"You have to start standing up for yourself." The young man told the girl.

"I don’t know how to." She replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

He shook his head, frustrated. "Park Marika, sometimes I really don’t know what to do with you."

Marika looked at him, her large black square frames slid down her nose. "Kibum ah, you have to stop worrying about me. I’m fine with it."

Kibum frowned at her. "How can I not worry? How can I not worry when this girl that I have looked after all the time during high school is being ostracized in college? Without me to look after her?"

"You’re such a big brother." Marika smiled slightly, although her eyes remained unsmiling.

Kibum stood up from the table they were sitting at. "I’m going to have to leave for my next class now. My teacher will go mental if I’m late."

Marika stood up as well, turning towards the door. "I guess I should get going soon. I have classes soon as well." She lied. She had a free period going on and had nothing to do. But she didn’t want Kibum to feel obliged to stay with her.

Grabbing her books and stationary, Marika walked slowly out of the shop, stopping to push her glasses up onto her nose. Before long, she was back on campus, and she had nothing to do. Marika sighed loudly. Looks like she would have to study for the next test in the library as usual, since there was no one she could hang out with.

She glanced enviously at the little cliques sitting under the trees, or walking across the courtyard together. What will it feel like to fit in with someone for once?

Other than Kibum, Marika has never had many friends. She was on good terms with Kibum’s friends: Taemin and Jonghyun, although she didn’t get along well with Minho and Onew. It was just too awkward with those two.

Marika was never a social butterfly. She preferred to keep to herself, walking quietly around campus, invisible to most eyes.

"Excuse me, are you Park Marika?" Someone asked from behind her.

Marika turned around, surprised that someone would even bother to talk to her. She gasped softly when she saw who it was.

It was Yong Junhyung: resident bad boy of the college and an extremely popular senior. He hung out with Yoon Doojoon, Yang Yoseob, Lee Gikwang, Son Dongwoon and Jang Hyunseung all the time. The most popular seniors on campus.

What in the world would a bunch of popular guys do with a lowly freshman like her? Wait… unless it was one of those rumours of seniors who prank freshies by forcing them to do things they don’t want to.

Marika shivered on the spot, her thick winter coat suddenly felt as if it were made out of tissue paper, doing nothing to stop the cold from freezing her. She noticed his friends hovering in the background, some of them looking interested, some looking bored, and some of them looking doubtful.

Marika gulped, suddenly wishing that Kibum was around to defend her from Junhyung.

"Yes, Junhyung… what is it?" She asked in a small voice.

"Erm…" He rubbed a hand on the nape of his neck, looking around awkwardly. "Well, you’re top in the class for Literature, aren’t you?" He glanced back at Marika, his good looks stunning her for a moment.

She nodded slowly, unsure of what might come next.

"I need some help… I mean, I’m failing the subject and I was told that I could count on you to tutor me for…" His voice trailed off, and he looked at her sheepishly.

Marika narrowed her eyes. Yong Junhyung, highly infamous bad boy, coming to her for help on a subject? Didn’t all bad boys not care about their academics?

Although she didn’t like the idea of it at first, Marika raised her hand and shook his. She knew that all the girls in her class would be on her case if she didn’t accept his plea for help. Junhyung and his friends had a devastating effect on all the girls in their college, and Marika didn’t want to become their aim when they found out that she wouldn’t help Junhyung.

"So… I’ll meet you at the library after school?" Marika asked reluctantly.

"Yeah! Sure!" Junhyung said, smiling his famous eye-smile at her, leaving her stunned in the middle of the snow-filled courtyard.

--

Marika checked her watch impatiently. Junhyung was supposed to arrive in a few minutes. Leaning back in her chair, Marika looked at the mess of stationary and paper sprawled all over the desk, complete with the textbooks that lay open to a certain page.

"Am I late?" Junhyung asked, when he walked in. There was no sign of his friends, which was no surprise. Who would hang out around a study session?

"No. Just on time." Marika said curtly. She gestured towards the paper and pen on the table. "We’ll start off with a test to assess what your standard is."

Junhyung sat down at the table, and picked up the pen, answering the questions that Marika had picked out for him. The only sound in the library was the scratching of pen against paper.

When he was done, she marked his answers and found that he actually wasn’t that bad, despite a few mistakes.

"Okay, so your problem is this." Marika explained, pointing out a few different things that he had done wrong. "In this case, your evidence is insufficient and your point does not collaborate well with your evidence."

"Erm… okay." Junhyung answered, seeming to get it. They sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes, and then Junhyung suddenly spoke up, breaking the silence. "So how do I answer this kind of questions?"

After a little more than a couple of hours, Marika and Junhyung packed up and left the library. They walked out towards the courtyard in silence, neither of them not knowing what to say to the other.

"Well… so I’ll see you tomorrow? Same time?" Junhyung asked.

"Yeah." Marika muttered, before turning down a road to her dormitory. To her, it seemed as if Junhyung was nothing like what others thought he was. He didn’t seem like such a bad person to her. So why did everyone think he was a naughty student?

--

The silence was deafening.

"What gave you a bad boy reputation?" Marika blurted out randomly, desperate to change the awkward atmosphere. The moment she realized what she had said, she gasped loudly and covered , her terrified eyes searching his face. She expected a closed expression, or harsh eyes, but what she found instead wasn’t something she had expected.

Junhyung’s face contorted, and he burst out laughing.

Surprised and at a loss for what to do, Marika sat there, staring at him.

"It’s actually all a misunderstanding." He explained, seeing the puzzled look on my face. "Everyone thinks I’m a bad boy, but my friends know the truth. I’m really nothing like that. It was all because of that one time when a fellow senior saw me getting hauled back into a store by security guards. She immediately assumed that I had shoplifted, and spread the story around the school."

Marika nodded. She knew about the infamous shoplifting story.

"In actual fact, the shopkeeper had made a mistake, and ended up apologizing profusely to me." Junhyung chuckled at the memory. "Another thing that happened was when the rumour about me getting a girl pregnant started to circulate. What actually happened was that the girl I was dating was bulimic. Someone caught her throwing up in the morning, and therefore the rumour started. Once the truth became known, the girl couldn’t bear the shame of being a bulimic and transferred schools." Junhyung paused at that point. He looked at Marika before continuing. "And that’s how my reputation became from preppy nerd to the bad boy senior."

--

Kibum was sitting at their usual table in Starbucks, scrutinizing Marika’s face. "You look different. Somehow."

Marika looked back at him, startled. "How so?"

"I don’t know. The last time we met up, you were as quiet as always. But now, all of a sudden, you’re so perky and happy, quite unlike yourself. Did something go wrong?"

"Er… no." She answered, frowning. Why did Kibum have to point that out? Now she’ll feel so self-conscious during Junhyung’s usual study session! Wait a minute… since when did she start to care about meeting up with Junhyung? Marika slapped herself mentally, telling herself to snap out of it.

"Why, than you are in love!" Kibum hooted, quoting Shakespeare, indirectly poking fun at Marika’s favourite literature hero.

"Fie! Fie!" Marika played along, although her cheeks blazed a bright red.

Kibum poked her face, grinning. "Well, whatever it is, I’m glad that you’re happy where you are. Jonghyun and Taemin get worried about you too, you know. They just asked me about you yesterday."

"Really?" Marika answered. While reaching for her cup, she accidentally knocked it over, drenching her shirt in the strong caffeine. "No!" She wailed.

"Still as clumsy as ever, I see." Kibum sighed, standing up and retrieving a bunch of serviettes. "Personally, as your best friend, I wouldn’t let you go out in a stained shirt." He pursed his lips, pondering over the problem. "But it’s time for me to head back to class or I’m never going to make it on time. And my dancing teacher chops our heads off the moment we step in one second late." Kibum looked at her apologetically.

"It’s okay." Marika waved him off, dabbing at the spreading brown stain gingerly. The corners of turned down, upset at the thought of appearing at the library wearing the stained outfit.

The subtle chime of bells told Marika that Kibum had exited the store. She stared down at her ruined top in dismay, before sighing and standing up, pulling her winter coat on and trudging back to her college campus.

--

"Hey, Junhyung!" Someone called from behind him.

Junhyung whirled around, scanning the area. The rest stopped and looked around as well. Before long, they spotted a lanky boy walking towards them. He was also a senior, and was in the same class as Yoseob for advanced philosophy.

"I’ve heard that you’ve been dating a freshie!" He teased.

Junhyung frowned, putting his hands in his pockets.

"Who?" Gikwang asked.

"This cute girl… I think her name was… Park Marika?" He grinned back at them.

"Oh, her? She’s just his tutor in literature." Doojoon casually stated.

"That’s not what I’ve been hearing." The boy replied. "Whoever she is, she’s gonna get it soon from all the girls who like Junhyung." He looked at Junhyung, anticipating a reaction, disappointment showing up on his face when he got none.

Junhyung, on the other hand, was trying to keep calm, his hands were clenched up in his pockets, and his shaking shoulders that could easily be mistaken for shivering from cold were actually from anger.

Noticing Junhyung’s restrain, Yoseob faced the boy and told him off. "What’re you doing here anyway? Haven’t you got something better to do than to stand around gossiping?"

The boy’s already pink cheeks turned scarlet, and he muttered something under his breath grudgingly before hurrying away.

"Nice one." Dongwoon said, lifting his hand to high-five Yoseob. Hyunseung shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, turning away to get to his next class. The five boys dispersed as the final bell rang, leaving Junhyung standing stock-still in the snow.

"Ehhhh… what are you doing?" Junhyung’s head snapped up to see Marika looking at him in curiousity.

"N-nothing." Junhyung stuttered, thinking of what the boy had said made him so aware of everything he did and said.

"So I’ll see you at the library again today after school?"

Junhyung nodded, watching Marika spin around on her heel and walk off towards the giant grey building, the sector for literature students.

‘What in the world am I doing?’ Junhyung asked himself; confused at the turmoil of feelings he was experiencing. ‘She’s just a freshman, and I’m a popular senior. So why am I looking forward to hanging out with her?’

--

It was nice and warm in the library where they met for study sessions. The heaters were on and everyone had their coats off except for one girl. A freshman by the name of Park Marika.

"Whoa." Marika looked up to see Junhyung staring at her still bundled up in her winter coat. "Aren’t you warm?"

"No. I’m not." She replied curtly, her cheeks pink from the heat.

"You’re lying." He grinned. Stepping forward, he yanked the coat off her back, managing to pull it out of her reach while she made a wild grab for it. His eyes widened when he saw the brown stain across the front of her shirt. Marika crossed her arms across her chest and scowled, obviously embarrassed.

Junhyung pretended not to notice it, and spread out his books on the table before him, immediately setting to work and asking Marika for help with several questions.

--

"See you tomorrow." She told him, as they parted ways at the courtyard.

"See you." He turned away, walking down a sidewalk leading the opposite direction from where she was going.

Marika walked slowly down the path, pondering the day’s events. She was thankful to Junhyung for ignoring the embarrassingly big stain on the front of her shirt, and yet she didn’t know what to make out of it.

"Stop thinking! Why am I suddenly so obsessed with him nowadays?" Marika groaned when she realized her thoughts had immediately wandered to him. She shook her head, and opened her book, beginning to read from chapter one feverishly. She didn’t manage to absorb much from the book. But at least it distracted her from her own thoughts for a while.

--

"Junhyung oppa… I like you! Will you please go out on a date with me?" A girl asked him, her head bowed and her face bright red.

Junhyung shuffled around nervously. He never knew how to turn down girls properly without hurting their feelings. "Erm… I’m so sorry… but I don’t think I can date you…"

The girl looked up and smiled at him wanly. "No it’s okay, I understand." She looked down again. "You’re already dating Park Marika, aren’t you? I’m so sorry for troubling you." The girl kept her head down as she walked away briskly, turned around the corner, and disappeared from his sight.

"So what are you going to do? The whole school thinks you’re dating Marika." Hyunseung asked, walking towards Junhyung.

"Yeah. Just the other day I was asked whether it was true. I said no, of course. I doubt you’ll ever date a freshie." Yoseob said.

Junhyung looked down at the floor. Would he? Would he date Marika if he could?

--

"Lucky girl." Someone muttered.

Marika’s head snapped up, her eyes scanning the vicinity for the person who said that. All day long, for these past few days, people have been whispering around her wherever she went.

She knew that they were talking about her, since they immediately started talking in hushed whispers whenever she entered the room, and kept on sneaking peeks at her when she wasn’t looking.

Marika pressed her books tighter to her chest. She hated being in the center of attention. She just wasn’t used to it. Frightened and feeling out of place, Marika ran down the corridor and into the library, hiding behind a stack of shelves in the quietest corner of the library.

"Marika?"

She jumped in surprise, turning around quickly to see whether it was another nosy gossiper. What she saw instead was a painfully cute Junhyung walking towards her. The snow in his hair was melting and droplets of icy water stung her skin when he swept them off by mussing up his hair.

For the first time in months, Marika didn’t know what to say to Junhyung.

"Erm…" Junhyung took a piece of paper out of his file. "Well, these are my literature scores." He showed her the piece of paper. "I got an A. The teacher was really impressed." He stuffed the paper back into his file. Rocking back on forth on his heels, he shoved his hands into his pockets, and faced her. "So… I guess we won’t need to have anymore study sessions…"

Marika felt a pang of disappointment, and it was all she could do to keep her face indifferent. She shrugged, and turned away quickly so that Junhyung wouldn’t see tears forming. She was about to walk off when he started talking again.

"But." He said softly. "I… I would like to hang out around with you sometimes… If you’re okay with that."

Marika stared at him, agape. "Like… as in… a date?" She asked, shocked.

Junhyung grinned. "Yeah. Like a date." He reached out for her, while a happy laugh bubbled up and escaped Marika’s mouth. Junhyung chuckled to himself, tilting her face up to his and pressing his lips to hers.

And no matter how much the school would speculate about their relationship when they started dating. And no matter how much his friends might or might now disapprove; Junhyung didn’t care.

All that mattered to him was the sweetness of their very first kiss.

Requested by bloodytheory

Writer: minminXP