My stomach growled. Where was Jessi anyway?

                Just as I thought that, the door to our room opened. I got up from my bed. “Took you long enough, Jessi.”

                She stuck her tongue out at me. “Can’t blame me for being busy.”

                “Busy doing what? Setting me up for more dates?” She tried to do her best innocent what-are-you-talking-about faces, but I knew her well enough. “Yah, I said I can handle my own romantic life, didn’t I?”

                “You can barely handle your nutritional life, much less your romantic life.”

                “Nothing wrong with ramen…” I grumbled.

                “What?” Jessi asked.

                “Oh, nothing,” I replied innocently.

                “If you said anything about ramen being perfectly fine, I will hit you over the head with a pan,” she threatened.

                “Heh heh, good thing I didn’t say anything like that then…” I said, chuckling.

                “Alex,” she said, sternly.

                “Yes?” I answered nervously.

                Instead of replying, she scooted over until she was in reach of the place she put the pan she uses for cooking.

                “Wh-What did I do?” I asked, scooting back into my bed, trying to hide.

                She didn’t reply; instead, she advanced on me, pan in hand. “Ok ok, ramen is bad for you, I get it!” I said, closing my eyes as she joined me on the bed. I shut my eyes tight, waiting for her to strike, but she ended up lightly tapping my forehead.

                “Ow…” I said, pouting as I rubbed the place she hit.

                “Don’t let me catch you saying that again,” she said scornfully.

                I nodded obediently. “Ok Ms. Ray,” I said.

                “Hm?” she said, turning around.

                “You know, Rachel Ray, the person who has her own cooking channel and whatnot?”

                She thought about it for a moment, then remembered and chuckled. “Well excuse me, Mr. Typical College Student, for not caring about your health.”

                I raised my eyebrows. “Really? Mr. Typical College Student?”

                She laughed. “Yah, I couldn’t think of anything, ok?”

                I laughed with her. “Ok, let’s go eat dinner then, Ms. Jung.”

~The Do’s and Don’ts of a Friendly Relationship~

                “It’s so nice not having to cook,” Jessi said, leaning her head on my shoulder.

                “See, this is why I eat ramen so often,” I complained at her. She lifted her head and glared at me, and I held my hands up in surrender. “I-I mean, this is why I used to eat ramen so often, something I will never eat again.”

                She smiled before putting her head back on my shoulder. I relaxed and put my hands back down. “That’s better. But just because I complain about cooking doesn’t mean I won’t cook for you.”

                I sighed. “It just seems so much of a hassle though.”

                “Maybe I can teach you,” she said ponderously.

                I shrugged. “Maybe.”

                I looked over to see Tiffany look over at us. When I caught her eye, she averted her gaze and started talking to her friend. “Maybe this is why I have such a hard time with my romantic life,” I said.

                “What? What do you mean?” Jessi asked, head still peacefully rested on my shoulder.

                “Well, most girls probably think that we’re a couple or something, and that we’re trying to hide it,” I said.

                “I doubt it,” she replied.

                “Why?”

                “Well … do we really look like a couple?”

                I thought about it. Did really close friends do this? They did, right? Hold hands, rest on each other, all that stuff? I mean, it was a rumor for some time, as we found out not too long ago. “I don’t know, honestly. Don’t all close friends do this?”

                “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” she said.

                I thought about it for a while. What would I think if I saw this? As much as I tried to look at it, I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see how we would look like a couple.

                “None of my friends who have dated you said anything about us being a couple, so I assumed that everyone thought about us that way. Plus, they know about our story and everything, so doesn’t it make sense for us to be this close?”

                “Yeah, I guess,” I admitted. “But there is the thing about the rumor about us…”

                “Well, maybe that was only those people,” she said.

                I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

                “And the reason you need help in your romantic life is because you can’t date anyone I disapprove of,” she said matter-of-factly.

                “Wow, ok Mrs. Kim,” I said. My last name was Kim, by the way.

                She chuckled. “I’m kidding. If you’re happy, then I’m happy,” she said. “The real reason is because you’re so intimidating. Everyone who’s interested in you thinks that you’re out of her league.”

                I frowned. I immediately rejected that idea. No way could that be the case. I was out of their league? Yeah, right. Not me. “No way. Are you joking with me?”

                “No! I’m dead serious!” she said, lifting her head and pouting at me.

                I looked at her in disbelief. I studied her face, but she looked serious. “Wow, really?” I said, leaning back onto the booth.

                “Yeah! All of my friends told me that; well, the ones who were willing to share that information, anyway,” she said, taking her place back on my shoulder.

                I thought about that for a while. It was a dream of everyone, to be considered this attractive. However, now that I know this information, I didn’t feel any different. Maybe a bit more self-conscious about what others thought of me. “So Mr. Lautner, what do you want for dinner?”

                It took me a while to pull myself out of my thoughts. “What?”

                “You know, Taylor Lautner, the guy a lot of girls fangirled over from the vampire movie?” I couldn’t recall the actor. Seeing this, Jessi gave it up. “Aish, when I finally come up with a good nickname, you don’t recognize the reference.”

                “Well, you don’t either. You called the thing you were referencing ‘that vampire movie’,” I said, teasing her.

                “Well sorry for not being able to memorize all the movies I’ve watched before, Mr. Einstein,” she replied.

                “Well, Einstein wasn’t really known as one who could memorize—”

                “Yah, give me a break already, would you?” she whined.

                I laughed. “Alright, alright, I’ll give that one to you. Next time, I won’t go so easy on you, Ms. Wollstonecraft.”

                “Fair enough,” she replied. “Nor I, you, Mr. Shakespeare.”

                I smiled. “See? That one wasn’t so bad.”

                She giggled. “Thank you.”

~The Do’s and Don’ts of a Friendly Relationship~

                It was almost customary, hearing people talk about us as we walked past them. It was worse near the beginning of the year, when we were famous because of our situation and when no one knew us. Now, I’d venture to say almost everyone on campus knows about us. Still, I guess that didn’t stop people from talking about the fact that Jessi was clinging onto my arm.

                I guess there was also the fact that Jessi and I were sorta popular. Both of us had a lot of friends that we hang out with occasionally, although it wouldn’t surprise me if the initial reason why I made half the friends I did was to get closer to Jessi. It made it easier that Jessi would insist on going with me whenever I wanted to go anywhere with my friends, and also insisted that I followed her when she went to hang out with her friends (she would always say something along the lines of “what if I get ?”, which honestly makes me really scared).

                “See, look over there,” she whispered to me.

                I turned my head in the direction of her finger, but only saw two girls casually walking by, engaged in conversation.

                “You made it too obvious!” Jessi said, laughing a bit. “They were looking at you though, I swear.”

                “Is this you trying to hook me up?” I asked suspiciously.

                She raised her eyebrows. “As if you needed help,” she scoffed. “If I hadn’t known you for my whole life, I would jump on you the instant I saw you,” she stated very matter-of-factly.

                I looked at her and met her gaze. She was smiling, which almost subconsciously put a smile on my mouth. Jessi was attractive, actually. Really attractive. Honestly, I think I could say the same about her. Only I didn’t tell her because who knows how much she would tease me because of it. “You should use your teeth to smile more often,” I told her.

                She tilter her head in confusion. “Why?”

                “It looks better. Maybe that way, you can get a boyfriend so I don’t have to deal with you all the time.”

                She hit me. “Hey!”

                I laughed. “Kidding. You know I love you,” I told her. She nodded contently and rested her head on my shoulder.

                “Hey,” she said.

                “Yeah?” I replied.

                “What do you think of the word ‘love’?” she asked.

                “I don’t know. Why?” I asked.

                “Isn’t it a strong word?” she asked. “Why can friends use it so freely? Or can they even? Shouldn’t the word be saved for soulmates?”

                “I think you’re thinking too much, Ms. Rousseau,” I told her, earning a chuckle. “I think ‘love’ is just a word that can describe extreme satisfaction and happiness. I do think it’s a strong word, but I don’t see a problem with using it with friends and family.” After a moment of silence, I spoke up again. “Why?”

                “I was thinking about just how many people would pay to hear you say ‘I love you’ to her.” I looked at her, who met my gaze after a few seconds. This time, she was smiling with her teeth. “What? I can’t help it that you’re Mr. Popstar.”

                “Hey, I just realized,” I said. "I have a nickname for you, but you never came up with one for me.”

                Jessi thought about it. “Well, it’s sorta hard to come up with a nickname for you,” she told me. “How about … well, I could use your Korean name.” she said. After thinking for a while, she spoke up again. “How about ‘Jinnie’?”

                I thought about it. “Well that means I get to call you ‘Yeonnie’,” I told her.

                She thought about it and then smiled. “Ok. I kind of like that nickname. It’s cute,” Jessi said. She turned her head towards me, who had a questioning gaze. I still remembered the first entry in the notebook Tiffany gave us. “Can you call me that from now on?” she asked with a begging smile.

                “I’ll try my best to remember,” I told her.

                “Yah! That’s not an excuse to not use my new nickname, right Jinnie?”

                “Right,” I told her. She looked at me expectantly, so I amended what I said. “Right, Yeonnie.”

                She smiled with satisfaction and we continued walking.

                “Al, wait up!” a female voice said behind me. We stopped to look back at a girl running to catch up with a guy that had just passed us.

                Al looked back. “Oh, I thought you weren’t coming,” he said apologetically. “Sorry about that.”

                The girl caught up, and they continued walking. “See? Giving each other nicknames doesn’t make us look like a couple,” Jessi said. I nodded. Maybe the other day’s incident made me paranoid, because I still don’t know exactly what we do that looks like a couple. I guess that’s what the notebook is for though.

                When we got home, Jessi took out said notebook and added the second entry: “DO—Give Each Other Nicknames”.

Hello all!

I've been working on my blog, so I wasn't able to work on this as much as I hoped to DX sorry about that. I meant for this story series thing to be a collection of short and sweet chapters about a specific topic, but all the stories are in chronological order and have an overal plot.

Anyways, thanks for reading!