study buddies - sjy

two

CHAPTER TWO ::: I walked into the library and looked over at the librarian who I was familiar with and who knew my name. She bowed at me as a greeting and I bowed back as I said hello before I walked past her and over to one of the tables in the back. I had texted Jake when the bell rang and he said he'd be at the library a few minutes late.

I put my bag on the chair next to me, leaving the seats across the table for Jake. I then took out my laptop and physics things along with my Chinese things. I then went on my phone and saw that Jake had texted me a text a minute ago saying he was on his way.

I then heard a loud voice which sounded just like Jake's so obviously he was here. I sighed before I shut my phone off and watched as Jake walked over. He put his stuff at one of the seats and sat at the seat across from me. He then sat down and rudely put his legs out so that they were all in my space as he took his stuff out.

I chose not to say anything as I watched him take his stuff out. He then looked over at me and smiled, "Who's first?" He asked.

"Can we take care of Physics first?" I ask and he nods and I open my Physics packet to show him what I was stuck on. I slid the paper in the middle of the table so that we could both see.

He looked at it for a moment before he grabbed his pen and pointed to my problem with the tip of it. "You've been messing up the equation, that's the problem." He tells me before he points at the problem above it as well. "See you messed it up here too and I'm sure you did it at all the ones with this equation in this packet." He tells me and I nod.

He then takes his pen and writes out the correct equation on the side, "This is right." He says, now switching to English when this whole time we've been speaking Korean. Luckily though, English is taught quite well in China and along with that, I had moved to America, New York to be specific, from when I was seven to thirteen so I was fluent. And then I moved back to China for two years and we continued studying there before I came to Seoul so- I was good.

"My bad." I say back to the boy in English.

"I know you speak English but are you fluent?" He asks, changing the subject for a moment.

"Yeah, I moved to New York when I was younger and lived there for a decent amount of time. And besides that, China taught me pretty well so I was already pretty good." I tell the boy, in full English, who nods.

"You got a New York accent when you speak." He says and I giggle.

"Well I was in Manhattan so obviously." I say back. "But enough about that, we can speak in all English if you want?" I suggest.

"That'd be good." He says and I nod.

"Anyways, let me try this question again then." I say grabbing the paper and my pencil before I retry the equation.

::: "Okay, Chinese time!" I say, done with all my Physics things.

"Right.." He says before he pulls out his Chinese stuff. "So in class today, you know how we were going over all the stuff like furniture and objects in a home or whatever?" Jake asks and I nod. "Yeah, I didn't understand shit." He says and can't help but laugh in response.

"Okay, well do you have flashcards?" I ask the boy who shakes his head.

"One second." I say before I get up and head to the front desk and ask my favorite librarian, the one I greeted when I first got here, Miss Park, for some flashcards. She gladly hands them to me and I walk back to Jake with a stack of them.

"Alright, are you good at writing?" I ask and he shakes his head.

"Fuck no, don't you hear Mister Cai yelling at me for my terrible writing like everyday?" He asks.

"That's true." I trail off. "Whatever, I'll write." I kindly say.

"Okay first word is 臥鋪. Do you know what that means?" I ask.

"Nope." He responds.

"Sofa. You can remember it easily if you remember it's somewhat pronounced like sofa in English." I tell Jake as I write it down.

"Next,桌子. That means table." I say, writing that down now.

::: "Okay, there are your flashcards study them I guess." I tell Jake as I hand him the stack of cards. "Can I be honest with you?" I then ask, feeling impulsive.

"Sure." He says as he grabs the cards from me, shoving them into his bag.

"I'm shocked. I didn't think you were actually smart until you started teaching me all that math stuff." I truthfully say.

He chuckles, "I get it, it's just too good to be true, right? I'm hot and smart, I'm the whole package." He winks.

"Alright, that's enough." I say, trying to stay serious but I couldn't help the smile that formed on my lips.

"See, you can't even deny it." Jake says as he gets up from his seat and I do the same.

"I'm gonna go Jake, I'll see you tomorrow." I tell the boy, to get him to stop boasting about himself.

"Wait, let me walk with you." Jake says.

"No~" I respond.

"Wow, I just helped you with your work and you're not gonna let me walk with you?" He dramatically says as he puts his hand on his heart, walking over to me.

"Well, I helped you study too." I tell the boy who shrugs.

"Whatever, we're walking together." He says and stays right next to me as we walk out of the library. We then walk through the halls and once we get out of the main entrance, I take a cigarette pack out of my uniform pocket. I shake it, since it was a new pack, and then I pull one out, putting the pack back in my uniform.

Jake watches and I look over to him, "Want one?" I ask as we walk down the steps.

"Sure. I'm just shocked." He says.

"Why?" I ask as I take the pack out again and pull one out for Jake, handing it to him.

"I thought you were too much of a good girl to smoke, guess I was mistaken." He teases.

"Whatever." I say as I pull my lighter out and put my cigarette in my mouth, lighting it. I keep the lit cigarette in my mouth for a second before I hand the lighter to Jake. He puts it into his mouth and I watch as he lights it up, covering the other side of the lighter with his hand as he does so, so that the wind wouldn't blow the fire out. He then hands me back the lighter and takes a puff, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and exhaling the smoke. I do the same as I take my lighter from him and put it back into my pocket.

Truthfully, I found him smoking so attractive. It wasn't even the smoking itself cause let's be real, smoking itself is unattractive it's just when the person smoking is fine, it makes the smoking itself look fine.

"Thanks Lili, I'll pay you back tomorrow. I'll text you later." He says before he puts the cigarette back in his mouth and walks off. The nickname, him smoking in his uniform, his hair, him. I don't know, it was kind of too much to handle. These feelings were so sudden, I mean I always found him attractive, I mean obviously he was, but I had never felt this attracted to him, you know what I mean? There's like, a difference.