Tzuyu's POV:
Parents weekend at Seoul just ended and it's back to work. I still have a Philosophy essay due tomorrow and so sit at my desk, writing it. There's a knock at the door which is odd because Rose has a room key of her own. She wouldn't have forgotten it because that's just not like Rose at all, in fact, she wears it on a chain around her neck. Maybe Eunha dropped in to say hey, like she said she would.
"Who is it?" I call out, only to hear the voice I least expected to hear. I open the door, surprised.
"Mingyu."
He clearly hasn't been on campus, he has a distinct tan and he's wearing board shorts in September. Who wears board shorts in September? On him, of course, it looks flawless.
"Tzuyu." He says, coming forward to hug me. The hug feels good, too good, I let go immediately.
"Are you going to let me in or do I have to continue to just stand here?" He asks, eyes smiling.
I shrug, and hold the door open, averting eye contact.
"Woah, you have a huge room." He says, walking around.
"Yep." I answer, though softly.
He walks back over to where I am, after having finished his inspection of my room.
"How did you find out which room I'm in?"
"The crazy girl that calls me Mingyu may have had a hand in this." He says, shrugging nonchalantly.
I wrack my brains. Who calls Mingyu , besides me (which I do solely to annoy him)? Wait, he said 'crazy girl'. Mina.
"Mina?" I reconfirm.
"Who else could it be?" He asks, laughing.
"Some girl at Korea." I tell him, seriously.
He sighs. "Tzuyu, do you really want me to move on?"
I'm close to tears but I answer him nonetheless "Yes."
"Talk to me at least?" He pleads, shaking his head with annoyance.
"I-you." I'm at loss for words and so don't bother explaining. It's Mingyu, he's a complete distraction and talking to him will just make what I resolved to do harder, harder for both of us.
"Can't, I understand." He says, walking out miserably.
"Well goodbye Tzuyu." He adds, formally, which I've noticed he tends to do when he's upset.
"Bye Mingyu." I call out, my voice trembling.
The moment he leaves I'm crying my eyes out. Mina may not be here at Korea with me but there's always Skype. I check if she's online, which, luckily, she is. I send her a Skype message:
"Need my best friend right now. Do you know her? Her name's Mina Myoui."
She replies almost instantly.
"Aw, T, what happened? Off on a oaa, we'll Skype tomorrow night. Sorry x"
I don't reply and go back to writing my Philosophy paper, I'll just speak to her tomorrow and tell her then. I scroll through my contacts, looking for someone to talk to because it'll distract me. The screen reads 'Alyssa T' perfect. I message her:
"Alyssa, hi, how are you? How's RISD going? We have got to meet and catch up soon! Sending you big hugs. T"
By the time I'm done with my philosophy essay (which is an hour and a half later because writing it required a great deal of thought), she has replied. I head to dinner though, reminding myself to reply later. I meet Alina at the dining hall. We've decided that if there's nothing amazing, we'll go out to eat. Tater tots (which most Americans love but I don't find all that great), a salad bar, and some ham sandwiches.
"Nothing great, we're eating out." She says to me and I laugh.
We end up going to this great sushi place, called Yo Sushi, which I'm sure will soon be a favourite of mine. Tuna Sushi with soy sauce or chilli-garlic dip is divine. When we return from what has been a fun evening and perfect escape from reality, I quickly type a reply to Alyssa: "I'm so happy that everything's going well Aly. We'll meet at thanksgiving, of course, when we're both home again, but I'm not sure when we next have a long weekend off, let me know. x I miss you too, Still dating Jere? ;) Tzuyu." and go to sleep not soon after.
Mingyu's POV:
I look down at my phone and burst into laughter. The screen reads: 1 new snapchat from Jimin and it's a picture of his face slathered with green face mask which he titles "The things girls make you do." I send him back a picture of me with a wide grin, asking if he has anyone in particular in mind. "Nah man, still going strong with Somi."
"Hey bro, how did it go with Tzuyu?" Aaron asks, misreading my wide grin.
My face goes back to the emotionless look that I think I've now mastered. "Not the way I planned." I reply, flopping down on one of our dorm room's many multi coloured beanbags.
"What she say?" He asks, concerned. Maybe he can read me better than he should be able to...
"Move on." I say, cursing and staring down at the floor.
He gets up and starts walking around, the way he does when he's studying.
"Maybe you should." He says, finally.
I'm speechless. Now's where he should be coming up with some whack scheme to help save our relationship. I shake my head, I'm clearly expecting too much from him. That's the kind of thing that Jungkook and Jimywould do.
I choose my words carefully and eventually settle for the typical, confused "What?"
"You should move on, but not really move on." He looks at me for a reaction. I still look as confused as ever though and so he adds. "Make Tzuyu believe that you've moved on, so that she reconsiders getting back together with you."
The only look that I have now for him is a look of awe. I jump up, pumped.
"That's genius Ar!"
He shrugs, modestly. "What are roommates for?"
"That girl in my economics class, Shauna, she's single. I'll hook you guys up."
His eyes widen with surprise and then he grins. "The hot one?"
I grin "The hot one."
"Sweet man." He calls to my retreating figure. I rush back up to our room and grab my wallet, room keys and phone. I then rush around the college, asking if anyone's seen Tiffany .
"She's at the Starbucks down the road." says an unfamiliar face.
"How do you know Tiffany?" she asks.
"We were in primary school together." I say back, smiling.
"I'm Mingyu by the way."
"Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Bomi."
"You too, thanks, see you around." I say, grabbing my skateboard, the only purchase I made in California but the best purchase I could have made. I remember the exact moment I bought in. Jungkook and I were at a surf shop and he said "Hey man, check this out!", when I walked over I saw the dark blue skateboard with an image of waves on it, and red wheels and was like "I'm buying this."
"You should hurry up, she may have already left by now." She calls out as I begin to skateboard away.
"Thanks." I yell back, and start to skateboard faster.
In no time I'm at the Starbucks down the road, possibly the nicest Starbucks that I've ever been at. It has this cosy, quiet, relaxed vibe which is so unlike busy, crowded, loud New York. It's like having a piece of California with me. I look around, the set up of this Starbucks is unique as well. The chairs are placed in groups of 5 and in pairs of two. They're shaped like the petals of a flower and join together with a decently-sized table at the centre. They seem to block sound too, which keeps the noise levels down. I walk over to the counter.
"Hi, what can I get you?"
"One hot chocolate and a chocolate chip cookie please."
"Eat here or to go?"
"Uh.." I look around.
"Looking for someone?"
"Yes actually, would you happen to know a girl called Sophie?
The guy at the counter laughs. "I do, she's a regular."
He points to a row of individual seats, nestled in a corner, but still in the same pod like formation with one chair draping around a table.
"Second one down."
I grab my tray and hand him 5 dollars.
"Thanks."
I see her wide eyes, highlighted hair and short frame and instantly smile.
"Tiffany , hey."
"Mingyu?"
"Been stalking me?" She asks, giggling.
"Wouldn't say stalking but yeah, I was looking for you."
She picks up her soy latte and we walk towards one of the two seater pods.
"Woah, this is actually really comfortable." I say, sitting down on one of the plush leather seats.
"And spacious." She adds. She's right, my seat alone could fit two.
"You're disappearing." I laugh.
"Shush."
"So, why were you looking for me?"
"I need your help." I say, making puppy dog eyes at her.
She motions at me to carry on.
"See there's this girl..."
She sighs.
"Oh god."
"What?" I say innocently.
"Your tone."
I shoot her an amused but confused expression.
"You're in love with her, aren't you?"
I take a bite of my cookie.
"Mm."
"Mingyu's in love with mystery girl." She sticks her tongue out at me, so I stuck mine back out at her and then we both started to laugh at how immature we were being. This was one of the reasons why Sophie was my first crush. She laughed at anything and could laugh at herself unlike most of the girls in primary. When other girls cried, Sophie laughed. I smirk at her.
"She's not 'mystery girl' actually... you know her."
"Wait, you finally got together with Tzuyu?" She looks surprised but then squeals. "You'd be so cute together."
I frown and lean back. "We aren't together."
"Wait what, why?"
"She broke up with me. One of those 'you deserve better' excuses."
"Oh Mingyu." She looks at me and then comes over to give me a hug because she doesn't know what to say. Another reason why she was my first crush, she always knew exactly what to do or to say.
"Will you help me get her back?"
"Of course, what can I do?"
I take a sip of my hot chocolate, contemplating whether or not this would actually work. It could work, it's got to work.
"Pretend to be my girlfriend."
She splutters on her latte.
"Mingyu but-"
I shake my head, too much, too fast.
"Never mind." I say, shaking my head in annoyance.
She slumps down in her chair, glaring at me.
"Okay, I'll do it."
I grin at her.
"Soph, thank you, I l-"
"One condition." Her eyes grow wider as the door opens and this tall, muscular, athletic looking guy walks in. I wait for her to continue.
"That guy over there."
"Which?" I turn and stare at the guy that just walked in, shooting her a questioning look but then realize she's blushing and that's enough of an indicator.
"Way to be discreet." She says, whacking me gently.
I stand up to clear my tray while Tiffany sips on her latte.
"Muscular guy's looking over here." I whisper, pulling her arm to make her stand up.
She laughs and then snorts which makes us both laugh harder.
"He-has-a-name." She manages to splutter out.
"Rob? Yuho?"
"Darren, what's he doing now?"
I look over at him from the corner of my eyes, he's totally checking her out.
"Still looking." I whisper back, engulfing her in a hug.
"Now he's pissed." I say.
She squeals in my ear.
"We can go now."
We hold hands and walk out the door and back over to our campus.
"So, tell me about Tzuyu." She nudges, with a teasing tone.
"Where do I begin?"
"How long have you loved her for?"
"Forever, but I was finally able to admit it to myself two years ago."
"Does she go to college nearby?"
"She's at Korea too." I say, kicking the ground.
"Show time." She whispers, as we reach.
"Hey everyone, Tiffany finally agreed to date me." I call out.
A couple of people in the crowd cheer and one even yells "Good for you man."
I wince but mask my face quickly into a smile. I would normally never do this. I don't believe in the whole world to knowing about a relationship in order to make it official. In this case, I made an exception because I figured that the faster news gets around, the faster Tzuyu hears about this. I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens.
