His name was Ahn Woojin. He was a first-year, a year younger than me. We were both English majors, and we even had the same class today. It was the one Minji wanted to drop. Now I knew I couldn’t drop it myself. That class was from this morning. Woojin had not only paid attention when my name had been called for attendance but he also remembered who I was over eight hours later!

I was reading too much into this. If someone were to hear my thoughts right now, they would probably assume I was a creep. I should stop this, yet I couldn’t help how fast my heart kept beating. It was hard to turn in his direction. I felt him staring at me from time to time, to which I got the urge to turn my head even further away from him. My neck was beginning to get strained…

“Good work today, Yura,” my boss soon said.

I checked the wall clock behind the counter and saw that it was nearing ten p.m. already. “Um, thank you. I hadn’t done much.”

She chuckled, giving me a small pat on the back. “You’re doing great. Don’t worry. You can start going home now.”

My boss was kind enough to always let me go a few minutes earlier than when my actual shift ended. She even cut an hour off once when there had barely been any customers. But I wouldn’t talk about that night anymore.

I hung up my apron for the day and took out my school bag from one of the cabinets, only to get a near heart attack upon turning around. Trying to recover my breath from a silent gasp, I mumbled, “Hi, Woojin.”

“Hello, Yura Seonbae. Are you off work now?”

“Um, yeah.”

“I was about to head home, too.” He shrugged up the single backpack strap on his shoulder. “Should we go out together?”

Go out together. “Oh, gosh. No way—” I stared wide-eyed at him. “No, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say it like that!”

I felt a hand on my back pushing me forward. My boss had been standing behind me. She smiled at the two of us.

“Bye, Yura. See you tomorrow.”

That smile alone let me know she was misinterpreting everything. Face flushed and self-restraint fleeing from my legs, I said a quick goodbye to my boss and practically flung myself out of the café. I was pretty sure Woojin followed me out, but it would have been odd to chase after a girl who was obviously running away from him.

After a few blocks, I hit a red light. But by then, Woojin was nowhere in sight. I finally allowed myself to catch my breath. Why had I been running so fast? Honestly, I didn’t have an answer for that.

I was the worst. What a great way for me to leave a first impression on a guy I kind of sort of liked. Seeing myself like this, perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that I lacked dating history. Despite having had numerous chances in the past, I always found it easier to make excuses to turn them away. Rejecting guys might as well have become a bad habit at this point. But none of the high school boys left quite as big a regret as Woojin did. I seriously wanted to punch myself right now. I didn’t even get to tell him a proper farewell…

Amidst all my self-loathing, I somehow managed to make it home. I let out a long sigh before entering the apartment. I had just humiliated myself in front of an attractive guy and now had to end the night under the same roof as Elsie.

“Hey, Yura,” she said in the middle of an amusing phone call.

I couldn’t care less who she was talking to, but she seemed to be having quite a lot of fun with a can of beer in hand and snacks laid out on her bed. I noticed the snacks were the ones I had bought the other day. To that, I refused to give my roommate any more attention. Without saying a word to her, I stomped into my room, shutting the door extra loudly in a rather pathetic attempt to be a little defiant.

A few days had passed since Elsie’s unappreciated use of my bed. I had already made sure to wash everything at least once, though the uneasiness in my stomach lingered on as I lay over my sheets. I could only push down the awful feeling for now in the hopes it would go away on its own with time.

I was too exhausted to turn on the bedside lamp, choosing to stay in complete darkness. My backpack had been carelessly tossed somewhere between the door and the bed, leaving it in the perfect spot to be tripped over.

A knock came at the door. “Yura, I’m coming in.”

I found no point in Elsie knocking if she wasn’t even going to give me the option to remain alone. I rolled my unseen eyes at her.

Dim streaks of light followed her in through the half-opened door, but they weren’t enough to warn her of the abandoned backpack a few steps ahead. To make matters worse, my bag was black, making it all the more impossible to be noticed within the darkness.

A gasp was all I got to mentally prepare myself before Elsie tripped and fell onto the side of the bed where I was lying. I let out a groan, though it was more by instinct rather than from being in any pain. Elsie was barely touching me. Her arms were out to support herself, but they were shaking from the sudden weight. I felt her quickening breath on my neck. Although I couldn’t clearly see her eyes, I had a feeling they were looking into mine.

Our faces were so close. Her long brown hair draped down like curtains on either side of me, mixing with my own shorter brown locks. It was impossible to tell whose strands were whose. We were all clumped together, becoming a mass of one. The way that thought hit me made my breath hitch. I was forgetting how to breathe at all. The simple act of exhaling seemed too embarrassing with her right above me. Elsie was eerily quiet as well. However, she soon broke the silence.

“…May I kiss you?”

I was so certain I hated this girl. But what I was even more certain of was that I didn’t like girls enough to kiss them. I wasn’t like her. I wasn’t a lesbian.

Then, why had it ended up like this? I needed an explanation. Anything, please.

Why had I answered her yes?