Under the Blue Moon

Chapter 4

You wake up Monday morning still feeling tired from the weekend. Your first class on Monday isn't until 1:00 PM so you decide to indulge yourself and sleep in until 10:00. Your alarm wakes you at 10:00 AM and you immediately start your day. You plan to get at least half of the revision done for your poli-sci paper and also to get started on studying for two of your exams today. You are grateful for the few extra hours of sleep this morning because you'll be going into work tonight. After your class, you spend some time doing the school work that you promised yourself you'd do.

At around 5:30 PM, you meet up with some of your friends at the dining hall to have dinner. Your friends ask if you can hang out with them tonight. You apologize for not being available because of work and take a raincheck. After dinner, you head back to your room to get your things ready for work. Around 6:30, you leave your dorm room and head for the library. You get to work a bit earlier than usual, so you have a little extra time to take a look at the work schedule for the upcoming month. For the next month, you are only on three days a week with the exception of one. So, you decide to request to be on one additional day the other 3 weeks. You think, "I'll put all of the extra shift money towards Warren's car fund."

At 7:00 PM, you are ready to start your workday. There are no left-over work from earlier today, so you go ahead and start your normal work routine. By 9:30, all of the things that you have to take care of has been completed. So, now you are going to start the revision of that research paper and see if you can get some studying done. Around 10:00, the library clears out and things go very quiet.

You've always enjoyed the stillness when you are in the library by yourself. You bring your attention back to your paper and continue with the revision. You only have half of the paper left to revise until you are completely done with it. You find that the second half of your paper really needs little to know revision and you think you can get the whole thing completed before 11:00 tonight. 

About thirty minutes into working on your paper, you hear the door to the main library, open and close. Instinctively, you look up to see who it is, and you realize it is Jin. He doesn't seem to notice you, so you tell yourself to get a grip and return to finishing up your paper. Another 20 minutes and you are now done. You save all your work, close up your laptop and move onto studying for your chemistry test.

The library is so silent that you think you can hear your own heart beating. You force yourself to not look around, lest Jin notice that you are trying to gawk at him. You keep your head down and continue to read the chemistry text. Whenever you sit up straight, you can see Jin in your peripheral vision. Still keeping your head down in the chemistry textbook, you remind yourself to ignore the urge to stare at the good-looking man and to memorize the goddamn chemistry equations. But every time you fix your posture and sit up straight, you can see Jin looking over at you. You don't dare look up. You think to yourself, "This is ridiculous. You have never been a boy-crazy girl before and you are not going to start now. Focus on chemistry, damnit."

The time ticks by and you are able to muster up some mental fortitude to keep your focus  on chemistry. The next time you look up at the clock, it is 12:10 AM. You finally give yourself permission to look around the library floor. You see Jin still sitting in the corner table. He usually leaves around 11:00 and you have not seen him at the library this late before. You think, "Why is he still here? He should have left by now." You attempt to bring your focus back on to the topic of chemistry, but you realize you've read the same paragraph three times now and still have no clue what your read. You admonish yourself internally for continually letting your mind wonder off and away from what you are studying. You tell yourself, "Will you just finish reading this chapter? Once the chapter is done, you can look at anything you'd like, Jesus Christ!" After a thorough self-admonishing, you are able to focus back on the text book and manage to retain most of what you read. As promised, when you finish your chapter, you allow yourself to look up and around. But when you do, Jin is standing right in front of you.