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i.
It begins with a macaron.
Wait, no. Actually, it begins in recruitment week.
The dance club has always been the most popular one in the university, so as its new president, Kim Minji takes it upon herself to prepare for dozens of new recruits. Wearing her brightest yellow sundress, she clasps her thick stack of flyers and flashes her signature sunshine smile as she mans their recruitment booth.
What she isn’t prepared for, however, is the fact that the university rock band is stationed right next to their booth and had apparently attracted every single freshman this year. Bora tells her it’s because of some guy who just transferred from Busan. “Tall, handsome, mysterious and all that. Everyone’s head over heels for him so they’re all applying for the band.”
Minji does not like the sound of it at all.
The dance club gets a total of five recruits that day, way less than what Minji was aiming for, and she tries not to, she really does, but she still ends up blaming it on a certain Park Sungjin. She couldn’t really see the guy from their booth because giggly freshman girls were swarming him all day long, so she takes to simply imagining an ugly and monstrous figure and decides that Park Sungjin is sabotaging the dance club on purpose.
When she finally catches a glimpse of Sungjin’s face, it’s almost nighttime and most people – including Sungjin’s fangirls – have already gone home. It was a long day, so Minji had bought a piece of her favorite vanilla macaron for herself, feeling like she deserved it. But Bora called her for something even before she had the chance to take a bite, and she had to leave the single macaron on their table while she helps Bora in cleaning up.
Minji comes back to a guy – tall, unfamiliar, okay, maybe kinda handsome – walking away with her macaron and she immediately loses it. She loses it even more when she finds out that the same guy was the reason the dance club got the lowest number of recruits in years.
As fate would have it, over the next few weeks after that encounter, Park Sungjin appears in Minji’s sight everywhere. They share at least three classes and even a common break time so there’s just no way she could have avoided the dude if she tried. And it doesn’t help that they seem to disagree on every single thing possible. From math equations, to seating arrangements, to practice room reservations, to whether the cafeteria should serve more meat or vegetables, they argued about everything.
By the middle of the semester she makes her mind up: Park Sungjin is her nemesis, and she will take him down.
ii.
No. Fucking. Way. No, no, no, no, no, no. NO. There’s just no way this is happening to her right now.
That was Minji’s first thought when she sees the guy that her roommate set her up with for Valentine’s.
Her second thought is that she is going to murder Kim Bora with her bare hands.
In Minji’s defense, she only agreed to go on this blind date because she was going to be sexiled tonight, anyway, and Bora promised her that the guy was nice enough and cute enough and that she’d at least get a free meal at this fancy Italian place she’d always wanted to try. She should have known it was too good to be true, because now she feels her blood boiling just by looking at the guy taking a seat in front of her.
Park Sungjin.
She means to say the name in her head but ends up saying it out loud, perhaps a bit too spitefully.
“Wow. Okay, so much for a good first impression. Good evening to you, too, Kim Minji.”
Sungjin is wearing a sky blue sweater under a wool blazer and the color brings out how pretty his eyes are and she hates it. The boy cleans up well, she has to hand him that. But of course she doesn’t. “I don’t think you know what a first impression is. What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? I’m on a blind date. What are you doing here?” Sungjin asks with a smirk. God, she hates that smirk. She wants— needs to wipe that smirk off his face. Maybe with her lips? Wait— NO. Bad Minji.
“Your best friend is fucking my roommate and they’re either stupid enough or cruel enough to make me spend Valentine’s day with the person I hate the most.”
Sungjin lets out an honest-to-god chuckle at that, throwing his head back. “Wow. Very charming. I think I really hit the jackpot today.”
Minji feels her cheeks start to heat up and realizes that she can’t do this. She just can’t. She tells him so and starts to get up but something else catches his attention and he grabs her hand to stop her.
“Umm, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Minji follows his line of sight and, because the universe apparently decided to dump all the bad luck in the world on her today, taking a seat a few tables from them is her ex and his new girlfriend. She locks eyes with the guy and the asshat has the audacity to wave at her. “Shit.”
“Shit is right." At this point Sungjin is already placing the napkin in his lap, and Minji doesn't even need to look at him to know that he's smiling that stupid toothy smile. He continues, "Come on, let’s just get on with dinner. You get to make your ex think you’ve replaced him with the hottest guy on campus, and I get to not starve to death. It’s a win-win.”
Minji concedes with a sigh. “Okay, fine. But you have to promise to behave at least until dinner’s over. No teasing.”
“Deal.” Sungjin offers his hand across the table for a handshake.
Minji mouths, what are you doing? and, probably realizing that it's weird for a "couple" on a date to be shaking hands, Sungjin tries to recover by using his outstretched hand to tuck Minji’s hair behind her ear. His fingers are surprisingly cold, and Minji recoils from his touch so he quickly explains through an exaggerated smile: “Don’t move. He’s looking at us.”
The pair both order carbonara after Sungjin’s recommendation (Minji questions how Sungjin knew what her favorite dish is, but he brushes it off by pointing out that she practically wiped off all the carbonara during their college’s Christmas party). The meals arrive and the two fall into awkward silence, enjoying their food but painfully aware of the unwelcome attention from two tables away. It’s Minji who decides to break the silence by suggesting they play 21 Questions, only because it’s the only thing she remembers from the long list of first date tips that Bora forced her to read that morning (“God knows you need it,” Bora had said, reminding her that it’s been way too long since she’s been on a date), and so it comes as a surprise that Minji actually ends up enjoying the game, to the point that it draws on well until after dinner as she and Sungjin walk home to the dorms.
The night is quiet and the streetlights shine above them like warm little stars, and Minji finds herself starting to feel… at ease, somehow. Safe. She’d have been content to just let the moment pass and cherish it as one of the rare instances that the two of them aren’t at each other's throats, but she suddenly hears Sungjin take a deep breath.
“Okay, I have one last question,” he starts, voice a little unsteady. “Why do you hate me?”
She answers him with a blank stare.
“I mean, you’re such a good person. Sunshine smile, kind, friendly, and all that. But you turn into this ball of rage when you’re with me and I don’t really mind it, to be honest, but just… why?”
Is he seriously asking this? Minji knew the guy can be pretty dense, but this is a ridiculous question, even for him. “You know why.”
“No I don’t, actually.”
“You stole my recruits! And my macaron!”
“I… what… seriously? You’re still mad about that macaron? I didn’t know it was yours!”
“Yeah, well, you never really apologized for it, you know. And don’t act like you’ve been the friendliest person either! Why do you hate me?”
“I don’t.”
Minji huffs in annoyance.
“No, honestly. I don’t.”
“Then why are you always teasing me? Why do you keep booking the practice room when you know full well that we need it? Why do you always make it a point to snatch the last stock of banana milk—”
“Oh, for god’s sake. That was one time—“
“And your stupid smile! Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you—”
“Because I like you!”
“Just because you’re cute doesn’t mean you… wait, what?”
“What?”
What.
“What did you just say?”
Now it's Sungjin's turn to huff and and look at her like she’s the crazy one. "Come on, Minji, why did you think I asked Younghyun to help set up this date?
“What do you mean you asked—” Oh. Oh. Okay, now she’s really going to murder Kim Bora. “Okay, well, why didn’t you just say anything?”
“Oh, I don’t know, because you hate me?”
“Because I thought you hated me!”
“Well, I don’t. So there’s that. You got your answers. Good night.”
Minji watches, dumbfounded, as Sungjin practically darts towards the men’s dorms. What exactly just happened? Surely he was just messing with her, right? Right? There is simply no way that Park Sungjin – Park. Freaking. Sungjin. Of all people – would harbor a crush on her and try to hide it by acting like a complete asshole.
iii.
The world starts to shift after Sungjin’s confession. At least, that’s how it feels for Minji. For a whole week following that night, she can’t seem to find him anywhere. Which is weird, since they share several classes and he used to pop up in the most random places but now he’s simply nowhere to be found. Whether he’s trying to avoid Minji on purpose or not, she isn’t really sure, but it irks her that the dude just decided to disappear after telling her something as baffling as that.
The worst thing is that she can’t stop thinking about him. His smile, his kind eyes, the way his voice was shaking when he asked her why she hated him, the way he seemed so small and delicate and human for the first time in her eyes. Maybe her perception of him had always been so clouded, so heavily tinted with prejudice that she forgot he was a real person and not the character she had painted so vividly in her mind.
When they see each other again, she’s more than a little bit tipsy and he looks like he’d rather eat his own foot than talk to her, but it’s been weeks since their date and the way they’ve been tiptoeing around each other has been driving Minji insane, so she swallows her pride and marches up to him, head held high and trying to look as assertive as possible so that he would look her in the eyes.
“Park Sungjin.”
“Kim Minji.”
He does look at her, with those same soft, sincere, heartbreakingly defeated eyes that snapped her out of her muddled judgement a few nights ago, and suddenly she doesn’t know what to say.
“Listen, I— I mean you… you still owe me a macaron!”
Sungjin raises his eyebrow and narrows his eyes at Minji like she’s derailed. At this point she’s not even sure if she isn’t. “…Okay? I can pay you if you want? How much is it?” he says tentatively, as though trying to measure her level of intoxication.
“No, I mean…” She stops, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. She thinks back on the last few days and suddenly she knows what she wants. What she needs to do. “Take me to dinner.”
“You want dinner… as payment for your macaron?”
“No. As a date. Like… like what we did. Last time. But I want a real one.” And she means it. She didn't know it until this moment, but she means it.
He pauses, probably trying to figure out if she's just messing with him, but Minji is a chronically bad liar, and her sincerity shows on her face. So he simply agrees. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Minji asks in disbelief, because how can it be this simple? All those months of hating this person, only to find out that he has feelings for her and she's simply been a judgemental asshole. All those nights of feeling guilty and confused and just a tiny bit excited for all the possibilities that now lay in front of them. All that time she spent worrying and thinking about how utterly ridiculous all of this is. Surely, that can't all be resolved with a simple "okay." Because Minji has been alive for more than two decades and she knows that things that last are never that simple, and things that come easy never last. And for some reason she can't explain, she knows that for all the roundabouts they went through, she wants whatever this thing they're starting is to last.
But then Sungjin smiles that toothy smile, that beautiful, beautiful smile that she now admits she loves so much, and she knows they’ll be alright.