“I really can’t tell if this whole thing you’re doing is romantic, or just plain creepy,” Amber admits as she holds the door open for me to the cafeteria. I wait as she holds the door open for a few other people that were filing in behind us and­ even says hi to one of them. She did know a pretty good chunk of people here on campus and I wasn’t surprised considering how sociable she is.  

“Romantic things can always be seen as creepy,” I inform her when she catches up to me. “Like if someone you didn’t know just randomly waited for you by your car to give you flowers, would that or would that not be the creepiest thing ever?”

“Well, duh.” Amber says, as she grabs a tray and grabs a plate with a slice of pizza on it, and then grabs another plate and slides the second slice onto her own. The lady behind the counter sends her a look, and Amber just sheepishly smiles at her. I shake my head at her and she follows me to the salad bar.

“Okay, but like, if it were Kim Jongin offering you flowers, it totally wouldn’t be creepy, ya know?” I say piling a handful of croutons on my salad, and then dousing it in cilantro dressing.

"Oh… I see your point.” Amber grabs a couple cokes and we make our way over to the register. “Hey, I know you say you don’t have a type, but don’t lie to me, you totally have a thing for dancers,” she says, raising her eyebrows in a suggestive manner, as she pays for her food.

“I just used him as an example,” I say glaring at her, as I hand the cashier my school ID – I have a fully covered meal plan that my mother thankfully paid for knowing I don’t have the means to go to the grocery store and feed myself. And also because I’m lazy, but we don’t need to go over the negatives…
 

“What about Hoseok?” I send her a look. I still am not quite over him and his newly found girlfriend that he likes to walk to her dorm every night—which just so happens to be across from mine.

“Eunhyuk?”

“He graduated last year,” I say, glancing around for a table. I find an empty one situated in the middle.

“Howon? Yixing? Taemin? Okay, I know for a fact that you have a thing for Jay,” she says as we sit down. I throw a packet of crushed red pepper at her out of frustration.
 

“Okay!” I raise my hands up in surrender. “I get it. It’s not my fault they all have well defined b-“
 

“Butts?” she interrupts, lifting an eyebrow and sending me a suggestive look.

“I was going to say bodies,” I say stabbing around my salad trying to get a variety of vegetables on my fork. “But, yeah, that too,” I say with a chuckle. I shove the huge pile of greenery into my mouth and I almost choke when I see a pair of boys walk into the cafeteria. I move all the food in my mouth to my cheeks, before I cough it all out and also because I’ve momentarily lost the ability to chew.

Amber turns her head to see what made me break out into such a fit and I wish I could tell her not to, but the food stuffed in my mouth was preventing me to do so. Mark looks over at our direction and he waves with a bright smile on his face. I shamefully wave back feeling mortified that I probably look like a chipmunk. I try to chew the food quickly, but it was too late to save face—literally.  

Amber clears and before I can even realize what she’s doing, she does the unthinkable. “Hey, you guys should come sit with us when you get your food!” she hollers, cupping with her hands to project her voice further across the room. Mark’s friend sends her a thumbs up and I try not widen my eyes at her knowing that the guys are still looking in our direction, so I resort to kicking her under the table and cussing her out in a hushed whisper, having finally swallowed the food in my mouth.

“What the do you think you’re doing? You stupid-” she fixes herself to sit properly in her chair and faces me again with a stupid grin on her face.

“You’ll thank me for this someday,” she says, patting my hand.
 

I forcefully shove another forkful of lettuce into my mouth and roll my eyes at her.

“Now, now, that’s not how you eat like a lady, is it?” She says taking a huge bite of her pizza. I send her a quizzical look and my voice suddenly gets caught in my throat when I notice that Mark and his friend are at the register paying.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” I say in a joking manner, but when I see them walking over it suddenly doesn’t seem like a joke anymore. Amber was sitting across from me, meaning that they’d each have to sit by us.

“What a nice thing to say while we’re eating,” she replies, taking a sip of her coke. I straighten myself up when they take a seat and I send a closed smile to Mark and his friend. Mark takes a seat beside me, and I can’t lie, it makes me feel those middle school crush feelings all over again. His friend sits beside Amber, and I expected there to be some awkward silence, but Amber and-

“Jackson,” he introduces, interrupting my thoughts, while also answering them at the same time. “You’re Amber right? You’re friends with Eric I think?”

“Yeah! You know him too?” Amber eagerly replies. I try not to roll my eyes. There she goes, literally knowing everyone again. But then again she did save from drowning in possible awkward silence. …but she also put us in the situation to begin with so I can’t say I’m exactly pleased with her.

“I met him last semester actually. He wanted me to teach him how to dance.” Jackson makes some gestures with hands and I quickly recognize the movements. He was translating the conversation to Mark as he was talking to Amber. Amazing. “Let me just say, some people just really can’t dance.” Jackson and Mark both laugh and I let out a chuckle to try to cover up the idiotic smile that would’ve been on my face just by the sound of Mark’s laugh.

“You know sign language?” I ask Jackson as casually as I can fathom. He looks up at me and nods as he chews through his bite.

“I’ve known this guy since like birth. I pretty much learned as he learned. He taught me stuff after every sign language class and well, I kind of had to learn it if I wanted to communicate with him without playing a game of charades every time I needed to tell him something.” I nod as I realize that Mark was born that way. I’m a little grateful. It’s not as hard to be born without a sense to lose one.

I notice in the corner of my eye Mark’s signing something to Jackson and I watch them converse with each other briefly to see if I could catch on to some things. But when all you know are a few greetings and the alphabet, there’s not much you can really understand.

“You know she’s taking a class on sign language,” Amber says aloud, breaking me out of my daze on the various gestures seamlessly being made beside us. When realization suddenly strikes me, my head snaps towards her and she’s completely avoiding my eye contact. Too bad looks can’t kill.

“Really?” Jackson replies, clearly intrigued. I raise my left hand to cover my face and shove forkfuls of lettuce into my mouth trying to think of ways out of the conversation. I’ve never been more thankful that Mark couldn’t hear as terrible as it sounds.

“Yeah, you know, you could probably teach her.” I look up at her in confusion and I can’t help but also notice the same in Jackson’s expression. “But you know, it would probably be more efficient if Mark taught her, seeing as how you learned from him yourself.” Suddenly Jackson’s face brightens up and he nods vigorously. I quickly realize they both have the same agenda.

“That, Amber, is a great idea. It’d be like hands on learning, literally!” They both laugh and I feel like shoving my face onto the table, but I sit up straighter and try to play along. I should be grateful. There’s no way I would have had the balls to come up with a plan like that myself. But it still makes me feel like throwing up.

I carefully glance at Mark as Amber and Jackson go through a laughing fit and I’m a little surprised to see that he’s already looking at me. He lets out a little laugh and I can’t help but do the same. He pulls out a little notebook out of his pocket. He quickly scribbles something on it and slides it over to me.

‘I’d love to help you out :)’
 

what is this. what is fluff. what is updating. who am i. i dont even know tbh but i have time on my hands again and this fics a little easier to write than thrill of the fall but im working on it.....  lol
i'll see you guys around ;)