"Time is a long sunrise where we wait for our haloes."
— Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides
Hunsaker is blanketed in white upon your return. And the air is freezing. You watch your breath leave your body, half-expecting to see the vapor turn to ice in midair. Against all odds (mainly your warm bed that offers refuge from the bleak midwinter), you make it to class on time on the first day of the new semester. With your Senior Capstone course completed, it's going to be a much lighter semester. Accordingly, when you go in for your shift at the library later in the day, you sign up to work more hours. Might as well make as much cash as you can before graduation.
You're stamping books at the circulation desk when your phone buzzes with a text from Yoongi.
YOONGI: Hey, Y/N-ah. <3 How's your first day back?
The heart emoticon makes you giddy. You feel silly for feeling giddy. But not enough to be guilty about it.
Y/N: It's been good. Same old profs, all my favorites. And campus is beautiful with all the snow. It's not quite the same without you, though.
YOONGI: I bet it's quieter without me.
Y/N: I'm sure there's less breaking and entering going on. Particularly onto the library roof.
YOONGI: What a shame. You'll have to teach some naive freshmen our ways.
Y/N: Nah. The roof is kind of our thing. When you're able to join me up there again, I don't want us to be interrupted ;)
Did I really just type that? You marvel. There's something about texting that makes me fearless. He doesn't respond for a bit, and you grow worried that you've scared him off. But your phone buzzes soon enough.
YOONGI: Good point ;)
YOONGI: Gosh. Time goes by slower when you're not with me.
Y/N: Same here.
Y/N: CRAP. Our regular gaggle of old ladies from town just walked in. I'll have to help them find their tawdry romance novels. They love anything with a bare-chested man on the cover, though, so it shouldn't be too hard. Still, 5:00 can't come fast enough.
He sends back a series of laughing emojis. (Thirteen of them, to be exact. It's a little overkill, but that's Yoongi for you.) Then he switches back into serious Yoongi mode.
YOONGI: I'm not worried about you being there without me. You'll succeed in school, and they LOVE you at work.
YOONGI: But . . . since I can't be with you until April, you'll be getting packages from me. Every week, on Thursday nights.
Y/N: ??? Gifts? Yoongs, you don't have to do that.
YOONGI: They're not gifts. Not exactly.
YOONGI: They're date packages. Some are just envelopes, some are boxes. They'll have instructions and everything you need to take yourself out on dates.
YOONGI: And you can just pretend that I'm there.
I'm melting, you look up at the ceiling, grinning. Melting into a puddle of emotional mush. HE IS SO SWEET.
________________________
The following Thursday night, as promised, Yoongi's first "self-date package" arrives. It's a box with a gingerbread house kit and enough cash to rent a movie.
"I know Christmas has come and gone," his neatly handwritten note reads, "but this is something we never got to do together.
"I want you to set a timer and text me how long it takes until you give up on trying to build the gingerbread houses. And then, I want you to pick the cheesiest Christmas romance movie you can think of. You can enjoy it, since I'm not there to make fun of it."
YOU ARE READING
You Infire Me
FanfictionYou're a senior in college, about to finish up and escape the small town of Hunsaker, West Virginia forever. You've also got intense anxiety bubbling up within you, threatening to pull you apart at the seams. Your last fall semester has come, and it...
