━ 𝘁𝘅𝘁 𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀

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Requested by: hyunshualatte

"Oh my god..." Choi Seoyeon muttered, staring at her mathematics paper as her brows furrowed, creating a deeper frown line on her forehead. Around her, it was silent except for the furious scribbles, sounds of paper flipping and the sound of soft frustrated sighs now and then in the room. The students were sitting for their mathematics prelims paper that would help them gauge how prepared they were before their finals a few months later.

Seoyeon had been struggling with the subject for as long as she could remember and the difficulty level just kept getting worse year after year, making her highly stressed out and anxious about her examinations. She had started revisions extra early this year, going through every chapter, and every concept as detailed as she could, practising a set of questions every day to prepare for the prelims alone. Unfortunately, her efforts only helped her through a quarter of those questions that stared back at her on the paper. However hard she wrecked her brain, she couldn't seem to find the solution to the problems and it didn't help that almost everyone seemed to be finding the paper alright from the relaxed expressions on their faces. Seoyeon wanted to cry then and there but gritted her teeth, forcing herself to concentrate on the paper instead of having negative thoughts that would slow her down.

"Time's up, please put down your pens." The invigilator's voice rang sharply through the room, and Seoyeon put her stationery down, sighing in defeat. She had tried her best to attempt every question and just had to hope for the best now. After the papers were collected, she subconsciously turned to face Kang Taehyun who was sitting diagonally behind her. Kang Taehyun, the smartest guy in the class, and her crush for the longest time.

As if he knew she was staring at him, he shifted his gaze, his eyes locking onto hers in a way that made her want to gasp for air from the intensity of his stare. He seemed like he was trying to read her and she looked away quickly, breaking off their eye contact as she hastily shoved her stationery into her pencil case.

Kang Taehyun had been her closest friend during her childhood, her fondest memories were all with him. Their mothers were best friends and the two would often have playdates, taking turns visiting each other every weekend. They used to play together, and learn different things together. When they grew slightly older, they were each other's confidant, whatever rants they had, they told each other without fearing that they would be judged.

It was all wonderful, until one day when they were nearing the end of middle school, they stopped talking. Seoyeon had no idea why Taehyun started distancing himself from her and when she tried to talk to him about the matter, he would simply change the topic and not give her a proper explanation, hurting her feelings even if he didn't mean to.

Seoyeon didn't know when she had been crushing on Taehyun, but she just felt awkward around him as they grew older, and paid more attention to her appearance when he was around. She even remembered the time there was this girl in her first year of middle school that was crushing on Taehyun too and the girl had asked if Seoyeon could pass a letter to Taehyun. Seoyeon agreed on the surface but feared that Taehyun would ditch her if he were to date the girl and without thinking the matter through properly, Seoyeon found herself stuffing the letter into the bottom of her bag, and the letter never made it to Taehyun. She felt bad for doing it after that when the girl asked her about Taehyun's reaction to the letter and she had to lie to the girl, saying that Taehyun wasn't looking for a girlfriend then. Technically it wasn't a lie because Taehyun never really had any interest in dating, stating that he was too young to date in middle school.

"Tyun, who are you looking at?" Beomgyu asked, following his friend's gaze and found that he was looking at Choi Seoyeon. Taehyun shifted his gaze somewhere else, not answering Beomgyu. "Come on, who is it? Choi Seoyeon?" Beomgyu guessed, and Taehyun let out a grunt in response. "Why don't you tell her you like her? You've been crushing on her for a few years now, staring at her won't help," Beomgyu stated, propping his chin up with one hand. "Hyung, she's going to hear you if you're speaking so loudly," Taehyun urged, eyes darting anxiously to Seoyeon, hoping she didn't catch what Beomgyu said.