Realistic or Modern Lovely Romance, K-Drama Style

[Catori]

Seoul, South Korea
December, 2018​

Campus

 

[Catori]

Daeho​

Daeho positioned himself, bent at the knees, the basketball warm against his palms. Daeho usually found himself alone in the gymnasium on a Tuesday at 1 in the afternoon. He didn't mind letting the music coming through his phone drown out his thoughts so the only thing he focused on was the hoop. A game of basketball doesn't work alone-- he always played alone-- so his shots swooshed into the hoop straight on. When the ball slammed onto the shiny floor, it vibrated through the gym. Daeho's practice went cyclical, him dribbling the ball from half court into a shot, and when others filed in he took his leave. He pulled back a glass door to be hit with a soothing cool wind. Wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead with his no-name t-shirt, Daeho meandered to the locker room, passing the second set of glass doors that led towards the pool, and the third set yet that led to a sort of studio room, the kind with floor to ceiling mirrors across one wall and a wooden bar.

His wet black hair almost stood when he glided his fingers through it, but flopped to one side under the weight. Today was any other college day, but Daeho didn't want to accept that. That every day of the most exciting years of his life would pass exactly the same. A feeling burrowed itself deep inside that Daeho knew today would not end like any other college day. The only one who can change your future is you, so start working it, he thought. Be on top of things, and don't pay attention in statistics class. Besides, math classes for an English major seemed too stupid for him to comprehend.

Even in his second year it still surprised him how vast the campus seemed as he walked through the mathematics building. He could walk from one building to the next, or bike, or try his hand on a skateboard, but that usually ended in a horizontal Daeho. And the library towered with an endless supply of jewels. For someone studying English, free books were what free food was to most. A life force, with each word being another drop of sustenance. He didn't read all the time, only when he had exhausted himself practicing baskets. The furthest trip by far was getting all the way from his second floor dorm to the bookstore across campus. The winter air had started to move in, but the trek was worth it.

When he looked in the classroom, many unfamiliar faces looked back at him. He could pick out a few names.. like the professor's.. but his attempts at being friendly seemed futile. It seemed all anyone wanted to do was hurry to and from then become engrossed in their phone screen. Daeho made his way to his seat carrying only a mechanical pencil and a notebook with half the pages torn out. Albeit, the pages were all torn neatly, with none of that accidentally-ripped-paper-in-half nonsense.

He wasn't sure if he could concretely consider her a friend, but Daeho had consulted in Minam the time he couldn't understand where his map was telling him to go for his next class. And there was the couple of times he'd asked about the math assignments, because all the numbers looked like hieroglyphics to him. Some of the memories had been sifted from his mind, but he thought he remembered their play-dates as children. Every so often, but when Daeho asked to go visit her again, his parents told him she'd left the country. Unless that part had been a dream and he was experiencing a super long deja-vu.

 

[Shadow Alpha]

M o o n​

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K y u n g m i n​

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When Kyungmin awoke from his ungodly deep sleep at 7 am, he immediately dressed himself for his usual solo swim training even though he pefers to practice late at night.. The campus was eerily quiet as he had made his way to the gym. His footsteps echoed off of the walls easily since he was the only living thing in the locker room. Kyungmin had always enjoyed solo practice so that he could sort out some of his own thoughts and avoid unnecessary stress that comes with the territory. The smell of chlorine had become quite comforting to him and he soon found himself floating along lazily on the edge of sleep. "Ahhhh, this day would've been perfect if I could just skip that annoying math class. It's not like it directly involves my major anyway," Kyungmin had muttered that statement while his head was partially submerged. The bubbles rose to the top as he continued to grumble to himself.

More time passed him as he practiced a vriety of strokes to make sure that he remained in good form. A few more uneasy glances towards the clock mounted on the wall occurred before he figured that it would be smart of him to get ready for that dull mathematics class. Kyungmin took a leisure stroll back into the locker room to shower and check on his hair. He knew that colored/bleach hair tended to be quite delicate when dealing with chlorine water. After rummaging through his bag for his change of clothes and his personal extra strength conditioner.

Spoiler: Kyungmin's Outfit

Spoiler: Kyungmin's Swim Team Jacket

Kyungmin's hair was still lightly damp with a mild curl to it by the time he headed out for class. As a last thought, he had decided to put on his Team Jacket although it wasn't that chilly outside to him. He just enjoyed soft inner material and the fact that it has his initial and name on it. Kyungmin breathed out a slight huff as entered the Statistics class while offering those that greeted him a bright smile and a small wave of his hand. He took his usual seat and began to wonder what he would do for the remainder of the day since he wasn't scheduled to work in the bookstore until a little later. After removing his notebook and multicolored pens, Kyungmin removed the hair tie from around his wrist to place his hair in his signature low ponytail. Once he had decided that that was the solution to his problem, his eyes landed on a semi familiar face. One that he recognized and had seen a few times around the gym and the basketball team. Kyungmin mad a mental note to see if the athlete would mind training together one day since most of the sports team were quite friendly with each other due to a strong sense of comradery amongst them.

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code by pasta​

 

[Aato]

Minam
Attending university in South Korea had been a mere thought; Minam never expected to actually go there. She ran the idea by her father who prompted her to do what she desired meanwhile reminding her to keep the pros and cons in mind. However, when she brought the idea up to her grandparents, her grandfather became ecstatic that she was even interested, fervently encouraging her to apply and volunteering to sponsor her education. Still, she weighed the options as her father suggested before finally deciding to take her grandfather up on his offer. It was true that connecting to her Korean heritage had never been an issue for obvious reasons and that this decision would be taking her even further away from connecting with the culture of her other half, but she'd never spent more than a week in Korea and she couldn't imagine getting such an opportunity again. Besides, it wasn't as though she were going to spend the rest of her life there; she had no reason and America was home.

Her grandfather was on the flight with her as they touched down in Seoul. He was due to return to work, but also planned to help her adjust and not feel so alone. ...However, the former ended up consuming majority of his time, so Minam found herself exploring on her own. The first thing she learned to get used to were the curious stares, along with assumptions that she did not speak the language, and occasional question of her heritage. Originally, she felt self-conscious, but the feeling faded as it got to be a normal occurrence and she didn't mind answering a few questions so long as they were polite. And, well, while she always thought she spoke the language quite fluently, she found herself actually forgetting, or even missing, some vocabulary. Immersion was teaching her a lot about herself.

School was a few weeks in and, luckily, classes hadn't become a struggle yet as far as understanding the language or the subjects themselves. Well, there were a few times she had to consult her phone's translator or a classmate... Speaking of classmates, she learned that she shared a class or two with the son of family friends. While she would have liked to consider Daeho a familiar comfort, her memories of him were sparse and not made up of much of their teen life, if any at all. They were practically strangers. Though, perhaps, this new situation would better acquaint them. After-all, they had already been aiding one another here and there and it was always beneficial to have friends. So, maybe being acquainted was actually comforting during all the hustle and bustle. Her father thought it to be a fortunate coincidence. Meanwhile, she wondered if her grandfather had known all along.

Currently, Minam was at a campus cafe, enjoying a lunch of soup and dumplings while her eyes scanned the textbook for her next class. This beforehand studying was a common occurrence as she liked to make sure she understood and comprehended the material. Then, she could focus more of her time on the lecture, taking notes, and asking questions while in class. She was in the process of sipping down the last of the soup when her phone in its penguin case vibrated on the table. Thrrr, thrrr. Placing the bowl down, she then picked up the phone and her eyes widened at the screen. "Omo!" She must have somehow missed her first alarm. This was her second alarm letting her know she was now ten minutes behind schedule. She quickly packed up her things and discarded her trash before heading out the cafe toward her next class, fingers crossed that she would not be late.

Interactions: N/A​

 

[wendy]

Chun Min​

Fashion students, you could spot them a mile away, polished outfits of the hottest looks straight off from the Worlds hottest designers. They never wore the same thing twice and would rather be caught dead then wearing last seasons collection, Chun Min could only dream of having this attitude. The 21 year old had just finished the early morning shift as the café she worked for and was heading straight to class, but she wasn't looking forward to it. Despite being a fashion major Chun Min had to take a few classes that weren't directly related to fashion and one of them was Statistics, she'd failed it last year and so was having to retake otherwise she wouldn't be able to graduate this year. Chun Min didn't really know anyone in this class so she was looking forward to making a few more friends and also getting to meet a few hoobae's. Chun Min walked through the school's West entrance and was greeted by a few younger students in the fashion school and she smiles back cheerfully before gesturing that she had to hurry. Well, she didn't have to hurry, in fact she had plenty of time before class started but Chun Min always liked to get their early so she had a bit of time to settle into her surroundings and maybe get a coffee as the feeling of tiredness from taking the early morning shift was getting to her.

"Chun min-ah!" A voice called as she entered the building, she smiled at the sight of her best friend Sarang, one of those lucky fashion students who could afford the Paris Designs. "Looking beautiful as always! I'm in love with those jeans!" Sarang says pointing out the leopard print jeans that she was wearing. "Is this the Limited Edition Prada bag?" Chun Min says absolutely shocked as Sarang let her touch the bag "The only one in Korea." Sarang says with makes Chun Min choke slightly "You've out done yourself Sunbae." Chun Min says respecting her older classmate. "See you class later?" Sarang says and Chun Min nods before heading off to her first class of the day.

Chun Min walked into the class seeing that it was already quite full which surprised her at first because it was early, the 21 year old scanned the faces in the room, she recognised a few like Moon Kyungmin, a swimmer and a heart throb for the first year students and Daeho, a boy her age on the schools Basketball team. Chun Min walked over and smiled at Daeho, they had spoken a few times but didn't know each other that well. "Good Morning Daeho." Chun Min says while sitting down next to him. "How are you?" Chun Min says placing her bag on the floor pulling out her golden glitter notebook. Chun Min leant back for a second when she heard something fall on the floor, she'd knocked off some pens from the person behind her's table and they were very nice multi-coloured pens. "I'm sorry, Here's your pen!" Chun Min says as she turns around and places the pen back on his desk but as she looked she was stunned. He was perfect! The perfect person to be her model in the upcoming fashion show.

Mentions: Shadow Alpha (Kyung Min)
Interactions: Catori (Daeho)

Spoiler: Chun Min's outfit

 

[Catori]

Daeho​

Daeho flipped his notebook to the last page, where scribbles decorated the page. A few random words joined, and it wasn't pretty. This single page looked like what someone would etch into a stone wall if they had to spend a few years locked up. Daeho would eventually remove it and restart the process of letting out his bored thoughts on another page, leaving the rest of the notebook rightfully untainted.

As he slouched in his chair, dreading the next two hours of statistics that would probably go right through one ear, onto a piece of paper, and into a garbage can, a voice carried its way to him. "Good morning," he said. He straightened himself, set down his pencil, and nodded at the girl, but her name slipped by like it was on ice skates. She knew his name. "Doing as well as I could be in a stats class." Of course her face looked familiar, but he didn't have time to ruminate on it before he heard plastic hitting the floor. He merely watched the interaction, supposing there was nothing to be done.

Kyungmin! Daeho had seen him around the rec center before, but the guy wasn't a frequent of the gym. "Hey." Daeho offered another nod, this time noting the two's sense of fashion. They practically mirrored eachother. As for Daeho, he wore basic jeans, the cheapest ones he could find that didn't make him look like he wore.. gasp, jeggings. Included with his pair of walking-to-places sneakers and a non descript black t-shirt, he wore the simplest outfit there. The main reason being how difficult it is to match everything together, but the others pulled it off.

Now, back to that name.. His eyebrows scrunched as he thought, but still came up with nothing. Could he look over her shoulder as she labeled the top of a paper to hand in? Easy, but suspicious. He'd have to ask her out for a coffee-- or other café beverage-- sometime. Ingenious, the barista would write her name on the cup. But by the way she looked up at Kyungmin, now wasn't the appropriate.

 

[Shadow Alpha]

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Kyungmin offered a few others that entered the classroom a friendly smile as they made eye contact. He absentmindedly twirled a pen in his right hand while his mind drifted off to his upcoming swim meet. He felt pretty confident in the freestyle but had some doubts over his butterfly since the form had always a little odd to him. 'I wonder if it's more of a personal issue with that form or the fact that I feel like a struggling butterfly each time.' Kyungmin did his best to keep his thoughts away from the more negative territory since the last thing he needed was to have a full on attack in the classroom. Even though he knew he technically didn't have any control over it, he always attempted the extra effort to minimize them.

As he seemed to zone back into reality, He Kyungmin offered Daeho a cheerful greeting followed by a wave. Before he could settle back into his seat, his attention was now focused on a few of his pens that had been accidently knocked down by the girl in front of him. A small little incident such as this wasn't something that ever irritated him so he leaned over to grab one pen that had managed to lodge itself between the leg of the desk and his book bag. "It's no problem at all, accidents happen quite often anyway," Kyungmin flashed the girl a rather toothy grin that easily transformed into confusion as the girl seemed to look him over as if she were studying a new species. Her eyes seemed to shine which caused him to cock his head to the side slightly. While he wondered why she was staring, a few loose strands of hair appeared in his vision that he easily tucked behind his ear. "Is something wrong?" Kyungmin had closed some of the distance between them as he tried to determine if the girl was off in her imagination or still concerned over the pens. It really wasn't a big deal or anything and none of the pens were damaged so all is good, I'm KyungMin by the way." The introduction at the end was a last minute effort after realizing that it would be odd to carry on a conversation with someone that may not know you and already fell awkward about the whole situation.

Interactions: Catori wendy

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code by pasta​

 

[Aato]

Minam
Minam had entered the Statistics classroom far more flustered than necessary, hair in disarray as some strands flew out of their style and her bag dangling sloppily off her shoulders as it tugged her clothes out of place. Having been halfway across campus, she hustled to make sure she wasn't late to class. Though to her pleasure and dismay, she popped through those double doors to see everyone carrying on and settling in casually with no professor in sight. 'Well, then...' She glanced at the time on her phone, cleared her throat, then began adjusting herself where she stood -- hiking up her bag, pulling down at her clothes, and running her hands through her hair. 'Well, I guess my efforts weren't a total waste. After all, the point was to get here before class started. So, I guess the mission was accomplished...and with a smidge of time to spare too.'

Her eyes swiftly surveyed the area, looking for a familiar face until she spotted Daeho with an empty seat beside him. She often sat with him during class, but tried not to make it every class as she didn't want to seem needy or be a bother. Noticing that he seemed engaged in conversation with others she presumed to be friends, she nearly changed her route, but decided it would be fine and she'd keep her questions to a minimum today. When she reached the seat, she gave a quiet "Hey" to Daeho as she let her bag slip down to the floor, then turned to the others, dipping her head in a slight bow along with a friendly "Hello" all while oblivious to the small pen fiasco. She sat and reached into her bag, pulling out her things to prepare for class. She took another glance at the time on her phone and suspected that the professor would show up at any moment.

Statistics was a hit or miss subject for her with some concepts being grasped quickly and others she felt unable to comprehend to save her life. So, although she had spent time reviewing at the cafe, she figured it couldn't hurt to go over her trouble topics one more time. On the upside, she at least found the class to be interesting and applicable to life... Then again, nothing was interesting for two straight hours.

Interactions: Daeho ( Catori ) ; Chun Min ( wendy ) ; Kyungmin ( Shadow Alpha )​