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When the new semester rolled around, Jiseol was more motivated than ever to let the previous one die in the past. She no longer cared if people still talked about her video—which she knew they did and she assumed it was due to boredom with their own lives that they'd rather fixate on hers. She didn't care if she bumped into Jinyoung or her ex-roommates anymore, in fact she'd even smile at them and enjoy the shitless looks on their faces.
All Jiseol cared about now was that at the end of each day, she had a pair of strong, loving arms to unwind in. She could only care about how she could spot Donghyuck's smile for her through a crowded hallway and the sole thing that mattered to her was how his black Hyundai would wait for her, rain or shine, whenever he had the chance.
They had no plans of hiding their relationship, simply putting privacy but no secrecy as their priority, yet word got around embarrassingly quick probably due to their reputations. It wasn't even that they were excessive on PDA—in fact, on the second week of classes, Jiseol publicly smacked Donghyuck with her textbook by accident because he tried the "Guess who?" game on her—but the way they were glued at the hip said enough. A new couple emerging on campus? Boring. The couple being scandalized Jiseol and controversial Donghyuck? Excellent topic of conversation for people with nothing better to do.
"Hey," Mark's voice interrupted Jiseol as she was reading a text from Donghyuck on today's global warming statistics which was basically just a public-friendly code to say that he was up for a bonkadonk session that night.
"Everybody left already. Are you going to stay here much later?"
Jiseol looked around the Astral office and realized that indeed, she was the last editor around. She hadn't noticed since she was so wrapped up in writing her latest piece. She smiled and shook her head, assuring Mark that she'd be leaving as well.
"Good," Mark nodded, caring about whether she'd be overworking herself. His small crush on Jiseol vanished into thin air after finding out she had started dating Donghyuck; his bigger concern now was that Donghyuck knew he had a crush on her.
"Also, Jiseol," Mark stopped her right before she stepped out.
"You are going to make an amazing editor-in-chief."
"Thanks, Mark. It means a lot coming from you," Jiseol's smile grew. They shared a quick hug and left the office together, talking about Jiseol's plans for Astral once Mark passed down his title to her.
While the mentor and mentee were having a sweet, sentimental moment, the total opposite was happening in the soccer field only a short distance away. A loud voice was booming the most offensive insults one could think of, clearly frustrated from what was going on during practice. At some point, Donghyuck even attempted to break the clipboard in half over his knee like they do in movies, except the clipboard didn't break and left his knee burning.
"Gather up, you bunch of disappointments," Donghyuck pressed his tongue against his cheek. As soon as the pack of sweaty, panting boys lined up in front of him, he started launching into a long lecture about how they played like they'd be representing an old folks' home.
