sober | j.jk

12 ‣ boy problems

"I had a dream about you." You tell Rafael as you lazily open your textbook. He looks up at you from across the big library table and furrows his brows, no longer paying attention to the thirst trap replaying the same twenty-second audio in his left earbud. "Jaebyung suckerpunched the shit out of you after you turned into a zombie and tried to bite your coworker over there." You nod over toward the tall girl in the glasses quietly shelving some books.

"Jaebyung did?" Rafael raises an eyebrow, fighting down a cackle. "What the fuck kind of things go through your head to dream up something like that?" He chuckles mutedly, trying his hardest not to disrupt the rest of the miserable students trying to study in your vicinity. "Do you subconsciously want to suckerpunch me?" He asks, watching as you press your lips into a line and glare up at him while you slump in your seat and shake your head no. "You look beat."

"I know." You grumble, blankly reading over a couple sentences. "I missed my stats class this morning and I couldn't even focus in O-chem because my head wouldn't stop hurting." You complain, getting annoyed all over again. The damn headache hasn't even gone away completely yet. "Thankfully, for my other class the professor sent an email saying he's not here, so we can just worry about catching up with work he's already assigned." You lean your head back.

"The hell did you do last night?" Rafael inquires, seeing as you close your eyes and stay in that seemingly-uncomfortable position. "Don't tell me you fucking stayed up all night working on some project for Johnson again."

"No." You draw out the word, slowly opening your eyes and looking up at the ceiling as if you'd pass out any minute. "I didn't stay up all night." You squint, pointlessly trying to remember the time you knocked out. "Or, at least I don't think it was that late when I went to sleep." You trail off. "I wasn't doing any schoolwork, either." You finally straighten out your neck again. "I was drinking, though. Clearly I went way overboard." You sigh, rubbing your temples.

"Clearly." Rafael shakes his head. "What the hell am I gonna do with you, child..?" He mutters. You puff out a short laugh. He smiles. "Drinking, huh?" Rafael reaches over and gently pushes your forehead back with his fingers. "On a Sunday night? Alone?"

You look down at your textbook and nod. "Mhm." You lie. "Stupid, I know." You sigh again.

"Very." Rafael agrees. "Very, very stupid." He mumbles. The dark haired young man slumps back in his seat too, placing his phone face down on the wooden surface before him. "Is school kicking your ass that much? Or is it guy problems I'm not aware of? It better be the first one because if I find out you've been messing around with someone and you haven't told me—" his words start getting faster and faster.

"The first one." You cut him off with another lie. Rafael squints his eyes at you. "What?" You widen your eyes, feigning all the innocence in the world. Your friend tilts his head as if expecting more words to come out of your mouth. "I wanted to take it easy since I've been so stressed about all the exams coming up in all my damn classes, so I went out for coffee in the morning but that got ruined, so I went back to my dorm and I happened to have some alcohol so I drank it all to feel better."

"Girl, you're a mess." Rafael laughs. "Funny how you didn't even bother telling me who you got coffee with."

"Hm?"

"I have everyone on Snapchat. I saw Gina's whole episode with that guy you were sitting across from." Rafael takes a sip out of his water bottle. Your heart sinks. Of course someone would record in there.  "He's good looking, eh." Rafael tips the bottle toward you. "I couldn't really see who Nana's victim was at first, but then, to my very great surprise, I catch the slightest glimpse of you, my dearest friend." He speaks evenly. Too evenly. "And then the video ends, so I swipe up."