Maybe I had only dreamt the events of three a.m. By the time I woke up early in the morning, I was alone on the bed. Even though sleeping alone wasn’t unusual in any way, there remained an odd sense of emptiness in my chest. It was as if the bed had grown larger and me smaller. Like how a drop of black paint accented itself on a blank white canvas. There seemed to be too much space on this bed for just one person to be lying on…

Why had I become such a sensitive poet first thing in the morning? Perhaps I had yet to fully wake up because my thoughts weren’t making any sense right now. I had no reason to complain about how big my bed was when I had purposely upgraded the size of it upon moving to this apartment. It had always been a dream of mine to have a huge bed solely to myself. To be able to laze and snooze about as much as I pleased without banging my feet on the wall after a single roll or being pushed off by a visiting older sister. (Hana Unnie’s old bedroom got repurposed for storage after she moved out, so she had to sleep with me whenever she came to see my parents.)

I thought I had gotten myself together by the time I stepped out of my room. However, my entire body froze at the sight of Elsie fast asleep on the futon. She was in her pajamas, and her face was makeup-free. She must have not come home completely wasted after all. Either that, or she had woken up in the middle of the night to straighten herself out before returning to sleep. Now that I thought about it, that probably made more sense. She had to have been sleeping next to me before that. Everything had felt too real for it to have been a dream.

But if Elsie had actually been there at three in the morning, then that thought I had of her lips—and my lips… No, I hadn’t kissed her, though. I hadn’t…

I caught myself staring at my sleeping roommate for too long. This was getting weird. I patted my cheeks in an attempt to recover my lost senses while heading into the bathroom. I needed to wash my face.

. . .

“Welcome—” The word retracted into my throat.

“Hello, Yura Seonbae.”

“Woojin.” My voice came out as a weak whisper. Saying his name proved to be so difficult. I couldn’t look at him, my eyes instead picking a random spot on the counter. “Why are you here…?”

Only after asking the question did I realize how stupid it was. I was adding meaning to meaningless things again. This café was right off campus. He was a student at the same university as me. This place had good coffee and more comics than anyone needed. It wasn’t exam period. Lots of people enjoyed reading manga and manhwa. The list went on. In the end, Woojin’s reason was simply that he had decided to stop by after class. I didn’t say much to that because that was probably all it was.

Woojin ordered his drink and took a seat at an empty table. As I should have guessed, he only came here as a customer and nothing else.

“Yura, why don’t you give this to your friend over there?” my boss soon said, handing me a slice of vanilla cake. “Tell him it’s on the house.”

I was tempted to tell her he wasn’t my friend, but I couldn’t bring myself to it. Better friends than awkward strangers, even though the latter was probably closer to the truth. Maybe this cake could restore some hope for us.

“Here you go,” I said, placing the glass of iced coffee and plate of cake down in front of him. I hugged the tray close to my chest. “Um, the cake is on the house.”

He looked at me, eyes wide and joyful. “Wow, thank you, Seonbae.” He took a bite of the cake and nodded in approval. The unexpected happened after that. He held out a piece with his fork for me to have some, too.

I grew conscious of the people around us. At least one of them had to be staring. However, with how things ended last time, I couldn’t refuse this chance of getting a little bit closer to him. I opened my mouth and went for it with no second thoughts. The delicious sweetness of vanilla automatically put a smile on my blushing face.

“It’s good,” I said happily.

“Yes, it is…” Woojin lowered his head, but I could have sworn to catch him blushing, too. What was going on here?

Before my mind could make any assumptions, I said, “I should go back to work now.”

“Hey, Yura Seonbae?”

I stopped midway from turning around. “Um, yeah?”

“If it’s okay with you, could we grab dinner together? After you get off work, of course.”

“But I get off at ten.”

“It’s okay.” Woojin raised his face back up to me with a soft smile. “I can wait until then.”

“O-Okay…”

I had to quit assuming things! My imagination was getting out of hand. But Woojin was making it increasingly harder for me not to think he kind of liked me. He was willing to wait three hours to have dinner together. And at quite a late time, might I add. As fast as my heart was beating, in a way, this moment became a relief.

Because I was sure I liked Woojin, too.