HAUGHTY-To Love ✔

CHAPTER 11

AUN POV

"This is so exhausting," I muttered, my face buried in my book. It was already close to midnight, and here I was, desperately trying to catch up on the notes I missed because of that jerk who called me to assist him for no reason. Thanks to him, I had missed three lectures in a row.

As I pulled at my hair in frustration, I attempted to focus on the terms Lily had written down for me. Not that I was complaining about her notes, but her handwriting was a mess, resembling an ECG graph. It gave me a headache trying to decipher the words she had written. "Why does her handwriting have to be so messy?"

With nothing sticking in my head, I glanced over at the figure sleeping across from me. As JungYun had mentioned earlier, Lily had become my roommate, and she was the one who had kindly given me the notes I missed today. I was grateful for her help, but I was still in crisis mode, unable to understand anything.

"Who should I turn to for help?" I wondered aloud. Seeking assistance from professors was an option, as they were always willing to help, but being an introvert, I couldn't bring myself to ask for help alone. I just didn't feel comfortable raising my doubts to their faces. Instead, I would rather remain silent and do nothing.

Feeling lost and clueless about the topics, I closed my books and finally allowed myself some sleep to give my exhausted brain a rest. "Maybe I can ask Lily to explain things to me again," I thought as I shut my eyes and drifted off into dreamland.

THE NEXT DAY

I hurried through the hallways, my arms weighed down by the stack of heavy books I had grabbed from my locker. I had no idea which class was my first one, so I decided to carry all the books that caught my eye.

Just a minute before, Lily had messaged me to meet her in class E305, and now I was running to find the class and be on time. Yesterday, I stayed up studying late into the night, causing me to oversleep past my curfew. And that dumpling of a friend of mine didn't even bother to wake me up in the morning since she had gone ahead by herself to be there early. "I'm going to give her a good squeeze if she does this again," I muttered under my breath.

Gritting my teeth, I continued to run, not bothering to pay attention to the people crossing my path. In my haste, I stumbled and collided with some fellow students, hastily apologizing as I went.

Through all the running, jogging, and colliding, my feet suddenly came to a stop when I felt a hand grab my arm, pulling me back. The force of the sudden halt caused me to land on my butt and the books I had been holding slipped from my grasp, scattering around me.

As I regained my composure, I looked up at the person who had pulled me back. It was the same cocky jerk who had been the reason I had missed my classes yesterday. He stood before me with an emotionless face, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

Collecting my books from the ground, I stood up and faced him, not caring that I would be late to my class. He didn't react to my presence, instead, he stood there with a blank expression, eyeing me up and down. "Why did you push me?" I asked, showing him a straight face.

He huffed a breath before glancing at the students passing by and finally fixing his gaze on me. "I need you in the lab within 10 minutes," he said, and then walked past me, making his way out of the hallway.

I stood there, blank for a second, before his words registered in my head. He was asking me to be in the lab, but why? Yesterday, he had given me a task and hadn't even bothered to check on it. And now, he was asking for my presence again.

I couldn't deny him, considering he had already warned me not to go against his words. But at the same time, I was missing my class and falling behind on my studies.