Persona |K Th

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PEYTON

A caramel macchiato with an extra espresso shot should do the trick. It's my reward for following through with the plans I made when I was feeling sociable. Or at least I made plans imagining myself feeling more sociable in the unspecified future. Which is now.

I'm heading across campus to the library to meet some sophomore to tutor him in differential equations. I hate equations. I hate winter. I hate that I'm halfway through college and struggling to get my shit together after a relationship - that I ended two months ago.

Deep drags on the coffee.... fluff my scarf up to my frostbitten ears... paste on a smile.

I'm not that late, but he's already here, sitting in the study room with his back to the window. I should have gotten him a coffee, too. I paste on a bigger smile and cue the apologies.

Just like my mentor said, he is a sweet kid. He's dressed in a button-down shirt and blazer, but he wears it like a school uniform, not business casual. His dark brown hair falls in long bangs and he's wearing glasses. His voice is deep but quiet, and his smile is so shy it hurts.

Swapping names turns out to be pure chaos. Finally, I decide to call last-name-Kim, first-name-Taehyung by just "Tae." I tell him to call me Peyton, just Peyton, and nothing but Peyton. Don't add the Korean honor thingy. I don't need the pressure. I definitely don't need him calling me "older girlfriend." Not if we're actually gonna do math.

"You're picking this up really quickly. Is there trouble with anything specific?"

"Everything. Dr. Greisler is difficult for me to follow," Taehyung responds.

"Shit! You've got the Grizzly?!" I laugh. "I assumed it was Dr.Choi since he hooked us up. The Griz doesn't teach. He just scribbles on the board with his bear paws and mumbles at frequencies too low for the human ear to hear." I growl and wave my bear paws in the air.

"That makes me feel better. I thought it was my poor English skills, or my lack of intelligence."

"Shut up," I say as I playfully shove his arm. He looks flustered so I just laugh and keep going. " You are really smart. And you speak better English than some people who were born and raised here."

His ears are turning pink, but after the shock of my casualness, at least he likes the compliments. I'm so glad he's loosening up.  It makes the hour go by faster.Too fast, actually. He makes me smile for real.

"You are good at explaining complex topics," he murmurs as we finish. His warm brown eyes are melting my soul. It's my turn to blush. I panic and look away. When Tae's eyes meet mine again, they're soft and timid. But now I can't stop looking at his soft baby boy lips.

He insists on paying me $20 an hour. It seems like too much because I'm not doing this for the money.  I can't tell him the real reason.

TAEHYUNG

I am strolling the campus letting the cold wind clear my head. The last hour was a roller coaster. My tutor wasn't the humorless male math geek I expected. This girl is warm and funny and scattered. She apologized for not bringing me coffee. Sweet...
And she has long, long hair that she fiddles with when she talks. And laughing eyes. And she smiles like we share a secret. I got so comfortable I even forgot to fake it.

Or maybe it's because she calls me "Tae." It's so intimate. I'm still not used to how Americans are so informal with each other. Only my mom calls me that. Well... called me that, when she was alive.

But Peyton's good at explaining stuff. I should be able to get an A in this class if she keeps tutoring me.
Is it worth the risk? Yes. There's no way in hell I'm going back home - not for making a B, not for having a girlfriend, not for any other excuse my father can think up.

For now, I'll do it. For my grade. Not because I'm lonely as fuck.

A/N

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