KIMMY
Per usual, I arrive a little early to Econ and make my way up the stairs to sit in the back of the class.
I didn't make it to my first block on time and that kind of annoyed me. I'm rarely ever late but definitely never to first blocks.
I open my laptop to start making breakdowns of what our test was about, topic by topic. This way, I can tutor Jungkook section by section.
Luckily, our professor posted the test and all of the correct answers to the class board. The retake won't have the same questions so he's not 'giving away answers' to anybody.
Now I just have to wait to see Jungkook's test and his score so I can where he needs help.
And right on cue, in he walks.
Well, at the sound of the late bell for the class.
Professor Demaw looks at him with a raised brow and he smiles sheepishly before finding me. He skips steps up to get there quicker, taking a seat next to me.
Of course, he's out of breath as if he's run here. An every day occurrence.
His clothes are loose on his body, a little oversized as usual. It's a contrast to what I see him when he visits the club.
There he typically wears casual suits or button down with slacks. Those are tailored just for him, fitted to his specific measurements.
Though, admittedly, he looks good in either style. They both suit him well.
"Sorry I'm late." He apologizes as he fishes through his bookbag.
The sound of his voice makes me realize that I'm staring. I avert my eyes, turning my head away from him.
"I wasn't going to come but then I remembered that our grades our tethered." He finishes his sentence.
Thanks? I guess.
I roll my eyes again as I take my binder out. At this rate, I'll be doing that the entire tutor session.
"Ah, here it is." He pulls out a blue folder with papers stuffed inside. I raise my left brow as he opens it up and pulls out his test to hand it to me.
I place it on the desk and rub the crinkles out to read it.
"63?" I finally speak.
I flip through the pages and see the red marks and corrective actions written next to them.
"Did you just not pay attention at all?" I whine as I read the markings.
I've got my work cut out for me.
He scoffs and rolls his eyes. "I did study. This stuff is just hard. Some people aren't mathematically inclined. Not everyone is as smart as you, Miss-" He looks at my test result on my laptop.
"92 percent. What are you, an AI or something?" His face scrunches as his top lip curls.
"No, an AI would've gotten a perfect score." I rebuttal.
"Not necessarily." He says back. "Perfect scores in Econ means that you probably cheated. Nobody's that goddamn smart. I think it'd miss questions on purpose to avoid the accusation." He crosses his arms in front of his chest.
I think about what he just said and roll my eyes. Though his thinking feels out of the box, his argument against mine isn't wrong and actually makes sense.
"Whatever. Grab your stuff and come on." I put my laptop and binder in my bag and sling it over my shoulder. I hold Jungkook's exam in my other hand.
"To where?" He looks me up and down before staring me in the face.
"The book cafe up the street. I didn't have time to eat this morning and I'm hungry." I start walking down the stairs and I hear his chair slide against the floor.
The dull sound of his shoes is heard against the stairs as he follows me out into the hallway.
"So what's the plan of action for helping me?" He asks.
"Group the questions that you got wrong by topic or module, I'll write up a lesson plan and go from there."
"So you'll be a personal professor for me."
"Isn't that what all tutoring is?"
"I don't know tutors that write up lesson plans. They usually just go over what people got wrong, show them the right way and move on.
"And then what? They learn how to solve that one question without understand the process behind it."
"That usually isn't really their problem."
"Well, it's mine considering the fact that if you fail again, I fall four points."
"You got a 91. You'll still be passing."
"That's not the point." I say as my teeth grit.
We walk out of the doors of the building and onto the campus's concrete pathway.
I find myself becoming irritated by this man the more he speaks. Though he's right, it's the principle.
I'm upset that I even got a 91. It could have been higher. It should have been higher. I'm capable of doing more and I know that. I'm not an idiot.
And yet that 91% is carved into my brain. None of the questions on the exam seemed exceptionally difficult to me and maybe that should have been a sign.
The questions that I thought were hard, I didn't get wrong. Yet a few of the ones that seemed easy to me, I didn't get right.
I can do better and honestly, I'm thinking of asking Demaw to retake the exam.
I can't show my parents that I got a 91. That isn't good enough.
It's bad enough that the money I make at the club only supports myself. I still have tuition to pay and debt that I'm in from school. I don't know when I'll actually be able to see extensive profit from the work that I do or the jobs that I work.
I need almost $12,000 and I've only got $2,000 of it saved. I'm surprised I've even managed to do that.
The dates help, of course.
I mean, they pay me for my time and they get nothing but that and conversation during.
Thinking about this morning, Leilani's right.
Though she doesn't know the full reason as to why I do things the way that I do, she's still not wrong.
I haven't been on a date in a while. Midterms are coming up. I have to make a payment to the school soon. It's already late.
It'll set me back several hundred dollars.
And then what? I'll be back to square-
"Kimmy!!"
A loud horn honks as I'm yanked back from the curb. The white car swerves to the left to avoid hitting me as it continues to speed by.
My heart pounds loudly in my ears as I watch the car. The driver is looking in my direction, angry and cursing as he goes. My head swims as my vision splotches.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"
JUNGKOOK
My heart is racing against my chest as I look her up and down. I see no damage anywhere but that's not the point.
The only thing out of place is her curls bangs that have blown by the wind as the car sped by.
I don't even know how I got to her as quickly as I did.
The light was red when I stopped to tie my shoe. She kept walking but I didn't expect anything else from her.
A simple 'not even gonna wait for me?' comment. A joke that lost its banter the second I realized she wasn't going to stop walking.
At all.
The light had turned green and her eyes were trained to the concrete as she kept moving. She could've been hit. That car was going way over the speed limit.
If she'd have been hit, then what?
"You need to watch where you're walking."
"I wasn't paying attention. I'm sor-."
"Yeah. Obviously." I roll my eyes and slide my hand down to hers.
Clearly, she can't walk by herself. Her eyes don't even look clear. She's completely out of it.
I hold her hand as I guide her across the street to the cafe.
She rips her hand out of my grasp when I open the door. I look back at her and she walks past me to get into the building.
I scoff. "A thank you would've been nice."
"Yeah, whatever." She crosses her arms and looks ahead at the menu.
I stare at her in utter disbelief.
She can't be this careless about her own life. I know that she's careless about virtually everything else but this?
I laugh but there's no humor in it at all.
"You would've been hit by that car had I not pulled your ass back, Kimmy."
"Nobody asked you to fucking save me, Jungkook." She argues back.
"What?"
She says nothing, eyes trained to the floor as we stand in line. She gives me no response whatsoever.
We move forward in line and I glance at her. She wrinkles her nose as she stares at the tiles under her feet.
She fixes her bangs back into place and pushes her loose strands behind her ears. I watch her swallow thickly as she holds onto her arms.
For a second, it's almost as if something's shifted in her.
Only for a second.
She picks her head back up with a stoic expression on her face.
We move forward in line again and a figure I don't think I've seen behind the counter in months comes into view.
The chestnut haired man at the register looks up and smiles when he sees Kimmy. His eyes brighten when they land on her.
Annoying.
"Welcome to Koya's." He grins and she smiles back lightly.
"What do you want?" The second half of his opening is directed to me as I smile at him.
Kimmy looks between us before turning back to face the counter.
"Nice to see you too, Hobi. What are you doing here?"
"Well, I came in here for coffee but Leo is running a little late so Namjoon asked me to cover for him until he gets here."
"Is he having car troubles again? I told him I know a guy."
"I'm not sure whats going on this time. You know he doesn't like to ask for help."
"True." I click my tongue. "Alright, uhhh. Let me get a chicken sandwich and a lemonade."
"Light ice?"
"Yessir."
"Got it. Go away. I'll call you when it's ready." He shoos me. "What can I get you for you, darling?" He grins at her.
"A BLT sandwich, light mayo please." She tells him, all attitude in her tone gone.
I stare at Hoseok as they talk.
"Anything to drink, sweetheart?"
"Uuhh... what do you recommend?" She asks.
"Depends on what you like." Hoseok says. "Something more on the sweet side or do you like the coffee flavor?"
"A little bit of both. Is there anything vanilla flavored? That's still sweet?"
"Iced?"
"Yeah."
"No, but I can whip something up for you."
"Thank you." Kimmy reach for her wallet and I roll my eyes.
"Don't bother. She's with me."
"Oh. I didn't know." Hoseok says. "Well, in that case, your total is 13.26."
He sticks hand out and I grab a 20 out of my wallet. I put it in his hand before grabbing a cup from the counter.
"Put the change in Leo's tip jar." I lean over the counter to get my own lemonade as he cashes us out.
He snickers to himself as he takes the change out and puts it in the jar.
"I'm Hoseok." He introduces himself to Kimmy. "My friends call me Hobi."
"Kimana. But my friends call me Kimmy."
They shake hands and my lip curls.
Kimana.
Not even our professor calls her that. Why the hell did she just tell him her government name?
"Kimmy, come on." I grumble.
"With the exception of him." Kimmy tells Hobi, referring to me. "He's a pain in my ass."
Hoseok chuckles. "Glad we have things in common. I'd go tend to the brat before he pouts." He gestures his head in my direction. "I'll have him bring you your food when I call him."
"Thank you." Kimmy says as she walks away, smile fading as she approaches the table with her bag.
She smacks my exam on the table and takes her laptop out of her bag. She's got the questions that I got wrong boxed off in different colors.
Her cursive handwriting is next to each, categorizing each by... topic?
I watch as she finishes whatever organization she's got going on. She's really mapping it out and that in itself looks complex to me. But then again, I'm having a hard time understanding the modules as it is so of course this look confusing.
After a few minutes, Hobi calls my name for our food and I get up to get it.
"Sooo-."
"No."
"She in one of your classes?"
"Mind your business."
"Ah, she must be the one that blatantly ignores your existence."
"Do you want to die?"
"She's cute."
"I will kill you, Hoseok."
"Well, she is."
"I'm serious."
"And you think I'm not?" Hoseok raises an eyebrow.
A muscle in my jaw ticks and he folds his arms over his chest.
"Have you talked to her about anything?"
"Will you shut up?" I whisper yell at him. I look back at Kimmy, whose blissfully unaware as she writes on my test.
"I'll talk to you later." I grab the tray of food and walk back to the table.
I set the stuff down and watch her as I take another sip of my lemonade.
"Can you stop staring at me? It's rude."
"Can you stop working and eat with me?" I rebuttal. "It's considered rude for me to eat without you."
"I'm working on a study plan for the exam you flunked so I can be out your hair and you can be out of mine. You don't have to worry about playing the hero again to save your grade."
My face slowly falls at her words. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out as if that's how I felt. I was just upset that you could have gotten hit."
"It's fine."
"I'd have saved you either way, Kimmy. I'm not an asshole."
She doesn't reply and sets the pen down. She moves to her laptop, typing something there. Her eyebrows are knit together in a way that would maybe scream 'focused'. But I've seen Kimmy's focused.
And it's not this.
"You've been upset since before we left class. Is something bothering you?"
She stops typing and looks at me. Her eyes bounce over my features as she gives me a blank stare.
"No. I'm just having a bad day is all. You and your boss caused a paperwork riot this morning for my boss and the people that work in his office. Nobody is happy." She states as she continue typing.
My eye narrows at her as she types.
"My boss?" I raise a brow.
I don't have a boss. I don't really even have a job right now.
Kimmy pauses in typing, taking a breath in all before I can blink again.
"Do you not have a boss?"
"Who do you think my boss is?"
There's only one person that would logically make sense in this scenario. But his name being on anything isn't something that anyone other his employees should have seen.
"Never mind." She says. "Forget I said anything."
Dodgy.
Always with the dodging.
"Are we ever going to talk about it?" I ask.
A shot in the dark. Not even. At least with that, you know it's going somewhere. Don't really know where. But it's going somewhere.
This is more like a shot at a brick wall in broad daylight.
I know exactly where it's going.
"No. I don't need a therapist and you need to leave me alone, Jungkook." She continues to type on her laptop, not giving me any eye contact at all.
Right. Crashing into that brick wall at top speed.
"Well-." I lean up on the table, resting my elbows on it. "I don't have a psych degree and you think my listening skills suck anyway. Can't we just agree to be cool?"
Kimmy stops typing and looks at me.
Finally.
"Cool for what?"
"Because I'm kinda getting sick of forcing myself to pretend that nothing happened that night."
Getting kinda tired of forcing myself not to look at you every time you step foot in the same room as me, too.
Kimmy stares at me, that same blank look on her face.
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"That's what I just said." She goes back to doing her work
"Fine.. what?"
"Associates. Academic, associates." She clarifies.
It's a start, I guess. Am I pushing my luck? Maybe. Am I going to stop?
Meh. Not likely.
I move my hand forward and slowly close her laptop. She looks up at me without moving her head.
"Let's just eat and talk for today, huh? Save the work for a later time." I say as I pick up my sandwich. "We've both had long days."
She looks at me as she grabs her drink.
"Your near death experience, me saving you from said near death experience. Hoseok pulling the skin from my bones just to get under it."
"Ew." She says with a straight face. "Gross."
Despite this, she picks her sandwich up and takes a bite.
I think the definition of what she finds 'gross' could possibly be a little skewed.
"Your tongue has been in my mouth." I remind her
"Will you let it go?" She groans.
I chuckle deeply as she rolls her eyes and her head lolls back. The frown on her face isn't intimidating at all. Maybe she thinks it is.
She's cute.