Chapter Text
finals week usually meant studying late into the night, fueled by coffee and the fear that you wouldn’t be able to squeak by with at least a 90% because your teacher was too much of a hardass. and for jeongyeon, that meant staying after school in the library, her house a little too quiet for comfort, and everywhere else much too loud. however, that also meant im nayeon, leaning over her shoulder, making snide remarks at her notes, or chewing her gum just a little too loud, with little more than an innocent smile in apology. but jeongyeon soldiered on, chanting “one more week” in the back of her head.
sure, she could have moved to a different table, but somehow every time she came, she always ended up at the same empty table, the others taken up by groups of friends or classmates determined to finish a group project or “study” over a bag of shared chips and their phones. and nayeon always seemed to find her way to jeongyeon’s table, drawn by the empty seat or the warmth of the sun through the window, jeongyeon couldn’t tell.
so here she was again, the day before her physics final, trying to cram every formula into her head without exploding. flipping the pages through her notebook, jeongyeon highlighted as she went along; normal force, gravity, vectors, friction, tension-
nayeon smacked her gum for the nth time that day, too busy staring out the window at god knows what, and listening to some god awful whining singer at full volume, to notice. jeongyeon sent her a less than friendly look, but nayeon either didn’t notice or didn’t care. rolling her eyes, jeongyeon went back to her notes, trying to ignore the loud chewing. normal force, gravity, vectors, friction, tension-
another smack, louder this time. nayeon tapped her pencil against her closed notebook, to a beat jeongyeon could hear from nayeon’s earbuds if she strained her ears a bit. another deep breath. this is what she got for hoping to get some peace in a public place. jeongyeon turned the page, annoyed, but stopped when she felt a sharp sting on her finger.
“shit!” jeongyeon cursed under her breath. of course this would happen; not only could she barely focus on studying for her hardest final, but she had to go and get a paper cut. normally, jeongyeon wouldn’t take it too seriously, but something inside her was tired, and all of a sudden, she didn’t know if she wanted to just say “fuck it” and leave, or cry in a corner.
just as jeongyeon was about to pack up, nayeon gently took her hand, wrapping a band aid with little ducks on it around her finger, before bringing it to her lips. jeongyeon sputtered, too shocked to pull her hand away.
“it helps for it to heal faster.” nayeon winked, flashing jeongyeon another one of her annoyingly bright smiles, and jeongyeon flew back in her seat, forcing her gaze back down to her notebook. maybe she would look for a new table again tomorrow.