Seed Crystal

143

Part 2

Matt sits up on his bed before pressing the snooze button on his phone.

He normally gets to two snoozes before he can manage to pull himself up from the warmth of his bed. Better safe than sorry. He doesn't really want to oversleep when he has an early morning class.

Unlike the rest of his peers, he's a morning bird. Matt studies better in the morning than late into the night.

He knows he's an outlier when it comes to his peers in the university and he did try to adjust to the body clock of his classmates before but-

Matt doesn't think about that semester.

Maybe that's why he is grateful to know Julie. Despite her chronic habit of staying up way later than the rest of them, she has managed to find a couple of techniques to make sure that he doesn't get left out of group works. Techniques that he finds himself utilizing in classes they don't have together. They are studying different courses after all; related, but ultimately they'll be taking different majors sooner or later.

And maybe he is interested in Julie. But she seems to have focused on her commitments to student organizations. He has some, but he makes it a point to limit the tasks he takes. Not like Julie, who has decided to run as an officer in one of hers by the next school year. Don't get him wrong, he likes the time he gets to spend with her but Julie doesn't need more reasons to stay up late any more than she already does.

Or maybe he's just giving himself more excuses to chicken out.

His first snooze rings.

Matt picks up his phone to scroll through his notifications. Just the regular chatter from group chats. Nothing much. But one group chat seemed to have been lively the entire night as most of his classmates had been cramming their homework for the whole night.

Then, he finds a private message from Julie just under that chat.

She's asking for the answer to number 3.

Matt finally gets out of bed and pulls the paper from his bag. He types in the three numbers boxed on number 3 and hits send.

"143"

Huh, a teasing coincidence. If only he's a lot more-

Julie immediately replies with "?".

Wait...

Matt checks their prior messages, pretty sure that that is the last thing she sent him. A cursory tap on her previous chat message tells him she sent it at half past 10 pm when he was already asleep. Six hours prior and...

Did she forget?

"Yeah, 143. Can you guess what it means?"

Matt cannot help the smile that greets him. But he erases that.

"Why? What would it mean to you?"

He erases that, too.

"I like you."

He cringes at that one and smashes the backspace. Matt knows his brain hasn't booted up fully but he still knows he's going to regret sending that if he did.

Or maybe that's why she asked it in the first place. Maybe she wants him to admit it first.

Does he want to?

Will he be rejected? Julie does not lack any friends or potential boyfriends in her group. Heck, she can even get herself a girlfriend if she so wants to.

But maybe he should just send it before he backs out.

"The answer to number three is 143 N. I've checked :D"

Maybe he should have just sent his latest draft, then say he's kidding if she doesn't feel the same.

He groans and tosses his phone on his bed.

Matt sits at his desk, planning to get an hour of studying done before he heads out for his first class. He scans through the answered homework in his hands and finds that the concepts to number three are needed for the later questions.

Then, his phone rings. "How?" the message reads.

An opportunity, huh?

"You have a vacant period before class, right? Meet me in the library, I can let you copy mine (y)."

The thumbs-up sign didn't transform into an emoji and Matt cringes again. But hey, that has happened in previous conversations with Julie she doesn't seem to mind.

"Ok. Thanks <3, I owe you for this."

That heart made his day and it has barely even started.