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OTHER THAN SCHOOL grounds and dropping Kodi off at Konfetti Kids for the day, Jeongguk and Rin never got in contact with each other. They weren't friends and they didn't even have each other's phone numbers or e-mail addresses. When they conversed, the topic usually revolved around school work and Kodi—no personal questions like relationship statuses or family life or their jobs. Even though Kodi sat in between them during class and all they had to do was stretch their backs to talk to each other or ask questions about Professor Ma's material, they never did that either nor tried, not even once. That's why when Jeongguk asked Rin out to dinner, she was surprised, a little shocked even. Kodi would be tagging along too of course, but she would've never guessed Jeongguk would ask her to do a thing that involved such dialogue.
As soon as Professor Ma opened his mouth to dismiss class, Rin saved the file of her notes on her laptop's desktop and started to collect her colorful gel pens and notebooks, which were hardly ever used thanks to the revolution of note taking in classrooms; Rin only took out her pens because they made her desk area look cute and classy. A 68 question pop quiz was passed out and Rin felt like she was thrown back to her high school days, but she was greatful that she stayed up studying like usual. Was it tiring? Of course, but it never failed to help Rin keep her GPA high. Now all the hair tugging and nail chewing and mind thinking was taking its usual toll on Rin, and now all she wanted to do was hop into bed and never come out from underneath the sheets.
Once Rin gathered all her things and packed them into her dingy book bag she's had since her high school senior year, Rin kissed Kodi on the cheek goodbye and bowed to Jeongguk, who wasn't really paying attention to her since he was packing Kodi's snacks and workbooks away into his own backpack. She pushed through the inconsiderate people who figured she had no life and had nowhere to go who were blocking the doorway and hallway. Her legs were moving faster than her usual pace when she was walking to class with her soft pillows and comfortable bed on her mind. Once Rin made it out onto the pathway, she fumbled to get out her earphones from her coin purse. When she finally untangled them, she plugged them into her ears and started to play her favorite and most proudest created playlist, Songs That Calm Me Down and Stop Me From Wanting to Fucking Killing Myself—she usually hit shuffle on this one when studying got tiring and things got out of hand at Konfetti Kids.
Rin couldn't hear a thing as the earphones blasted music into her eardrums at full volume. She couldn't hear the people around her talking or the cars honking and passing by, which is why she couldn't hear Jeongguk who was running toward her with Kodi following behind, his hair flopping all over the place. Rin let out a harsh gasp as a sudden pair of hands grasped her shoulders tightly and spun her around. Rin was about to let a scream out until she realized the strong hands belonged to Jeongguk, whose face was tinted red from having to run since Rin couldn't hear his calling outs of her name. His lips started to move and lifted into a small smile, but Rin still couldn't hear what he was saying and it took her awhile to realize that she was hearing Madona's voice instead of his own.
