Girl Of Heart And Iron | ✔

4 | it's not you, it's me

The library was empty for now, but it'd start filling up after dinner. Minhyuk wasn't here yet. Maybe he wouldn't come at all. She walked over to the quietest corner and got to work.

An hour later, Ri slipped on her ear defenders. The beep of the copier, the thudding footsteps, the numerous muted conversations, everything became softer and easier to handle. The room was starting to brim and, despite being a library, was growing distractingly loud.

The resident millionaire still hadn't graced her with his presence and she'd managed to get a lot done. Her timer went off, indicating the start of her ten minute break. Ri leant back and stretched her arms above her head. The sun was already starting to set despite it being barely five o'clock. It felt like winter was still desperately clinging on, trying to stay for as long as possible before spring inevitably showed up.

"Hey, sorry I'm late."

Ri tensed and looked over to where Minhyuk stood in front of her table. She hadn't heard him coming with her ear defenders on and the sudden, muffled greeting had pulled her out of her thoughts. He had a nasty bruise around one eye and a busted lip. The idiot was smiling, pulling on the cut and making it bleed.

It almost felt like drama and intrigue sought him out specifically. Crying was fine, but this?

"I ran into a door," he lied without her having to ask. Ri felt like her intelligence had been insulted.

"Looks like you ran into a fist," she quipped but dropped the subject, motioning over to the empty seat in front of her. "I started without you."

"How far did you get?" Minhyuk sat with a grimace and Ri's eyes flickered down to where he had an arm curled protectively around his stomach.

Don't ask, don't ask, don't ask.

"I did a review of first year, I want to get all my current stuff into my head properly before-" Minhyuk's face morphed into a cringe and Ri shifted in her seat to lean further away from him.

"Are you okay?" she asked, pointing at his torso.

"I'm peach-"

"Bullshit."

Minhyuk's lip twitched like he was trying to suppress a smile, "Everything's already patched up and bandaged, I'm not gonna die from a few scrapes."

"Well, you look half dead already so go and rest or something."

"Why? Are you worried?" There was a smirk on his face that Ri didn't care for.

"You're being more of a nuisance than a help and I don't have time to mess around," she replied honestly. "We can study together when you get better."

"I want to study now," Minhyuk hauled his backpack onto the table and started taking out his books. "I'm fine, I swear! I mean, look at me, I'm not just fine, I'm breathtaking."