Chapter Text
It was a cold evening, in the middle of spring, right in the middle of April. Well, to Haewon, it felt cold anyway.
Yet to Haewon, the cold, chilly wind of spring, felt dumb.
May was supposed to be spring; it was supposed to get warmer. The start of youth. The start of life. The start of the Earth’s awakening. Well, it was nearly the end of the first semester of university too, so that’s different.
And yet, here she was, clinging on to the scarf on her neck, that she (such a planner, good job Haewon) had ruffled into her bag. She felt proud, as she watched the myriads of people shiver as they left their warm classrooms into the middle of the university grounds. Foolishly, they hadn’t packed their scarves or sweaters.
Haewon had survived years of Seoul’s weather patterns, and there was no way she was backing away from it now. The weather app was her friend. Today, she checked it twice.
She gave the cold fools a little pitying look, almost smug, and then pulled out her phone. Almost like she was busy.
She wasn’t busy of course, she just didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone.
Well - Haewon did have somewhere to be. She kind of just didn’t want to be there yet. Her nose was kind of running, and the air - it stung at her throat, since it was so freaking dry for some strange reason. She just wanted to go home and lay on her bed.
She couldn’t do that now.
She had to meet her group project partner.
She had no idea who it was, though.
Their chat on Google Docs just involved the stranger using a Gmail account with a pseudonym or username.
Swifttee2002 - surely wasn’t a name. Unless there was a sudden boom of rare names in Korea - which Haewon wasn’t really aware of. Was it even legal to give your child a name with numbers?
Whoever it was, though, was kind enough to say that it was better to meet in person rather than through Google Docs.
Not that Haewon cared anyway, she wasn’t in economics class to make friends. She was just there because it was a core unit. Or whatever, something that she kind of just had to do. Her barely above-average GPA was at stake here, so she kind of had to pay attention to the group project that was 15% of her final grade.
In the end, Google Docs or not - Haewon would have probably been fine.
And, in the end, even if Haewon was ghosted, she would have done the whole thing herself with no objections or without starting a full on brawl with her group members.
She’s had too many cases where she had to take full responsibility anyway. This wasn’t different.
She climbed the library stairs two at a time, and regretted it immediately as her legs cramped up. Ugh. And the overachiever vibes of the library seemed to be whispering to her - she really didn’t belong here , did she? It was too fancy for a university library anyway, yet all the chairs screamed like they were propaganda for shrimp posture for nerds. Haewon was not a nerd.
She repeats, Haewon is not a nerd.
Second floor and there were the group rooms. They were oddly grey and writhing with grey people.
Literally, all of them glued to a book or laptop. Chatting away. Stern-faced. It was a bit scary. Haewon didn’t see herself like that at all.
The library was just academic manipulation. She shouldn’t give in now. Group work etiquette should be a crime.
Her eyes scanned for room 2.30, and perhaps she thought she should have put on her glasses, but she really wasn’t bothered to pull them out from her backpack.
2.28…
2.29…
And then -
Then she saw her.
The girl looked up from her laptop, her eyes were big, she had lipgloss on, her dyed brown hair fell to her shoulders. She studied a look at Haewon, almost squinting.
And for some fuckin’ reason - she was glowing ?
What the fuck.
Haewon quickly realised she was staring, her mouth agape, her hands in her jean pockets, looking stupidly at the girl like she fell from the sky. Quickly she fiddled her ID card out of her coat pocket, and tapped it in the security door before pushing it in and entering.
Strawberry.
The room smelled like strawberries.
“Hi? Econ204?” Haewon’s words came out like she was a pre-programmed android that would pass out on eye-contact with supposed goddesses that came from the sky. She just sounded like she was passing her voice crack off as confidence. And that made her look stupid.
“Oh, yes, hello I’m Lily.” And the girl had the audacity to sound nice too, “You are… Haewon?”
“Uh yeah, swifttee2002?”
“Oh.” The girl just buried her head into her hands, kind of embarrassed, “I didn’t change to my school account, did I? I’m sorry.”
Haewon kind of blinked. She kind of waited a beat or two.
“Cool, um, were you born in 2002?” Damn it, Haewon truly must be a conversationalist. She could have said “No worries,” or “Happens to the best of us,” or just raised her eyebrows and nodded. Now her conversations shifted to asking Lily her age.
Number one rule of the world her dad had taught her - never ask a woman her age (her dad didn’t know what age she turned on her 9th birthday).
“Y-yeah, I was.”
“That’s awesome sauce.”
Man. She really wanted to punch herself now.
“I-I mean I’m like from 2003, if you know what I mean, like not from - uh I was born then? Probably, yeah.”
Now that turned into wanting to spontaneously combust.
“Oh.” Lily kind of looked at Haewon, her mouth agape.
“Fascinating, right? Well I peaked emotionally 4 years ago, that’s when I got addicted to caffeine.”
Lily kind of looked at Haewon, blinked, and then laughed. Like, fully, like - god forbid, Haewon was kinda funny.
Haewon, conveniently, shifted her mind into thinking… thinking stupidly, like - god, she is so pretty .
Down bad.
“Oh, so you’re like a year younger than me?” Lily looked at Haewon, amusement still in her face.
“I guess…” Haewon sat down and started tapping her finger on the table, “Anyway, I won’t let our age get in the way of the professional group work that will be going on - but if I accidentally start calling you unnie you are not allowed to judge me, legally.”
“Oh I would never! Call me what you want, but that means I can call you Haewon-ah condescendingly, right?” She said, raising an eyebrow.
“You can try, but it will cause irreplaceable amounts of damage. It will also worsen my caffeine addiction.”
Lily giggled again, “Alright, I don’t want you dying on me here.”
Haewon felt her brain reboot. Her stupid antics were playing too well. She was actually getting along with Lily.
She had to ground herself, and state in her brain that she wasn’t here to flirt, or to panic whenever Lily got closer.
Which she was doing now.
Gulp.
“I’m gonna fix this here.” She said, socketing her laptop charger next to the powerpoint that Haewon was sitting right near, mind you.
The strawberry scent lingered so much in Haewon’s eyes she felt like she was going to die. Combust. Right there.
“Are you okay?”
Haewon didn’t realise she was staring right at Lily’s face like some sort of creep again.
“Uh, yeah it's cold, I guess... Climate change, hah!”
Lily giggled again, this time almost politely.
“Oh my god, I get that.”
Haewon’s head was doing cartwheels. She had no idea how long she would suffocate in that room. Apparently, the world was playing tricks on her.
Her project partner was nice, hot and competent?
What a damn difference to two weeks ago.
They worked for an hour.
An hour too long.
It felt like an eternity, because Haewon kept cracking jokes, and Lily kept laughing and it went too smoothly.
Why on Earth was she hitting on Lily?
God knew.
But, to be fair, Lily still kept them on track, occasionally spitting out terms like ‘marginal utility’ or ‘absolute advantage’ or ‘fisting policy’ (Haewon didn’t know if that was the correct ‘f’ word here), which only felt Haewon like Lily was an academic weapon.
She kept fixing Haewon’s mistakes in the document, Haewon practically begging her to save her from the turmoil of economics.
And she still reassured her, which was so kind, Haewon literally thought she would explode.
“Hey, your work is fine… it has your own twist to it…?”
“So emotionally unavailable and sarcastic?”
Lily laughed again this time, her shoulders moving.
“No, no, like… oddly fun? Cute? It’s hard to pick a few good words. There are so many.”
And damn, she also called Haewon cute ?
She was practically winning.
Haewon was noticing everything, it wasn’t just the strawberry scent. It was the way she leaned into the laptop when she was checking if something was okay. The way she hummed a tune when it went a little too quiet. The way she brushed her own hair out of her face when she faced Haewon.
God. Haewon was miserable. It was too hard to focus.
Her damn head was still doing cartwheels and soon, Lily suggested it was best if they met at another time.
Haewon was only happy to do so.
Obviously.
Even if it went nowhere, Lily was actually chill. They could be friends. Or… not?
When they were slowly leaving the room (Haewon obviously held the door open for Lily, she was a gentleman, thank you very much), Lily rummaged around in her bag and reached for her phone.
“Ummm, should I give you my number?”
No you shouldn’t. That is a very dangerous game , Haewon thought. She only thought. She didn’t say it out loud.
“Is that a warning signal? Should I be running away?”
And of course, Lily laughed again, the same kind of laugh that made Haewon go crazy.
“Mmmm, maybe you should be, I get very serious with this kind of stuff.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Did you?” Lily looked at her smirking, an eyebrow raised.
“I-I mean I didn’t hate it, I guess. It’s more like I need rest from all the failed group projects, it’s nice to have someone who actually does work. So thank you.”
“No, thank you, you actually listened to what I said, it felt liberating for once.” Lily was practically beaming now.
“Yeah? Were you stuck with too many deadweight groups too?”
“It’s practically a trademark of uni life.”
Haewon was the one giggling this time, again, dumbly. Maybe she thought she giggled too much. Or was too loud. Well her heartbeat was definitely too loud. And too scary.
Ugh.
She kind of sighed in her head and pulled out her own phone.
“Here, you should type mine in your phone.”
“Right.” Lily grabbed Haewon’s phone and just for a brief second, their hands touched. Haewon - was melting right there. This girl was practically damaging her nervous system. This was dangerous.
Lily handed it back as soon as she pinned Haewon’s number into her phone, “For group emergencies.” She smiled warmly, and once again her brain buffered like a twenty year old laptop on 5% battery.
“Or… I could call if I get in a freaky economics accident right?”
“Let’s hope the freaky economics accident doesn’t get you tonight then.”
There was a pause.
“See you later, Haewon-ah” Lily waved again, smiling warmly before adjusting her bag and leaving Haewon to look at the wall like she was just blinded by a flashbang.
HAEWON-AH?!
Man.
She almost walked into a bin on the way out.