Phone-Sized Love Stories // G.G. One Shots & Stories

Minnie - Exam stress

You were sitting on your desk, frowning, with a hand on your face to prevent exhaustion from planting your nose flat on the desk. Your eyes were burning, your eyelids felt heavy, your back was giving up on you, and the engines inside your brain were too filled with rust to function properly.

Late-night study sessions were the norm for most students, especially if the competition was high. But it was all easy and done with the help of a coffee and the incoming threat. The problem was doing it for a week straight. At this point, coffee didn't work anymore and the only thing keeping you awake was pure willpower. You knew the finals were near and you were terrified, you couldn't stop now.

Nicha knew something was wrong. She briefly wondered if it was just her impression but really she just noticed all those minor differences in your behavior—you started talking to her less, compressing your conversations into tiny paragraphs, your movements got more sluggish, and your brightness seemed to fade away.

She wasn't worried about you cheating, losing feelings, and whatnot. Her first guess was your health. But then she remembered what you told her weeks ago: "Nicha, the finals are coming so I'll have to study a lot more. Sorry, I'll make up for it when they're finished, okay?"

Nicha walked down the corridor and into your room.

"Baby...how's the studying going?" she asked softly, barely touching your shoulder. "I know math makes you feel like you want to rip your eyes out..."

You didn't answer at first. You didn't really hear her—it took you a moment to register her voice.

"Hey, sweetheart? How's it going? Definitely see more writing in that notebook..." Nicha made another attempt, putting her head closer to you to look at your desk.

It was because you turned around and looked at Nicha, that you finally noticed the dark sky out of the window and realized how late it was. She looked at you, a bit surprised at your furious eyes and crooked frown. Your expression wasn't as contorted as it looked, but the dark circles stepped it up a notch.

"Why are you looking at me like that...?" she whispered with hesitation.

You let out a loud growl, turning around and ripped away a page of your notebook. Whatever. You didn't need those, they came out all wrong anyways. You were going insane. You studied math all afternoon: you got most of them right at the start but as time went on, you kept making more mistakes and now they were all wrong. What was even more frustrating was how stupid the errors were.

"Oh, oh, okay. Erm...baby?" Nicha stumbled, trying to find the right words.

You sighed and shoved your face in your hand for the nth time to scrap the tiredness out of your skin.

"Sweetheart, are you...are you mad at ME? If I need to give you space, I will, I just..."

"No, no, it's not you Nicha," you finally spoke up.

"No? Okay. Are you frustrated?"

"Yeah... sorry, Nicha, I kinda snapped. It all kinda stacked up—the exercises look impossible, studying the same subjects for days is so tiring, the news of the test are making more and more scared, I really need to study more, to get more of them right, I—"

"It's okay baby," she shut you up, placing a hand on your nape. You closed your lips and listened to her voice. If it wasn't for her, you'd just be raging even more and tire yourself uselessly. "You don't have to explain—I get it. Math wasn't my....best subject either."

"There's this thing where I need to compute this thing and I need all sort of tricks. I probably have to see it like a convolution or something..."

"Uhhh... What the hell is that?" Nicha's honest reply made you chuckle. Your words really sounded absurd.