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"Good afternoon, Songmin!"
The girl's eyes opened laboriously at the sound of Kinam's voice, her bone-weary disposition contrasting the bright, cheerful quality of his voice. Despite the many empty seats available below them in the lecture hall—the hall was very big and had almost twice the amount of seats as students in this cosmology class—he chose to sit down in the one right beside her.
For the past week, ever since the cosmology project had been completed and turned in, Kinam had voluntarily come up to Songmin during their shared classes (which was unfortunately more than one since, alongside the cosmology course, he was taking the exact same Korean writing class as she was) and sat down beside her.
He tried to make conversation and, as much as Songmin tried to keep her replies short and to the point or just didn't speak at all, he never gave up trying to interact with her. He'd even walk her out of the building or to her next class, which made Songmin extremely uncomfortable since he was acting closer to her than she felt to him, but she didn't have the heart to tell him to stop. He was trying to be nice and get closer to her and she just couldn't find it in her to bluntly object to his efforts.
Right as he was taking out his laptop and putting it on the table, another figure approached and tugged him up to take his spot. It was Chaeyoon, who plucked the laptop up off the long, thin table and handed it back to Kinam. "Sorry, Kinam, but I'm sitting here today. I need to have a girl-to-girl conversation with Songmin here, if you get what I mean. Hope you understand."
Through her half closed eyelids, Songmin could see how dejected Kinam was and felt sorry for him, but she was too grateful to Chaeyoon for saving her from having to sit next to his overly amiable magnetar-like presence and didn't step in to stop her. Nevertheless, Kinam picked up his belongings and, managing a sad smile, waved goodbye to the two girls, then went to find somewhere else to sit.
Chaeyoon watched as he left, a pitying expression on her face as if she were watching a tiny puppy walk alone through heavy rain. "Awwwww, he looks so heartbroken. You need to stop letting him sit next to you. He's getting attached and obviously not taking your hints."
Songmin sighed, setting her chin on her palm and letting her eyes close again. "I can't just tell him to go away, it would sound mean."
"I know it's difficult, but you're leading him on even if you don't mean to and rejecting him early on is better than letting him down later, when he starts to convince himself you actually like him." Chaeyoon lowered her voice as the professor walked in to begin the class, moving her head closer to Songmin so as to be heard more easily. "But on a different note, are you doing okay? You look like you haven't slept in ages and you haven't answered any of my texts since Saturday."
"School and work are just getting hard to juggle, that's all." It wasn't entirely a lie. Ever since returning from her parents' home on Saturday, Songmin had locked all of her focus on finding ways to earn money in a timely manner, turning off all of her notifications to eliminate distractions.
