Jiseok Short Story Collection

The obstacle to my education

I was continuing a fight I had no chance of winning, and my enemy was wearing a blue sweater vest.

"Jiseok, please." I muttered, vigorously highlighting a paragraph of a textbook I hadn't actually even read. "If I mess up this midterm, it's entirely your fault."

"Me? What did I do?" Jiseok leaned back against the office sofa, legs crossed, one arm draped casually over the backrest. He didn't seem to care at all about the mountain of word cards piled on the low table between us; he looked far too relaxed and at ease.

"You're breathing too loud." I lied, keeping my eyes fixed on the page.

"I'm sitting here really quietly." Jiseok said pointedly, and there was a dangerously thick layer of mischief in his voice.

I made the tactical mistake of looking up. A huge mistake. Jiseok was watching me with his eyes slightly narrowed, the corners of his mouth curled into a soft, seductive line, wearing that signature, knowing, sly smile. He looked extremely pleased, as if he knew exactly how much his very existence was causing chaos in my brain. Jiseok rested a pen precariously between his long fingers and twirled it lazily while watching me suffer.

"You're not studying." I snapped, pointing at him with my highlighter. "You haven't looked at a single page of your notes for the past 20 minutes."

"Because watching you is way more interesting." Jiseok smoothly shot back, the corners of his mouth curling even wider. He slid a few inches closer to me on the sofa, and as the distance between us shrank, the faint, clean scent of cologne from his body reached my nose. "Come on, let's take a 15-minute break. I'll let you quiz me with the word cards."

"You don't know any of the words."

"Go ahead, check." Jiseok said provocatively. For a split second, his gaze dropped to my lips before snapping back to my eyes, and his lethal smile deepened to almost criminal levels. "If I get all three in a row, you close the book right away and go get iced Americano with me."

I tossed the highlighter onto the open textbook and accepted his challenge. "Fine. Just three words. If you get even one wrong, you stay put, sit quietly, and wait until I finish this unit."

I grabbed the stack of word cards, pulled one out from the middle, and narrowed my eyes. "First word. Metabolism."

Jiseok didn't even blink. Still wearing that same sly smile, he rested his chin on his palm. "Easy. It's the chemical reaction happening inside my heart every time you walk into this room."

"Jiseok! That's not what it means at all!" My face burned as I drew in a breath. I desperately shuffled the cards, trying to find the least romantic word possible. "Okay, second word. Velocity."

"The exact speed at which I run to buy you that iced coffee the second you close the book." Jiseok shot back immediately, with a playful glint in his eyes and no effort at all.

"You're hopeless." I admitted defeat and let my shoulders sag. I pulled out one last card and almost flung it onto the table. "Last one. Gravity."

Jiseok tilted his head slightly and moved even closer to me until our shoulders were almost touching. "The invisible force that keeps pulling me toward you even right now. See? I'm a genius, right? I got all three."

"Forget it, I'm not doing this!" I shouted, leaning my head hard against the sofa cushion and letting out a huge melodramatic sigh in total defeat.

Jiseok burst out laughing, a triumphant laugh that rang brightly through the quiet room. He sprang up from the sofa almost like a spring and shook out his legs as if he'd been trapped there for hours. Then he grabbed his damp jacket, slung it over one arm, and reached down to shake my shoulder vigorously.

"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Jiseok pouted cutely, the smug smile from a moment ago gone. "This stupid science is making my brain feel fried. If I stay in this room for five more minutes, I'm seriously going to turn into a human textbook. The iced Americano is calling our names!"

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't hide the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "You're honestly the worst study partner in human history. A complete obstacle to my education."

"I'm the inspiration behind your education." Jiseok corrected smoothly, not caring at all even as I started stuffing the highlighter and scattered papers into my backpack.

"More like sabotage." I muttered, yanking the zipper shut. "If I fail this test, when the professor asks why, I'm printing out your name and all those bogus definitions you gave me and handing them in."

Jiseok just snickered as he watched me sling the heavy backpack strap over my shoulder. But before I could even take a single step toward the door, he reached out and caught my hand.

His long fingers slipped between mine without resistance, and his warm, firm palm pressed against my skin. The image of him from just moments ago pouting cutely was gone, replaced in an instant by a dangerously natural, self-assured kind of charm that nearly stole my breath away. Jiseok took half a step closer and looked down at me with that devastating smile that could completely ruin a person.

"I'll take the blame for everything." Jiseok whispered low. The moment his voice dropped into a deeper, softer register, my heart thudded hard in a dangerously unsettling way. "Let me carry the bag, too."

He didn't even wait for my answer; with one empty hand, he lightly lifted the backpack off my shoulder and slung it over his sweater vest as if it weighed nothing at all. But he never let go of my hand. Keeping our fingers tightly intertwined, he squeezed my knuckles playfully and guided me down the hallway so I could walk out.

Jiseok smiled brightly, soft creases forming at the corners of his eyes. "Now, let's go. It's time for a date with iced coffee."