The diamond ring sitting in the box on the kitchen table on Monday morning was utterly gorgeous and it made Semi feel absolutely miserable.

Xiumin’s note actually made it even worse.  He hadn’t written on her hand while she’d been asleep this time – since the time he’d reminded her about the bolt, she’d made doubly sure each night that she’d definitely locked him out – and had instead left the message written on a yellow post-it.

I’m sorry, he’d written.  I know you don’t want this, but there are going to be times we have to keep up appearances.  Please make sure you don’t lose it.  It could be your lifeline if the wrong person finds you at the wrong time.

She knew he was referring to Luhan with that, and in all honesty the note was quite touching, but it didn’t stop her from really, really not wanting to have to wear the ring.  With a long sigh, Semi reached out and picked it out of its box, turning it around slowly between her right thumb and forefinger.  She didn’t like it, but Xiumin had seriously good taste and Siwon was apparently prepared to blow his department’s budget for the next ten years if it meant Xiumin was going to keep her safe.  And take ridiculous liberties, like the brilliant-cut diamond nestling in its delicate gold band.

Semi slid it onto her ring finger, almost in despair when she discovered it was a pretty much perfect fit.  Xiumin had held her hand twice since they had met, and both times had been on that very first day – once when he’d shaken her hand when he was introducing himself and once when he’d put Tiffany’s ring on her.  It was actually scary how good at all this he was.  Perturbed, she twisted it off her finger again like it had burnt her and put it back in its box.  There was absolutely no way she was going to wear it on her first official day at university.

Stepping onto campus would have been daunting if she hadn’t also joined an American university eight months previously – mid semester, of course – when she wasn’t even totally fluent in English at the time.  And also if Jongin hadn’t happened to ring her and start one of his usual inane conversations.

“You’ve already told me that one,” she sighed and he broke off his spiel of knowledge about cat reproductive organs and spikes with a noise of surprise.

“I have?”

“Yes.  And ironically enough, it was when I was starting at university in America, too.”

Jongin laughed on the other end.  Semi quickly changed the subject.

“So how many bouquets today?”

“Seven, and still counting.  I also have a skull bracelet, several packs of socks, a phone charm and about twenty bars of chocolate.  And a single yellow rose.  I’m not sure what to make of that, though.  Do you reckon it means something?”

Semi frowned, pausing for a brief moment to look at the campus map as she wracked her brains for yellow roses.

“I mean, where I come from, you give it to actors before the play as a symbol of good luck.  Does it have a different meaning over here?”

“Maybe this mystery person is trying to point out you’ve broken your leg,” Semi said after some thought.  “I mean, acting context and all that—”

“Genius!” exclaimed Jongin.  “I hadn’t thought of that!  Oh my God, I love this person already!”

“What if she’s gross and icky, Jongin?”

There was a long hesitation.  “I’m sure her personality will make up for it.  And it might not even be a she.”

“Then what if he’s gross and icky?”

“But I don’t even classify guys as gross and icky.  They’re totally unappealing to me.”

“And gross and icky girls aren’t?”

“Maybe I should change my vocabulary choices.”

“Yes, maybe you should.”

He laughed again.  “Enjoy business management studies, pumpkin.”

“Have fun at work, toddler.”

Jongin gave a fantastic imitation of a baby’s gurgle and hung up.  Snorting with laughter, Semi pushed open the door of the lecture hall.  The lecturer was setting up slides on his computer down by the podium, and Semi quickly climbed up to the top of the seats, passing the vast majority of predominantly male students (most of whom were slumped over the desks and looked asleep) to get a spot right at the back.

Literally seconds before the lecture started, she was joined on her row by two girls who had half their hair dyed a vibrant orange and a vibrant blue respectively and a boy with dark circles under his eyes who just would not shut up.  This bothered Semi until about twenty minutes into the lecture when there was finally a lull in the monologue the boy was holding and she used it to attempt to take notes, only to wake up ten minutes later with drool on her notepad and her pen almost sticking up her nose.  From a quick look around the rest of the lecture hall as she sat up, she noticed that about nine tenths of the attendees appeared to be in a similar situation to her, except not awake.

Something cold touched her hand, making her jump, and she saw that the girl with the half-blue hair had slid a can of coke across to her.

“You’ll need it,” she mouthed before returning to her thermos flask of coffee.

It still didn’t stop the mind-numbing soporific effects of both the lecturer’s voice and the contents of his lecture.

“Hey, you must be new,” said the boy, hanging back as Semi stuffed her things into her satchel and looked around for a bin to toss the empty can into.  She looked up at him in surprise.  “Well, either that or you’ve been missing compulsory lectures all year.  Have you been ill?”

“Tao, don’t harass her,” sighed the half-orange-haired girl, tugging on his arm.

“What?” he demanded.  “She’s the most interesting thing I’ve seen in the lecture hall all year.  I didn’t know it was possible to fall asleep with your pen up your nose.”

The orange-haired girl rolled her eyes in exasperation and let go of him.  Tao turned back to Semi; the blue-haired girl had long since vanished.

“Really, though, isn’t it uncomfortable?” he asked.

Semi looked him up and down.  There was something about him that reminded her a lot of Kai, and he seemed friendly enough.

“Where are you from?” she asked him.  “Your accent’s—”

“Qingdao,” he said cheerfully before she could say Chinese.  “Takin’ ma year abroad, brah!”

The girl whacked him on the arm as he struck a pose.  “Oh my God, you’re so embarrassing.  Why do I even know you?”

“Says the girl with hair that’s half orange!”

“Yours was electric blue last month!”

“That was not my fault,” Tao argued, “or my idea!”

“And Wendy and I are doing it for charity, anyway, not because we managed to piss our flatmates off!”

“Zhou Mi was drunk.  Drunk!”

A little intimidated, Semi swung her satchel over her shoulder.  “Um, excuse me… could you let me out?  I have another lecture to attend before lunch.”

Tao whipped around, clamping a hand over the girl’s mouth to shut her up as she tried to retort.  “By any chance, is it the philosophy of economics one?  If so, I’ll walk you there and this thing can stop haranguing me and go to her singing lesson.”

The girl ripped his hand off her.  “I am not haranguing you and it’s creepy you know my timetable!”

Tao rolled his eyes.  “Sure, Seulgi, sure.  Not like you don’t know mine.”

“See you at lunch, dipsh*t.”  With a melodramatic huff, Seulgi flounced away.  Semi stared after her, bewildered, and then looked back at Tao.

“She’s normally like that, don’t worry,” Tao said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the figure that was disappearing through the crowd beginning to filter into the lecture hall.  “But you are new here, right?”

Semi finally allowed herself to crack a smile.  “Yeah.  And you guessed right – I need to go to philosophy of economics.  Where is it?”

Tao cheered like a happy puppy before snatching her wrist.  “I’ll show you.  The lecturer’s the absolute sh*t – not as good as the one I had at school who used to compare the spread of tropical diseases to a zombie apocalypse, but she’s actually interesting, unlike that guy we just had.  Come on!  Oh, and I’m Huang Zitao, by the way, but you can just call me Tao.”

“Semi,” she replied, allowing him to tug her out of the hall.  “Oh Semi.”

“Cute.  Not like Seulgi.”  Tao wrinkled his nose.  Semi laughed.  He reall