"You coming for a ride with us, Haemi?"

I divert my attention from the chemistry book I am reading to the girls standing just before me. Amber and Jinri are there waiting for my reply, and I quickly form a sentence.

"That's really nice to offer," I say, "I'm taking extra time to work on chem, and I live pretty far away... I'll take the bus later. I hope you guys don't mind,"

"Of course we don't!" Jinri says in reply. "Take your time, we can always do this later,"

"Thanks again, guys,"

"No problem," Amber pats my upper arm gently. "See you tomorrow, mate,"

Since the study hall in my school started providing free coffee, tea and biscuits, studying in there after school has become a daily routine for me. I spend thirty minutes to one hour in this huge room everyday after school, doing all the work I know I will be too lazy to do at home. The study hall is big and everyone likes studying here, so although I am alone, it does not feel lonely at all since I am alone together with all these people at other tables in the hall. The hall is so enormous that you can barely see people sitting at the other end of the room. However, although I hardly know most of them, there is one, sitting on that table far away, that I know very, very well.

Byun Baekhyun.

I'm never sure if he ever notices me being in the study hall, though, because of its hugeness and because I don't want him to. I will go in and spot him on one corner with books in front of his eyes, sitting with five empty chairs around his table, and move my legs to sit on a table as far away as possible from him so he won't see me and we won't have to talk. The purpose of me coming to this hall is to study, anyway, so talking will definitely be a disturbance.

...alright, I admit I was being a hypocrite. It can never ever be a disturbance. Not when it's him.

The thing is, I know that if I ever go up and talk to him, all that will come out will just be stuttering words and nervousness, something that I hate to have when I talk to other people, especially special people. I won't know what to say and I believe I will make a bad first impression, considering the very little amount I've actually talked to him in class. I even had a dream one day, showing me talking to him for the first time being extremely nervous. That is one of the dreams I wish to never ever come true.

So, to move that fear aside, I decide to keep it a fantasy.

I don't really know him in person, which is kind of a good thing, since that means Byun Baekhyun right there, can be anything to me. My fantasy, my imagination can run as wild as it wills. He can be the kind of person who likes to cut his beef steak into pieces before eating them one by one or the kind of person who keeps a shopping bag in his bike pockets. I do that. I can formulate sweet, beautiful depictions of me and him having cute dates, cuddling while watching a movie, kissing in the rain, sharing the same apartment and designing its interior together, me teaching him piano, him teaching me guitar, us spending a Sunday on piles of pillows reading books and listening to songs, not even talking because we already feel comfortable without the need of words to come by. All of these are realisable in my head. He can be this person.

The very first time I saw him after summer break at the beginning of this sophomore year, after he got transferred to our school, he was just some guy I thought would be as annoying as the other guys in my class. The way he dresses, which is just like other guys in my school, did not exactly give an impression to me. The way he talks. The way he laughs. The way he writes. The way he puts his fist in his pants pockets when he's sitting. The way he greets me in front of music class. The way he blocks me while playing basketball in P.E. lessons. Until finally I realised, I've noticed more than enough about him. Then it struck me, how I begun to notice the firm look of his jaw lines, the adorable way his nose is shaped, the way his back turns when someone calls him, how his fingers are so beautiful that anyone who ever intertwines theirs with his is such a lucky person. When his eyes met me across the room and he smiled before turning around, I had fallen for him before I knew it. 

"Haemi,"

Crushworthy, that's the word, I believe.

"Haemi,"

I don't really think I will ever do anything about that. There's always only two choices, either he'd be extremely creeped out or he might even feel the same way about me. It's something that I can only discover if I ever take a step further. Something that I consider dangerous. Something that can crush the beauty of the image of my crush that I have kept in my heart all this time.

"Haemi?"

I snap out of my train of thoughts, and the volume of the world gets turned up again. I tilt my head upwards to find someone standing in front of my eyes, holding the exact same Chemistry book as the one I have opened on my table, looking at me in the eyes, calling my name.

Byun Baekhyun is not at his table across the room anymore but right here in front of me, and the regular visit of the butterflies to my stomach comes a little more unpredictably today.

***