Leave it all to the wind

For instance, you two would often study together at the school’s library after classes, specifically on Fridays, when no extracurriculars were occurring to keep you busy. Lunch time was strictly student government briefing for you two. And in the time between lessons, you’d regularly check each other’s classwork and homework for each other, catching any errors either of you made before it was time to submit, not that Seungmin made many errors anyway. To say that you two spent a lot of time together would be a bit of an understatement.

Despite all this time though, you could hardly say you really knew Seungmin, at least not on a personal level. You knew he always preferred chicken at lunch, and how math was undoubtedly his best subject, whereas he struggles a bit more with language. You knew he was an amazing leader and how his decisions were always very well rounded and well-received amongst the student body. You knew he was an exceptional baseball player.

But that was about it really. Yet you somehow still managed to develop some huge crush on this guy. This boy who would never feel the same towards you surely, because you two were merely classmates with similar goals and no intentions of building upon this acquaintance-like friendship.

Knowing this, you still sometimes tried to get closer to Seungmin, you really did, out of the sheer possibility that one day he may notice and you’d have an implicit agreement of friendship at the very least.

-

One of these attempts was made with the founding of the club you’ve always wanted the school to have, but were sure hardly anyone would join unless prompted to do so.

The morning you had asked Seungmin to take into consideration a new club proposal, he had initially rejected it quite harshly.

“Who would join this?” he smiled. To be quite honest he had found the idea of a gardening club maintaining potted flowers and vegetables on the school’s old rundown rooftop greenhouse to be pretty wholesome, but did not think it held quite the right formality to be taken as seriously as other clubs if presented to the rest of the student government. Everyone was way too stressed and busy with exams to waste time playing with dirt.

He eyed the proposal form meticulously, looking for the student’s name, but to no avail.

“Who submitted this?” he asked, looking up from the table for the first time since lunch began.

“I just thought it’d be a nice stress reliever for everyone,” you replied, now feeling a lot less confident than when you had slid the piece of paper in front of him.

Your shy look told Seungmin he had probably hurt your pride just now, something that he would never mean to do on purpose of course, and now he felt the remorse creeping up on him. Perhaps the club wouldn’t be such a bad thing, he thought over. Maybe tweaking the name just a bit would make it sound more worthwhile to students.

He sighed.

“Put your name on it and change the name to an Environmental Awareness Club, something along those lines at least. We can present the idea at today's meeting.”

Headstrong and confident as always, Seungmin brought a smile to your face as you reached over into your bag to fish out a pen and correct the form.

Seungmin had always been this closed off and serious, never speaking informally to you, and never wasting his words, he was the most concise and careful speaker you had ever met. And for some reason this only drew you in. His big brain energy was just that attractive.

On the other side of the table, Seungmin took notice of your surge in mood and smiled to himself, relieved to have boosted your spirit.

-

The board hardly agreed to the proposal until Seungmin cut in and beautifully explained the benefits of gardening and plants on stress relief and the ideologies of being environmentally conscious at your age.

After that everyone was pretty much sold on the idea with just one condition. Miroh High’s new Environmental Awareness Club would have to be established in time for the annual club fair in two weeks. Meaning, recruitment of leading members, supplies and set up on the rooftop would have to be set by at least next week to be considered for the school’s extensive list of beneficial extracurricular activities for students.

The condition was enough to falter even Seungmin’s confidence. He was unsure if you’d manage to do all that on your own in just a week, especially with your rather quiet tendencies, he doubted you could recruit many students in such a small amount of time.

He looked over at you, almost as if asking for your approval, to which he caught your lingering gaze on him, a look he had never seen coming from you. You slightly nodded your head once in agreement to the ruling and Seungmin politely shook his head towards the rest of the government board members, bowing as he took his seat once again.

Seungmin had made your dream gardening club a hopeful reality, you just needed more people now, that was the only problem. Still, you imagined having Seungmin join and coming along to your gardening club, gently taking care of a flower. No, a vegetable, you decided. Seungmin would prefer a vegetable, it’d be more practical of him.

-

The day following your ‘environmental awareness club” approval was a Friday. Your designated study session with Seungmin was as always to take place in the library after classes had ended, only today he had opted to stay behind a bit and insisted you meet there in thirty minutes instead.

“I’m helping Han with cleaning duty today, so I’ll meet you there,” he explained, before he stood up from his seat making way for the desk behind you.

Behind you, a certain Han Jisung had sat for the last 3 years of school in which somehow you two were always assigned the same classroom and the same seating order, you in front, him right behind you.

Today Jisung was dead asleep, as he usually was after a math lesson. The sight made you smile, Seungmin lightly shaking his friend awake as a very disoriented Jisung began to stretch and groan from his interruption.

Jisung was actually a very close friend of Seungmin’s. Very unexpected given their contrasting qualities. Sometimes opposites just attract huh. Seungmin could never sleep in class, for instance, while Jisung might as well have brought a pillow on the daily.

You knew Jisung wasn’t exactly the most driven student either, but his rank had miraculously never sunk below 10, he was just naturally smart that way. He also never bothered with extracurriculars much, claiming music was all he cared enough for to ever sign up for. Overall, Jisung was an unexpectedly exceptional student with lazy tendencies and not much academic ambition, a striking polar to Seungmin.

After watching the scene unfold, you stood up yourself and made your way towards the vending machine to pass the time waiting for Seungmin before heading to the library. You decided on a small bag of chips and two cookies. You also decided to save one for Seungmin, even though you weren’t supposed to eat in the library, you figured he could save it for afterwards or something.

Unbeknownst to you, Seungmin would later take this small offering in a different light.

Because you see, Seungmin had experienced a fair amount of admirers in his time and had been used to the small gifts given to him by more brazen ones before. In combination with the lingering gazes he felt you giving him both yesterday and now today, he was worried the same was occurring once again. Only this time he didn’t know to go about it. Usually he would simply refuse their gestures with a polite apology and it’d be enough to kindly reject them. But he was unsure this time. Not because he felt anything of the sort towards you, no, Seungmin was much too busy for romantic gestures and feelings to eat up his time, but rather because you were simply so close to him. Not in the personal sense, but in the academic proximity sense of closeness. If he were to “kindly reject you”, would you avoid him like his other past admirers often decide to do? That would make a lot of student government stuff difficult. He suddenly wondered if he could have led you on at all, had he been too kind towards you lately? His racing thoughts spiralling into a mess of ‘what ifs’ were fortunately cut short.

“Are you alright Seungmin? You haven’t finished the problem set yet.” you inquired. Seungmin was usually the one to finish long before you, especially if it was math.

He’d looked over at the fully scribbled page of your workbook, realizing his distraction.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“No problem,” you replied, glancing towards our watch briefly. It was just nearing the time the school’s library closed and you had planned to leave a bit earlier to make a quick trip to the plant nursery just a few minutes off your route home, you had thought your study session would have ended by now.

“Do you need to go,” Seungmin voiced, noticing a slight impatience in the bounce of your knee.

You thanked Seungmin’s impeccable attention, you couldn’t find it in you to excuse yourself when he still hadn’t finished.

“I’m heading to the nursery today for some supplies for the club,” you unconsciously checked the time once again.

“We can look over the answers Monday if you like? I got a little distracted today…” Seungmin trailed off.

It was unusual for Seungmin to trail off his sentences and get distracted and for a second you worried for him and wanted to ask if anything was bothering him.

Only, you stopped yourself. You didn’t know Seungmin like that. It would be inappropriate and insensitive to ask him something like that, right? You decided it was best to let it go, everyone has off days after all. Even the amazing Seungmin isn’t immune to them.

“I’ll leave first then,” you offered, bidding him a polite bow of the head before slinging your bag over our shoulder and making your way out of the library.

Seungmin watched you walk towards the door, unconsciously biting his inner cheek, he felt... worried, that was the best fitting word, he would say, only he wasn’t completely sure that was what the heavy weight in the pit of his stomach really was.