue gremlin took residence in the pit of his stomach. At least now he didn‘t have to spend his fortune on replacing the pens that thief would have stolen. But it appeared he had stolen something else as well, something much more valuable.

Felix tried to focus on his conversation with Jisung, but again and again his eyes wandered. They were pulled toward this guy as if the gravity around him was stronger than everywhere else. And it was not only his eyes, during the past week his thoughts had continuously drifted towards him.

It was the pen, Felix convinced himself. He was bitter over the robbery and wanted the pen back. On more than one occasion he had wondered where it had ended up. Was it in his bag? Did he have a pencil case and it was chilling there with his other pens? Or did it lie somewhere abandoned in his house?

“Wow, you really have it bad for that girl, huh?” Jisung whispered, giggling. “I'll help you out. Her name is Nayeon, Im Nayeon. She doesn't have a boyfriend right now, but the competition is fierce. She's super popular. I mean, look at her... or you already are... haha... or staring more like it. I don't blame you though, she's not really my type, but even I can see she's gorgeous.”

Jisung was talking about the girl that was sitting next to the pen thief.

“Oh, ehm... mmkay. Thanks,” Felix mumbled hesitantly, having no idea what to say.

Thanks? Yeah, no thanks. He most definitely didn't want his help. He didn't like girls, he never had. Not in that way. Ever since he was a teenager, he knew he was different. All his friends started falling in love, one after the other, obsessing over girls and how to get one of their own. Everyone but Felix. He tried and tried to feel something, but there was nothing there. And unfortunately for him, he was the only gay in the village. So slowly he came to terms with being doomed to live his life without love.

“It's a good thing you're so handsome, you might have a real shot!” Jisung said excitedly and not very discreetly.

Felix sank in his seat, his face turning red at the compliment.

“A good friend of mine, Jihyo, is Nayeon's best friend. I can try and set you guys up on a date.”

Jisung nudged him, giving him a determined smile before snapping a photo, completely out of the blue and without his consent. He was not ready at all, his face still puffy from waking up so early.

“Oh, nice one!” Jisung seemed pleased with the photo. He winked playfully at Felix and added, “I've got to have at least one decent pic to show her.”

“Uhhhm...”

Felix was having a mild panic attack, his brain frozen. How was he going to get himself out of this mess? The simplest solution would be to come out to Jisung. But before coming to Korea, he had made a conscious decision to keep the gay thing a secret. It was not that he was ashamed, he just didn't want any unnecessary trouble. He had heard that Korea was still pretty homophobic, although it was steadily getting better, and he didn't want to give anyone ammunition to start any rumors about him.

To be honest, it wasn't just that. He wasn't closeted only in Korea, he had never come out to anyone. Not Chris, not his mom, no one knew he was gay. So revealing it to Jisung only to avoid a set-up that would probably not even happen was not the way he wanted to come out for the first time. Besides, Nayeon looked way too posh and pretty to be interested in a clueless country bumpkin like him.

“Don't be shy. It's no big deal. I mean, you're on an exchange, you have to date a little to get the full experience.”

Jisung laughed cutely. His laughter was so contagious that Felix couldn't help but smile, Jisung misinterpreting it as interest in his set-up scheme.

“Oh, oh! Hey, if you're too shy, we can always change it to a meeting,” Jisung added.

No, he was not expecting them all to put on their best office clothes and storm into an empty conference room to conduct a business meeting instead of a date. A 'meeting' was a Korean-style group date.

“Yeah, yeah, that's actually a great idea. Let's do that! Only...” a lightbulb switched on inside Jisung's head, his eyes illuminated with excitement, “...it won't be a real meeting. Ah, this might be my best idea yet! We'll tell Nayeon it's a meeting, but it'll only be me, Jihyo, Nayeon, and you. I'll tell Jihyo the whole story so after some introductions, we can just quietly bow out and leave you and Nayeon to have a little romantic moment alone.”

Felix swallowed with difficulty. This was snowballing fast. He needed to stop him before it was too late, but Jisung was way too nice and already too invested in the idea for Felix to be able to tell him no. But he didn't want to lead some poor girl on, giving her false hope. He bit his lip, trying to find the right words. Or any words at all.

“Seo Changbin.”

“Yes.”

Felix's heart jumped. It was the pen thief who answered the professor's call. The pen thief's name was Seo Changbin. His name was annoyingly cool. For starters, his last name wasn't one of the five surnames covering nearly the entire Korean population, Kim, Lee, Park, Choi, Jung. No, no. He was special.

Seo Changbin.

So chang-been, the opposite of 'so has-been', since chang kind of sounded like jjang, which meant 'the best' in Korean.

Jisung poked him in the ribs.

“Ouch,” he whimpered under his breath, giving Jisung a surprised look.

With his eyes, Jisung pointed towards the professor, who was calling his name.

“Lee Pilliksu? Absent?”

The professor scribbled something on the paper in front of her.

“I'm here! I'm here! Lee Felix is present!” he said in a shaky voice and waved his hand.

He wasn't used to the Korean pronunciation of his name so he hadn't noticed the professor's call. Everyone was not so secretly staring at him. Seo Changbin as well. Felix's cheeks started burning.

“Try to speak up next time,” the professor mumbled irritated before moving on to the next name on her list.

Man, it was only the second week of the semester and he had already gotten on the wrong side of the teacher. That was all he needed. And what was worse, the thought of Seo Changbin knowing his name awoke a long-dormant butterfly from its sleep and it fluttered frantically about.

This day was not turning out like it was supposed to.

He sighed heavily as he opened his notebook and scribbled down “Seo Changbin” over and over instead of the wisdom the professor was imparting upon them.