𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐞 ||| 𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐯 (𝟐)

[ 𝟏𝟖 ]

It was another Friday evening at Seoul National University and everyone was cramming for midterms. I held a pile of books in my hands and placed them in front of Winter. She glanced at me and gestured for me to sit down.

"Looks like someone's got a lot of studying to do," Winter commented.

I sighed and stretched my arms upwards. Soon, Winter and I were immersed in a deep conversation about the difficulty of college classes.

"I swear Mrs. Choi goes through her presentations so fast as if she's always in a hurry to go somewhere," I complained. "Oh and don't even get me started on Mr. Lee, he doesn't even bother teaching anything. It's like a class where you just have to learn everything on your own. Thank goodness you have Ms. Kyung, at least he teaches even if he's always 15 minutes late to class."

"Yeah well it's okay we'll try our best now," Winter said. "Here you go, I got you some jelly."

I thanked her and ate some of the alien-shaped jellies. After our mini snack break, Winter and I continued studying. A few hours later, I stood up to stretch a little bit. Winter also shut her books close after a couple of minutes and yawned.

"I'm tired, my brain has worked a lot today," she said.

"Yeah, same. Let's pack up and head back to our dorms."

We packed up and walked out of the library. The sun had begun to set as shades of violet and cobalt blue filled the sky. Many students walked around the park chatting amongst themselves and a few played basketball at the court.

"Oh, I just remembered," Winter said. "Karina created a study group and asked me to join. She also invited you to join, if you were interested."

"Sounds cool, I'll join," I replied. "Who else is in the group?"

"I don't know. But I do know that the first meeting is tomorrow evening."

"Okay, just call me and we can go together."

On Saturday evening, Winter and I arrived at the study group meeting at 4 pm. It was held at a cafe just a walk from the college. Winter and I walked inside and joined three girls and three guys sitting at a table. I recognized the girl with midnight blue wavy hair who wore a simple white crop top with black baggy sweatpants as Winter's friend, Karina Yoo.

Next to her sat a pair of twins who introduced themselves as Han Ryujin and Han Sohee. Both of them were pretty talkative—Sohee being a bit shyer than her counterpart—and knew the college pretty well since they were sophomores. Near them sat Kim Kai and Lee Taemin who were pretty tall juniors. They seemed kind and humble people. Finally, the last guy was Dong Sicheng, a sophomore who was much quieter than all of them.

Winter immediately connected with everyone and they chatted for some time. On the other hand, I was a bit shy due to not being fluent in Korean. Sicheng also added in the conversation from time to time. From his accent, I could tell he was Chinese too. Instead of chatting with everyone else, I focused on studying since that's what I was here for. Sicheng also did the same. Soon enough, everyone was studying.

After a couple of hours, Ryujin and Sohee decided to leave since it was dinner time. Kai and Taemin accompanied the sisters as they had all carpooled together to and from the cafe.

"See you, guys. It was nice studying together," Taemin said.

"Yeah, we should definitely do this again next week," Ryujin suggested.

"Definitely, if it fits well with everyone's schedule," Karina placed her book down momentarily.

"We can discuss the timings in the group chat," Winter said.

Everyone agreed to meet again someday. After half of the group left, Karina and Winter decided to get dinner together. They invited us too, but I declined since I wanted to study more.

"I'll pass too. I want to review more chapters today," Sicheng spoke up. This was the first time I had heard his voice. It was deep and husky which was not something I expected.

"Alright, we'll leave you two to it," Winter said.

I smiled and thanked them for inviting me to the study group.

"No problem," Karina replied. "Winter talked about you multiple times and said that you were new to South Korea so I thought you might want to make more friends. I hope the study group helped you."

"Yeah, it helped a lot."

We all said our goodbyes and then I went back to studying. A couple of hours passed until Sicheng and I decided to call it a day. We packed up our bags and walked out of the library.

"It was nice meeting you, Sicheng," I broke the awkward silence between us.

He nodded and stood there silently.

"You speak Chinese right?" Sicheng asked and I nodded.

He switched to Chinese and said, "It was peaceful studying with you. No offense, but with the others around it was noisy and I wasn't able to concentrate."

"I agree with you."

"Are you going back to the dorms?" he asked.

"Yeah, you?"

"Same place. I'll drop you off," Sicheng offered.

"Ah no, I don't want to trouble you-"

"It's dark outside, you shouldn't go out alone, it can be dangerous. Think of it as a thank you gesture."

I insisted on going alone but he had a valid point so I accepted his offer. We walked back to the dorms together and before parting ways, Sicheng and I exchanged phone numbers.

"If you need any help, you can contact me," Sicheng said.

"Thank you. Goodnight," I waved.

"Goodnight Mingxia," Sicheng waved and walked away.