Chapter Text
“You’re a total lost cause, Kim Minji.”
Minji’s eyes dart up from her laptop to meet Hanni’s, an oblivious expression on her face. Across the table, Hanni takes a sip of her iced latte, the ice clinking against the glass as she lets out a soft chuckle.
“Sorry,” Minji says, pushing up her glasses. She takes a moment to snap herself back into reality. “What were we talking about?”
Recently, it’s felt as if just about everything in Minji’s life is spinning out of control. Her 4th year of uni has not been treating her well, and she’s been working herself to the max just to pass her classes. The only thing keeping her grounded is Hanni.
“Look, man,” Hanni sighs, “I love being your best friend, but you can’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
“What’s that mean?” Minji furrows her brow, raking her hand through her long black hair. “What eggs?”
“Figurative eggs, bro. Figurative eggs.”
A heavy silence settles over the table. Hanni stares at her with exaggerated concern. Minji gazes back with absolute bewilderment.
“Minji,” Hanni says flatly. “You seriously need a girlfriend.”
Minji lets out an exhausted groan at her best friend’s usage of the “G” word.
“How many times are we going to go over this, Pham? I should be focused on school. Not on… girlfriends.”
Despite her immediate shut down, Minji can’t say she’s never thought about it. Having been raised by rich parents who cared more about her grades than they cared about her social life, she never had many friends, let alone a partner.
But alas, she has responsibilities. She has a demanding mother back in Korea to impress. And most of all, she has something to prove.
“I’m just saying I think it’d be great for you to meet someone, bro. Especially someone who could maybe, yknow, ease you up a little.”
“Ease me up?” Minji scoffs. “I’m eased, man.”
“You are absolutely not eased.” Hanni points a reproachful finger straight at the 22-year-old.
Minji purses her lips, shrugging as her eyes divert back to her laptop screen.
“Right, okay, focusing on school,” Hanni interjects, snapping her fingers as if a lightbulb had just gone off over her head. “Now that I think about it—I have the perfect school-related opportunity for you.”
Minji glances at her best friend with heavy skepticism. “Hanni. The last time you said you had an 'opportunity' for me, I spent four hours chasing a mouse through the botany greenhouse because Haerin forgot to lock the cage.”
“Okay, first of all, that mouse was a vital part of Haerin’s genetics project,” Hanni counters, waving a dismissive hand. “And second, you got a free coffee out of it.”
Minji’s gaze drops to the half-empty cup sitting beside her laptop. “Well, I do like coffee.”
“Exactly,” Hanni grins, sensing victory. “So, here’s the deal. I have a friend from my Art and Ed class, Danielle. Third-year Design major, absolute sweetheart, literally sunshine personified. She’s doing this massive final-year project on typography and cultural identity.”
Minji takes a hand off the table to fidget with the piercing on her right ear. “That sounds complicated.”
“Oh yeah, Minji, it’s super big-brain stuff. But the problem is, Dani’s a pure creative! The girl looks at a syntax tree and sees a pretty drawing of a forest.”
Minji lets out a tiny involuntary huff of amusement. “Syntax trees aren’t that complicated.”
“To you! Because your brain is wired like a dictionary,” Hanni counters. “To her, it’s a foreign language. She’s completely stuck on the technical side, and she needs a linguistics senior like you to consult.”
Minji leans back, crossing her arms. She pouts her lips, deep in thought. “I don’t have much trust left in you, Pham, and this sounds like a setup. Seriously, it sounds like you rehearsed this in the mirror this morning.”
“A setup? Minji, I am insulted,” Hanni gasps, placing a hand dramatically over her heart. “This is purely academic. It’ll be just like your tutoring.”
Minji rolls her eyes. “I haven't tutored since my second year.”
“Well, isn’t now the perfect time to start back up? Besides, I think you’d love her posh little Aussie accent.”
“All I hear is Aussie accents nowadays,” Minji responds.
“Yeah, but hers is especially cute. Like, ‘nooouuurr don’t gooouurrr’.”
Minji snickers, looking down at her screen to hide the smirk tugging at her lips. She knows she’s walking straight into a trap, but Hanni was known for being extremely persuasive.
Not to mention, this Danielle girl does sound cute.
“Fine,” Minji concedes, looking up. “But she’s paying for the coffee.”
“Oh, she is absolutely paying,” Hanni grins, already taking out her phone to send a confirmation text with lightning speed.
Girlfriend.
Minji lets the word linger in her mind. It’s no doubt that a lot of girls like her. She’s been hit on many times, but always gives a cold shoulder to them—she’s (perhaps unintentionally) quite the friend-zoner.
“Okay,” Hanni continues, “Tomorrow afternoon. Twelve-thirty. The Baillieu. I’ll text you her number so you two can find each other.”
“Oh,” Minji responds, her mind elsewhere. “Okay.”
Girlfriend…
Hanni slides her phone into her pocket. “Congratulations, Minji,” she smiles with great pride. “You’re officially reentering the workforce.”
---
The Baillieu Library has always brought Minji a great deal of comfort—it’s her number one study spot on campus. Today, however, walking through the heavy entrance doors, she can’t help but feel a sudden spike in nerves.
She checks the time on her watch. Twelve-fifteen. She’s early.
Early is on time; on time is late, she thinks to herself.
She looks up from her watch only to be met with two large, entrancing, cat-like eyes. She jumps, startled by her feline friend’s sudden appearance.
“Kang Haerin, what are you doing here?”
“I’m a curious soul; I like to wander,” Haerin posits. “Plus, there’s a girl I like that hangs out here.”
Minji raises an eyebrow, holding a defensive stance. Ever since the two Koreans met as wide-eyed freshmen—bonding over their shared background—they’d always had a close but hyper-competitive relationship. Minji fails to suppress a suspicious expression.
“You’re a Biochemistry major, Kang,” Minji whispers sharply, keeping her voice low for the library entrance hall. “Your labs are across campus. Are you spying on me? Did Hanni send you?”
Haerin puckers her lips, her face a perfect, unreadable mask. She breaks her piercing eye contact to look around the room. Her eyes lock back onto Minji, examining her attire.
“You’re dressed especially nice for studying. Who’s the appointment with?”
Minji suppresses a grimace. That’s the thing about Haerin—she has the brain of a highly efficient data processor. Minji often found herself unintentionally envious of her intellectual prowess. Minji had to work hard and fight for her academic excellence; Haerin just existed and excelled, and here she is—reading her like a book.
“It’s a consulting gig,” Minji responds smoothly, crossing her arms and offering a polite, effortless smile to a passing classmate who waves at her. “Hanni set it up. A design student needs my expertise.”
Haerin watches the brief interaction, a tiny, almost imperceptible frown showing on her lips before it vanishes. Minji envied Haerin’s intellect, and Haerin was equally vexed over Minji’s effortless charm.
Haerin stares with a blank expression. “Your expertise?”
“Yeah, it’s a…” Minji hesitates, massaging the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “I think she set me up on a date.”
Haerin looks her up and down, analyzing her with the utmost precision. She clenches her jaw.
“A date?”
Their conversation is cut short by the sound of the heavy entrance doors opening behind them.
A bright and cheery voice cuts through the air, Minji’s ears perking up like a puppy.
“Hey, Haerin-ah! Oh, and you must be Minji!”
Minji turns around, and her brain briefly short-circuits.
Hanni’s description of sunshine personified was an understatement. The woman standing before her looks less like a stressed college student and more like the beautiful main character of an indie romance film.
She has long, flowy brown hair like a Disney princess, eyelashes that flutter as she speaks, and a smile that can melt the heart of anyone lucky enough to witness it.
She’s practically juggling her things—clutching an oversized leather portfolio to her chest with one hand while balancing a cardboard drink tray with two coffees in the other.
There’s a pause. Minji takes a moment to regain her composure.
“Danielle. You’re early.”
“So are you,” Danielle counters with a giggle.
“No, yeah, I was just talking to…”
Minji whips her head back around to find that Haerin has disappeared into thin air without saying a word. Typical Kang. She bites her lip and furrows her brow.
Minji turns to Danielle, being met once again with her soft doe eyes. Danielle lets out a light snicker at Minji’s comical facial expression.
“You brought coffee,” Minji states.
“Yeah, Hanni told me you wouldn’t come if I didn’t.”
“That’s not… exactly true.” Minji shuts her eyes tight, now grimacing at the memory of how she behaved in her conversation with Hanni. “Are you two close? She’s never mentioned you till now.”
“Well, we just met this semester. We have a class together.”
Minji takes the drink tray from Danielle’s hand, relieving her of the burden of carrying everything. She gives a little tilt of her head toward the seating area, silently prompting them to move.
“She’s nice,” Danielle continues. “How long have you two known each other?”
Minji lets out a pensive hum. “Four years, I guess? Since our first semester.” A fond, slightly nostalgic smile touches her lips as they navigate past the reception desk. “Actually, we met because she accused me of grand larceny over a school supply.”
Danielle lets out a small chortle. “Okay, what’s the story there?”
“We sat next to each other in this massive introductory lecture, and one day as we’re all getting up to leave, Hanni just snaps. She slams her hands on the desk, glares at me, and demands I give her back her favorite pen.”
Danielle’s eyes widen, a sudden giggle bubbling up. “She thought you took it?”
“I guess,” Minji shrugs. “It was one of those green gel pens of hers, shaped like a sprout. She was completely convinced I stole it while she was in the restroom.”
“And what,” Danielle says, leaning in with an amused grin. “You didn't have it?”
“I don’t even use gel pens,” Minji laughs softly, pulling out a chair for Danielle. “That girl was ready to fight me right there in front of the professor—until I could finally get a word in and explain that it’s tucked right there behind her ear.”
Danielle lets out a loud, melodic laugh that prompts a warning glance from a nearby student at a computer terminal. She quickly covers her mouth with her hands, lightly bowing her head as an apology. “Oh my god. Yeah, that is so Hanni. What did she do?”
“She just grabs the pen, looks at me, and says, 'Oh. My bad, bro. Want half my sandwich?'” Minji shakes her head, setting the coffee tray down on the table. “We ended up having a lot in common. Now we’re kind of inseparable.”
Danielle settles into her seat, grinning. “Okay, and what about Haerin?”
Minji's smile fades the tiniest amount. “What about her?”
“Well, you two seem close,” Danielle says with a cautious tone, sensing the energy.
“We—yeah,” Minji stammers, pulling herself together. “I met her in my second year—her first year. My English wasn’t the best when I got here, and her English was even worse. Having someone to speak Korean with really eased my homesickness.”
“That’s sweet,” Danielle responds as she opens her laptop, clearly with something on her mind that Minji can’t seem to figure out.
“What about you?” Minji traces the lid of the coffee cup with her fingers in a circular motion, a nervous compulsion of hers.
Danielle takes a deep breath. “What about me?”
“Or, like,” Minji sputters, “What’s, like, your story? Like, why are you here?”
“I don’t know,” Danielle responds. “I go where life takes me.”
“Where life takes you?” Minji ponders, eyes drifting to her surroundings. “I have a hard time understanding that. I’ve had my whole life planned meticulously since day one, either by my parents or by me.”
“And how’s that going?” Danielle takes a sip of her coffee, looking Minji straight in the face as Minji looks off into the distance.
“Fine,” Minji says, slightly defensive, “I just stay on track and work hard, and eventually—one day—I can relax.”
“Well, you could afford to relax a little now, too,” Danielle says, raising the pitch of her voice, adopting a more sympathetic tone.
Minji inhales deeply, finally making eye contact with Danielle. She was never taught to relax. That’s not how her mother raised her. She thinks back to the endless cycle of mock exams, the midnight cram sessions, the rotation of strict private tutors who treated her less like a kid and more like cattle. She wonders if she’s ever even felt it—relaxation.
“We should probably get started,” Minji responds, putting up a wall that felt entirely too familiar to her.
“Okay,” Danielle surrenders.
Minji thinks for a moment before opening her laptop. Despite having recommended ending the conversation a second ago, she’s still curious about one thing.
“How did you meet Haerin?” she queries.
“Oh!” Danielle beams, back to her usual cheery self. “I think it was at the George Paton Gallery. There was this exhibition a week or two ago featuring the works of a Vietnamese-Australian artist. Hanni and I went together, and Haerin just happened to be there.”
Minji leans back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Haerin at an art exhibit? By herself?” She furrows her brow, puzzled by the thought of it. Sure, Haerin wasn’t opposed to art; she could even be quite interested in it at times, but she hardly ever left her apartment unless it was for class.
“Yeah,” Danielle responds, “I remember her slowly pacing through, eyes wide like a kitty cat, staring down the art like it owed her money. She was so focused I assumed she was a critic. Then Hanni noticed her and introduced me.”
“What did Haerin say?” Minji says, sitting up and typing in the password to unlock her laptop.
“Not much. You’re her friend, I mean, you know how she is.”
Minji sits with that response for a minute. No, I don’t, she thinks to herself. She’d been friends with the girl for 4 years and hardly knew a thing about her.
Well, she knew she was from Dongjak-gu, liked avocados, and had some personal vendetta against verbal communication, but…
Were they really even friends?
---
Haerin has been top of her class every year since she’s arrived at UniMelb. School has always been a breeze for her. She’s naturally gifted. Academically speaking, she has absolutely zero problems. Socially speaking, it’s a different story.
Haerin finds it difficult to open up to people. Actually, she finds people difficult in general. And there’s one specific person with whom she has the most difficulty.
Kim Minji.
While Haerin can’t deny that she’s definitely smarter than her, Minji has her beat in one regard—it seems as if just about everyone loves her.
She can’t help but envy that.
Since the start of the year, Haerin has been examining one particular girl, first setting eyes on her at the System Garden, a place where she often visits to escape the rest of the world. She goes there and inspects the greenery for hours. In her mind, there’s no bigger testament to the beauty of biology than plants, and this girl is the most beautiful sunflower.
Danielle Marsh.
For the first time, Haerin feels an inclination for a person the same way she had always felt for science. She stares at her the way she’d stare at daisies and tulips, fascinated by every molecular detail.
Having finally formally met Danielle at an art exhibit that she may or may not have gone to specifically for her, Haerin is just now mustering up the courage to actually speak to her.
So imagine her surprise when she finds out that Danielle has an afternoon appointment with none other than Kim Minji.
Pacing outside of the Baillieu after her run-in with the two, she unlocks her phone and frantically texts Hanni for an explanation.
[Me, 12:30 PM]:
Did you set Kim Minji up on a date with Danielle Marsh?
[Hanni Pham, 12:32 PM]:
why
is it going well
[Me, 12:32 PM]:
Why would you do that?
Minji should be focusing on studying.
[Hanni Pham, 12:33 PM]:
chillll
u sound like her mom
do you like her or something??
Haerin scoffs at the thought of her ever having feelings for Kim Minji. They’re nothing alike. Speaking from a purely analytical standpoint, the two just don’t mesh romantically.
[Me, 12:34 PM]:
No.
Forget I asked.
Haerin shoves her phone into her blazer pocket, her cheeks burning slightly from a mixture of annoyance and frustration. Hanni doesn’t understand. Nobody does. Kang Haerin, quiet and weird, can’t even ask a girl out on a date.
She stops on the campus pathway, turning around to glance back at the library entrance hall where she left them. Minji is inside right now, sitting at a table with her sunflower, probably being effortlessly charismatic and “dictionary-brained”.
Haerin puckers her lips. School has always been a breeze for her. But now, Kim Minji has officially become her most complicated research project yet.