“Are you coming or not?” I heard Youngsoo’s voice over the buzzing sound of the cars’ horns at a street of Seoul as I was scrolling through my phone. We decided to walk to the university since he insisted in parking his car in front of my apartment, saying that he was too lazy to pay the expensive fee at the campus parking lot. I was in nowhere to say anything but to comply since I owed him this time.

“Yah!”

“What is it?” I hissed, looking up. I saw Youngsoo’s eyes were already covered with annoyance with his hands shoved inside his khaki pants pockets in front of me.

“It’s still in the morning and you’re already testing my patience?” he said, sighing.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shoving my phone back to my coat pocket. It’s already freezing here in Seoul and Youngsoo chose to walk when he clearly owned a car. I really had no idea how his mind worked sometimes.

“I’m freezing,” I muttered, hugging myself by the arms. “Remind me why are we walking again?”

“I told you,” Replies Youngsoo, “the fee is too expensive, I need the money to eat.”

“You know I could lend you some.”

“I owe you too much already.”

I gave up eventually and let him walk in silence. Both of our minds occupied with our own train of thoughts, making us to forget the cold temperature that was eating our bodies slowly.

We arrived at the University fifteen minutes before the first lecture started. It was the first day of the new semester and the Art History class was never in the top list of my favorite courses, but it was in the curriculum so there was nothing much I could do but to bear the long two hours of listening to Mr. Kang blabbering about the art history.

Youngsoo took the seat placed on the last row of the class while I sat in front of him. He only said to me he’d be sleeping throughout the lecture because he hadn’t had the chance to get some last night. I only nodded as my response, wondering what made him so gloomy this morning.

But before I could even do anything, Mr. Kang barged through the door with a stack of papers in his hand, asking for the pupils’ help as he clumsily stumbled upon his own mess at his table. I couldn’t help but laugh at his own stupidity, if you ask why he was the lecturer of this particular class was beyond me.

“Are you okay, Mr. Kang?” I asked, arranging the piles of books that were strewn all over the wooden table that stood between us.

“I’m okay,” he mumbled his words, wiping a sweat off his baldhead. “I’m a little tired, that’s all.”

“Didn’t you get any rest this weekend?”

“If you consider sleepless nights writing reports and paper works sleeping, then yes, I did get some rest,” said Mr. Kang.

“I’m sorry,” I smiled apologetically at him, “please do rest well next time, sir.”

“Thanks,” he said, “in fact, there’s no need to be sorry for.” His eyes gleaming with excitement as he glanced at the door. “There will be particular someone joining us later in the class.”

“Oh? Who?”

“You’ll see, now go back to your seat.”

I couldn’t help but to wonder whom was Mr. Kang referring to when he mentioned a person joining the class. But before I put myself in a headache, I quickly shook off the thought and tried to concentrate on the essay that he told us to do about Salvador Dali. I brought out my laptop and carefully typed in the name to browse through some information for my essay.

Okay, so he was born on May 11^th 1904, was a surrealist painter famous for his works on…

“Annyeonghaseyo.”

I stopped reading as soon as the voice interrupted my focus on my laptop’s screen, sending my gaze flying towards the door of the class. I felt my heart skipped a beat when I heard the familiar voice that has been repeating inside my head.

“Ah, Seunghyun, so good of you to finally join us,” I saw Mr. Kang struggling from his seat to welcome the new comer of the lecture. All eyes were glued to the scene happening in front of us as the two men shook hands and bowed their greetings.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” His deep, baritone voice filled the room, which was covered in silence as none of us refused to utter a word.

“That’s okay,” Said Mr. Kang, “take a seat wherever you want, then pick a partner for your class assignment today, we’re doing Dali for this semester’s thesis.” I heard him explaining briefly to Seunghyun as he nodded in understanding, hands shoved inside his coat pocket, hair tousled, and a postman bag slung over his broad shoulders, perfectly lining his chiseled body as the strap ran along the center of his chest.

My mind wandered why the hell any celebrities like him would even think about joining classes such as this. Anything related with the word ‘history’—or even simply having any relation with Mr. Kang would already be the absolute definition of dullness to anyone’s lives. Not to mention idols like Seunghyun’s type—TOP’s type—whatever his name was, the power rapper—slash—actor that practically has every woman ogling at his feet. The two ideas were as contradicting as North and South Korea combined.

I quickly averted by eyes back to my computer screen and continued to scroll down on the Wikipedia page. All the girls were too busy fixing their make up and throwing flirty glances at Seunghyun to carry on with their work as I saw him scanned around the class. I only rolled my eyes and focused back on the assignment I had to write. 5000 words essay and due next week? Talk about staying at home during the weekends…

I was about to open a blank new document when I felt a presence towering down at me. I looked up just to see the familiar pair of dark orbs I saw before.

“You taken yet?” his deep voice vibrated trough the roof, I almost shivered at the sound of it.

“Um—I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m already with Youngsoo.”

“You mean that guy over there?” he said again with a passive tone, nodding at the sleeping Youngsoo behind me.

“Yeah, he basically doze off every class,” I explained.

“Hmm,” he responded. I could only stare at his statuesque figure with him still standing in front of me, his eyes never leaving the soulless body of Youngsoo.

“Is there anything I could help you with?” I voluntarily asked, not being able to stand his presence near me any longer with all eyes directed to the two of us. The girls started to snicker as whispers beginning to erupt.

“No,” he simply said before turning back and walked towards the empty seat located two chairs ahead of me. No ‘thank you’, or even a hint of smile on his lips. That basically summed up my impression of celebrities being snobby was legitimately true.

I silently went back to my abandoned essay and typed in meaningless words onto the blank document page, trying to regain my whole focus back from the hooded figure seating two seats in front of me.

1000 words in and my head were about to burst in a matter of seconds. Glancing at the unmoving boy behind where I was and seeing that he was still unconscious since an hour ago irritated me as my hand flew to slap the back of his head.

“Wake up, you punk.”

“Leave me alone,” he groaned. Shifting his position while burying his head deeper on the table.

“You supposed to help me with this assignment,” I quickly reasoned.

“You’re a genius, you don’t need my help.”

I huffed in frustration and scanned the area of the class. Everyone seemed to regain their focus back on their papers as the room fell silent. It was just a group of those flower girls hunched in the corner who was still giving flirty glances towards the particular celebrity in case he ever turned his head.

I rolled my eyes for the nth time today, first couple of times to Youngsoo because his ignorance towards the world, second to the piles of paperwork that had to be done in the end of this semester, and lastly to everyone involved in this excuse of a class that I unfortunately had to take a part in.

My eyes landed on the figure seated in front of me again, now with an open laptop on his table and the clicking sound of the keyboards attacking my hearing senses. He seemed pretty serious in doing whatever Mr. Kang gave to us, and a crazy idea suddenly popped into my head. I smirked at the thought, and slowly slipped out of my seat and slowly making my way towards his.

I sensed all eyes in the classroom turned to me, and I could only shake away my sudden anxiety that was slowly crawling to my whole body. I was about to halt all my intentions and cowardly make my walk of shame back into my seat to forget everything just happened, but it was all far too late as I crashed onto the seat that was blocking my way, resulting in a loud screeching sound of metals against metals as it dragged onto the floor. Making all eyes focused on me—including his.

The room fell into a complete silence, only the faint tapping of Mr. Kang’s shoes against the cold tiled floor sounded heavy on my ear. Furrowing his eyebrows, Seunghyun only glanced uncomfortably to my sight before turning back to his laptop screen once more. Brushing away the embarrassment I started to feel. I could only hear the audible laugh of those girls and a few whispers of fake empathy.

“Is there anything you need, Miss?” Mr. Kang’s voice interrupted my voice.

“N—No, I was just getting out to go to the ladies room,” I quickly covered, and mustered an innocent grin before continuing to walk out the class.

I stomped through the halls with my face flushing red, not in an embarrassment, but mainly because I was mad at myself. This was purely not my intention why I even got out from my seat. I even had no idea why my brain decided to throw out those words when Mr. Kang asked me. My pathetic coward self always seemed to make an appearance first rather than my non-existent alter ego that I assumed was at least better.

I splashed my face with the water from the sink and took a look at my reflection. Hearing the muffled sound of the bell as it rang throughout the building made a rush of relieve flooded through me. That means I didn’t have to face everyone in the class when I got back. I stayed inside the ladies room for a good five more minutes. After sensing the incoming attack of the girls rushing towards the rest room, I simply slid out the door and made a beeline back to the class.

“Where the hell were you?” hearing the annoyed voice of Youngsoo, I stormed inside the almost empty class with only the magnificent celebrity still huddled up with his laptop on the table.

“Where do you think?” I rolled my eyes, gathering my things as I shoved my laptop and notebooks inside my oversized tote bag. “Listen, we need to arrange study sessions if we want to finish this thesis—“

“I’m dropping the class.”

“What?” That basically stopped my every action and looked up at him.

“I just can’t stand the Kang’s throwing at us,” he replied with a bored tone, shrugging.

“But you doze off every single lecture!”

“And that is exactly why,” he responded, “I need to find at least one class that doesn’t want to make me claw my eyes out if I want to graduate, and this clearly isn’t,” continued Youngsoo. “Maybe you can take that guy over there? See if he’s already got a partner or not,” nodding towards the preoccupied man.

I grunted because I already knew the answer. “You’re despicable, you know that.”

Youngsoo didn’t respond, shrugging as he made his way out the class with his hands shoved inside his pockets. “See you at lunch,” and he was gone, just like that.

That leaves the two of us inside the classroom as the faint footsteps of Youngsoo trailing on into oblivion. I considered on walking out and pretend as if nothing happened and figure out other ways in finishing the paper alone.

The idea of sharing tasks with Mr. celebrity here didn’t sound so appealing to me, not to mention that he was giving all the impressions that he didn’t like people very much. Throughout the class, he always seemed to shut everybody off with his earphones shoved on the either side of his ears, refusing any contact from anyone.

But then I realized, one of those things you could never do in Mr. Kang’s class, finishing all your workload alone. He was kind enough to allow us to choose partners for this semester’s paper, that alone was basically an act from the heavens, a gift from God—whatever you call it. He was practically the stingiest person in this entire university when it came to giving grades. And I need to pass this class—because I barely made it in his class last semester, even if it means I had to cope with working with Mr. Too Good For You here, then so be it.

I caught him finally closing his laptop, his eyes nowhere near mine as he shuffled on collecting his things back inside his bag. I only sighed and stayed where I was, searching for anything to look at beside at his direction. I stood there as my mind going over things to say when I finally caught up to him.

“You’re blocking the door, genius.”

The sudden sound of his voice cut my thoughts off as my head snapped towards him. Mr. Cocky stood before me already with his bag slung over his shoulders, looking at me with his eyebrows furrowed.

I didn’t move an inch from my spot. “Seunghyun, isn’t it?”

“Not to you,” he replied coldly, “what do you want?”

I fought the urge to fight him and to fight myself simultaneously for even considering my first idea in asking him to be my partner. I felt my face warm with irritation with his coldness.

“Okay, fine, what do you want me to call you? An ?” I snapped.

I saw his eyes were flashing with surprise at my approach. “Ah, a rebel,” he muttered in a low voice, his eyes still glued to mine. “I like that.”

“Huh?”

“What do you want? I need to be somewhere,” he replied unenthusiastically, brushing off my confusion.

Swallowing down my annoyance, I told him, “You’d need me if you want to pass this semester.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you’ll need me if you want to pass Mr. Kang’s class.”

He only looked at me as if he was still processing every word I said to him. He kept his eyebrows furrowed, and a smirk started to crawl to his lips. “Are you seriously asking me to be your partner?”

I only groaned inside, but he didn’t give me a chance to say a word.

“I thought you’re already with that sleepyhead,” he said.

“He’s dropping the class,” I responded. “And I figured you’d need someone like me if you want to get at least a decent grade for your papers,” I reasoned, folding my arms across my chest.

“Oh, I need you?” he asked, “the only thing I see right now is that you’re only looking for someone to aid you with your desperation to pass this lecture.”

I stood there with my mouth agape. What the ? Mr. Shrimp- here clearly had no idea what he just said. “Excuse me? Well, you’re the only one who is pathetic enough to be working alone with no one to help you!” I exclaimed.

“And I like to stay that way, I’ve decided long ago that I always work best alone, with no one else to bother me.”

“What a selfish way to think,” I remarked.

He just casually snorted and slipped out of the class towards the hall, leaving me inside the room with only my annoyance flying through the roof. What the is his problem? I mentally screamed as I stared at his back as he made his way towards the cafeteria. Only facing him for a good two-hour lecture and he already had his way on getting on my nerves. What more could I possibly get from him?

 

This was going to be one hell of a long semester.

---

 

 

 

 

(a/n)

hehe, so what do you think? i trully hope you guys like it and will support me to continue with this story. i know i stll have December to write but i couldnt help but to get rid this story out of my way. i like the ideas i got in my head so why not share it with you guys....

so please let me know what you think! and subscribe!

ps: oh, also i have no idea what to name the first character, i ran out of ideas, so any of you has any cute names i could borrow? hehe

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