darling ◦ k.yh

two.

"Stupid Kang Younghyun, out of all the people in the class, why did Professor Seo have to pair us together? I should just drop out of the class. I can't do this. I can't cope with it. I'd rather just fail." The atmosphere in my little apartment bedroom was cold as I aggressively mixed my mediums together on my palette. "Stupid, annoying, stuck-up, irritating Kang Younghyun."

"Woah, chill out Eunbi. What did that paint ever do to you?" Wonpil was sat on my bed, scrolling through his phone and occasionally looking up to see how my painting was getting along. Bless his soul, I could tell that he was trying to lighten to mood of my current situation, but right now, the annoyance was still raw, and not even Wonpil could make me feel better. From the corner of my eye, I shot him a glare, and his mouth snapped shut.

Since the class on Friday, all I had done was complain about being paired with Younghyun. It was all I spoke to my roommate, Park Jimin, about on Friday night, and Saturday morning until she had had enough of me and got up to get away from my excessive moaning. I'm surprised she hadn't thrown me out of the tenth storey window of our dorm complex. I know I would have.

Just the thought of having to spend time with him, and just him, outside of class time is what was aggravating the most. On a normal day, I could easily just avoid him by not even have to cross paths, but having to sit side by side, and work, and communicate? I wasn't feeling all too thrilled about that.

A heavy sigh left my lips as I stopped mixing my paints and pulled my paintbrush up to observe the now frayed and messy bristles of it. What was I letting Younghyun do to me?

"Eunbi, you just have to go through with it. You haven't even properly met Young K yet, why don't you just give him a chance?" Wonpil huffed and set his phone down. "I know you can't even fathom the thought of tolerating him, but you're partners together right now and there's no way to avoid it. You can do this, just... just imagine you hitting him with your folder every time he starts to annoy you. That should help." And I couldn't help but laugh. Wonpil was really trying to make me feel better about my situation.

"Shut up Wonpil, why do you always have to be the voice of reason for everything?" I tried to stay mad but I just couldn't help it.

"Because I'm always right." He exclaimed as he got up to flick through my collection of dvd's. "Now come on you big overly exaggerating, overly dramatic, overly sensitive idiot. Let's make some hot cocoa and watch a movie."

***

I aimlessly walked around the university campus alone, killing time before I'd have to face my first day of working with Younghyun on our assignment together.

The clouds have created a blacked over the Seoul sky and only put a damper on my mood even more. Talk about pathetic fallacy.

It was the autumn semester; and the winter flowers in the university garden were beginning to bloom. I often found myself wandering the greenhouses and the botanical gardens of the campus; barely anybody else came here apart from the horticulture students, so it was a nice little getaway. It became my little go-to place when I was feeling stressed about deadlines or assignments, or just about anything really. Sometimes I would bring Wonpil along with me to just sit and admire the beauty of the nature.

I found myself just sat there in silence for a while, mulling over what Wonpil had said to me yesterday.

"Eunbi, you just have to go through with it. You haven't even properly met Young K yet, why don't you just give him a chance?"

And as much as I didn't want to do so, Wonpil did have a point. Younghyun had never done anything specifically to me, it was just the way that he carried himself that irked me. Him and I had never actually had a proper conversation between us before. Perhaps I was judging him to early.