“I thought you said that you would never date him!”

Jackie sits her tray down at the table and looks down at Billie. She shoves the phone in her face and shows her the picture of her and Xu Minghao talking and smiling.

“I’m not, and I never will. I did not know that cute library guy was Eight. I turned him down right away.”

“That I believe. You hardly pay attention when I’m telling you about campus gossip. Only a girl like you, who studies all day, wouldn’t know what Eight looks like… he is cute though, isn’t he.”

“Okay, okay, enough.” Chris sits next to Jackie, putting his tray full of food down on the table. 

“Damn. Any more food and this table wouldn’t be able to hold it up,” Jackie laughs, “Have you never eaten before.”

“I have tryouts coming up. I need to eat more to gain muscle.”

“Tryouts? What kind of sport do you need to bulk up this much?” Billie looked over his tray and couldn’t imagine eating even that much rice. 

“Wrestling.”

“Makes sense,” she said. 

Jackie was looking down at her phone and sighing. Looks like Eight has already moved on from your rejection and has found himself a new girlfriend.”

“Rejection?” Chris asks. 

Before Billie could explain or Jackie gossip, several boys sat down in the seats surrounding them. Billie recognized Jun, the guy she talked to outside of the party. The guy who sat next to her: the cute library guy.

Billie sighed and hung her head. She looked back up at the group around her. “Didn’t you get a girlfriend already? Why are you here now?”

“Can’t I sit with my friends?”

“Why can’t you and your friends sit somewhere else?”

“Why would we do that when you guys saved seats for us?”

Billie looked at Minghao, bewildered, like she was seeing a man with two heads. “I get that you’re used to everything going your way—”

“—you don’t know me—”

“I’m not sure anyone does, but that’s not the point. I will not go out with you, or anyone, for twenty-four hours for any reason. So you can stop this.”

Billie picks up her tray and stands up, but Minghao quickly grabs her arm and pulls her back down. 

“I am not here to get you to date me. I’m here as a friend. As a Sunbae who will help you.”

Billie looks at Jackie and Chris, pleading for help with her eyes, but they just keep looking between her and Minghao. Even his friends sat around the table, looking at them both quietly. 

“Just sitting by you, even if I don’t talk to you, will get my picture blasted all over campus. And girls, especially your twenty-four-hour girlfriends or future girlfriends, or hopefuls, will see it, and they’ll think something is going on. And the more we’re seen together, the more assumptions will be made. I don’t want to be a part of any drama for any reason. I want—”

“A normal college experience,” Minghao continues. “You already said this and I get it, I hear you.”

“You hear me, but you’re not listening.” Billie looks at her friends again, but Jackie just shrugs. 

“I’ll make it so that no one bothers you like that. That they all know that we are just friends and nothing more. I just want to be friends.”

“Are you lying to me again?”

Minghao looks at her for a few seconds before he looks up to someone walking over to them. He smiles and holds up a hand in a wave. Billie looks, and it’s a tall girl, smiling back at him. Billie doesn’t ignore that quick flick of the eyes as the girl looks at her and back. 

“I gotta go, but we’ll have lunch next time. Be good to my friends.”

Minghao waves at the table and gets up. Billie watches as he walks to the girl and puts his arm around her. She looks away before they kiss. 

“Billie,” she says, pointing to herself. “Chris. Jackie.”

A round of hi goes around as she looks around the table and the guys who remain sitting. “Do you remember me?” Jun asks. 

“Yes. Sorry about speaking rudely at the party,” Billie says, pushing around the food on her tray.

“All's good. This is Hoshi and Vernon.” He points at the two others. Billie could admire their handsomeness. 

“I didn’t mean to be unfriendly the first time meeting you,” Billie apologizes. 

Hoshi smiles and waves her words away. “No worries. It’s refreshing to see a girl argue with him and it be more than about giving her more attention or to extend her time.” He leans forward across the table so he’s closer to her. “I like it.”

“Down, Tiger.” Vernon pushes him back into his seat, and Jun smacks his arm, but he still smiles. “He means that it’s refreshing.”

“I’m sorry that I keep saying sorry, but also that it doesn’t seem refreshing. So now, I would like to talk about something other than Eight.”

“I thought you called him Minghao?”

“This is not something else.”

“Okay. We could talk about me, if you like,” Hoshi smiles, wiggling his eyebrows. “I’m very interesting.”

“Yes, you are,” Jackie smiles, leaning on the table.

“Oh, now you jump in,” Billie laughs. “I am an English major. Jackie and Chris are Communications majors. What about you guys?”

“I’m a communication major as well. Third year. So you would be my hoobaes!” Hoshi smiles. Jackie seemed to be excited about that.

“We,” Jun says, sweeping his finger between him and Vernon, “Are business majors, just like Eight.”

“I thought he was my sunbae.” Billie looks at Jun.

“But you’re an English major… aw, his minor is English.”

“I don’t even want to go there,” Billie rubs the furrow of her brow. “Business majors? That means you have to take math classes… willingly? Not just general requirements?”

“Math is not that bad,” Vernon says and then laughs when he sees Jackie, Chris, and Billie’s face. “It’s just statistics and a business calculus class.”

“That sounds painful,” she says.

“It’s not a root canal,” Jun laughs, “but I understand.”

The table quiets down but the smiles remain as they take the time to actually eat their lunch. “Do you think you could be friends?” Jun asks.

“Of course, you guys seem like great people minus the joy of mathematics.” Billie laughs, but Jun and the rest seem serious.

“I mean with Eight. Do you think you could be friends with Minghao?”

Billie sits her silverware on her tray and looks at him. “He didn’t tell me who he really was.”

“You guys just met. All you had time for was telling each other your names. Neither of you told each other who you were.”

Billie knew Jun was right, but it felt like it was more than that. “He knew how I felt about Eight, and he kept it from me. And I understand it was because I was biased, but he went into it being deceiving. And then he let me believe he was an English major. Not a business major like you said. Maybe… I let my bias about the situation color everything, and because of that, he approached me, hiding that fact. But I don’t think that he did that intending to be friends. I think he wanted his next girlfriend, and I was interesting enough to approach. I don’t know if I can trust it to be any different.”

“You can always try,” Jun says.

“I… I have a scholarship that I need to keep in order to stay in school. And if I don’t stay in school, my brother will kill me. I can’t afford distractions—and I know that could never happen, that’s life, but I can choose whether that distraction is small or devastating. If it becomes too hard to be friends, I will cut him off.”

“Understood.”