WORDS. |Kim Seungmin

Ten.

Looking right and left, Aria stood in the middle of the long busy corridor, scanning it for the figure that she saw earlier, but the students moving up and down to their lectures didn't help her at all.

Aria started walking in the direction that she saw him taking. A few more steps and she found herself at the main hall of the building that would take her to the gates. Aria continued her walk to outside the building, still looking for any clue of where he did go. When she reached the stairs, she could finally catch sight of his back.

He was over there, walking somewhere she didn't care about. He was wearing a sunflower yellow shirt and black ripped-off jeans along with white sneakers.

He looked like summer. Warm and bright.

Although Aria felt like she had to stop and admire the scene of him walking gracefully between the flowers decorating the pavements of the campus, she had to move if she wanted to catch up with him. And that was what she did.

Aria sprinted down the stairs and started jogging towards him. She thought of calling him but she remembered that she never knew his name. When the distance between them started to widen, she had to try her luck.

"Hey," She yelled but the boy never stopped. "You, yellow shirt!" She yelled again but still, he didn't seem to be stopping. "Bubble tea!" That came quite loud.

The boy stopped in his track then he hesitantly looked over his shoulder to finally let his gaze meets Aria's, who was now panting while bending down to catch her breath. Aria sighed once he looked at her. The boy had a super confused look painted on his face as he turned to be completely facing her.

Aria straightened up, gulped, and cleared her throat before she walks up to him. She stood just in front of him, flashing him a gentle smile. The boy's reaction shifted from confusion to curiosity.

"Umm, Hi." She said, waving at him awkwardly. He nodded at her with the same awkwardness. "I don't know if you know me, but... Um, we attend the same literature cla-"

Before Aria could ever go with her sentence, the boy nodded at her which she took as a 'yes' to that he knew her.

"Oh! I guess you know that. Then, I'm not sure if you noticed that I work at the café by th-"

Again, the boy nodded.

"Okay, you seem to know that too." She said, scratching the back of her scalp nervously. "Okay, the thing is I was wondering if .. umm, did you start working on your literature project?"

He shook his head lightly.

"Okay, what about your partner? Do you have a partner?"

Again, he shook his head.

"GREAT! I was thinking if that's okay, can you be my partner for this project? My friends are already paired with others and I'm kind of alone in this thing and honestly, I'm not that good at literature to do the project on my own and I really want to pass this subject becau-" She kept babbling only to be cut by one more nod from the boy.

"Oh! Is that a yes? To be partners?"

He nodded again, this time it came with his lips curling up slowly into a smile until those lips parted to show his teeth.

By that point, Aria was confused if the sun had left its spot in the sky and descended to earth, exactly to the campus, right in front of her.

"T-That's co-cool." She stuttered, still dazed by the fresh scene ahead of her. "Then, let's meet up later to discuss the project, umm, at least the topic to hand out the names as soon as possible."

He nodded with a tight blink which she guessed was his agreement.

"Perfect, we can meet at the café. I still have one lecture before I head there. So, I'll be there after that and till midnight. I guess that's it. See you later."

The boy flashed her a gentle smile and a little bow before he turns around and resumes his walk away from her.

Once he was far enough from her, she let out a heavy sigh that she was keeping for a while. "One step at a time, Aria. One step." She murmured to herself before she turns her heels and walks back to the building.