Chapter Text
“Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. . . . She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.”
—Jane Austen, Persuasion
The warm, late summer breeze smells of grass and fresh rain. It travels into your car and makes its way through your hair. You’ve got one hand on the steering wheel, while the other hangs out the open driver’s side window. The drive back to campus in the fall is always one you enjoy: after a summer of living at home, you’re ready to be on your own again.
Well, “on your own” is a relative term. Your childhood best friend-turned-college roommate, Bianca, sits in the passenger’s seat of your old Toyota Camry—and she has a way of constantly reminding you that you’re never, ever alone.
“So, for our senior year, I’m thinking we should go all out. Brand new outfits. Back-to-school brunch. And boyfriends.” In your peripheral vision, you can see that she’s holding up three fingers. “The three B’s!”
You roll your eyes. “You know, for a high school valedictorian studying neuroscience, you can sound an awful lot like an idiot sometimes.”
She crosses her arms. “And for someone who loves breakfast food, you can be awfully cynical about brunch.”
You let out a laugh as memories of your high school trips to Denny’s flood your mind. (And, even though you just ate a bunch of crap from a roadside fast-food joint, you find yourself craving a Grand Slam.)
“We don’t need to pretend like this year will be anything special, B.” You sigh, checking your ETA. Just ten more minutes, you think. “Just because it’s our last, doesn’t mean that all of our hopes and dreams will come true. All it signifies is that we’ll have to work extra hard to finish strong. And prepare for our futures.”
Bianca lets out a robust groan. She can be so theatrical sometimes, you silently complain. “Speak for yourself, Y/N,” she holds up a finger, “but new clothes, breakfast food, and a boyfriend don’t constitute ‘all of my hopes and dreams’. Instead, consider identifying them as ‘healthy distractions for Bianca, who’s about to get into med school or die trying.’”
“You’ll get in,” you assure her as you flip on your blinker and begin to pull through a right turn. “You’re the smartest student at Hunsaker.”
“Hmm, yes. I’m the smartest student at our tiny West Virginia college. That makes me a shoo in.”
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, no, Y/N, thank you, but of course I’m not the smartest student at Hunsaker. That’s you.”
She laughs. “I don’t subscribe to society’s rules of lying as etiquette, Y/N. I love you, but anyone majoring in English Literature is definitely not the smartest person in school.”
“Some friend you are,” you joke. You both laugh for a minute.
Soon, you stop. Bianca continues talking.
But you can’t really hear her over the sound of your own thoughts.
She’s right. You’re not smart. At all. Your program is easy compared to hers, and you still don’t get all A’s. You’ve never been able to deliver on that 4.0 you promised your parents. You’ve barely kept your scholarship. You’ll probably lose it after this semester, and you’ll have to drop out. But what would it matter, anyway? You won’t be able to get a job even if you manage to get through this year and graduate. Your degree is useless. You’re useless.
Useless useless useless.
“Y/N? You there?”
Bianca’s summoning snaps you out of your thoughts.
“Hmm?” You look at her.
“The light’s green now,” she points to the traffic signal ahead of you. “You can go.”
“Oh. Right.”
Useless. Pay attention.
As you grow closer and closer to campus, the excitement within you bubbles over, shoving those previous thoughts down into the deep, dark recesses of your mind—the storage space that never gets cleaned.
Cutesy banners that read “Welcome Back, Students!” have been draped across the narrow lanes of downtown Hunsaker, West Virginia, the tiny mining town adjacent to Hunsaker College’s campus. It was once somewhat of a metropolis back in the early 1900s (well, as metropolis-y as a town in West Virginia can get); but as the coal industry shrunk, so did Hunsaker. Now, your school, Hunsaker College, was the only thing keeping it alive.
The town of Hunsaker has about five streets, with Main Street being the only one worthy of being called a "street." (All of the others feel more like "lanes.") It feeds travelers from highway 92 directly into the mouth of the college’s entrance, and features the only amenities Hunsaker has to offer: a pizza place, a general store, two competing gas stations, a BBQ joint, a café, a family-run Urgent Care, and the local grocery store.
Despite being a college town, Hunsaker doesn’t even have a bar. For many of your peers, it was a hellhole their parents banished them to.
For you, it had become home.
You pull off onto 9th Street (misleadingly named, seeing as how Hunsaker definitely does not have nine streets) and park outside your and Bianca’s tiny apartment complex. You turn off your Camry—which you’d creatively named “Cam”—but not before you pat her gently on the steering wheel and tell her how good of a job she did getting you there.
“You treat this car better than you treat me, and it’s ridiculous,” Bianca comments as she thrusts open Cam’s passenger door and runs over to greet your other two roommates, Tristan and Vivian, who’d seen you pull up. You perch your sunglasses on top of your head and smile and wave at them.
Tristan walks over to help you unpack Cam’s trunk. “Welcome back,” she smiles, offering you a warm hug. “Long day, huh?”
You roll your eyes and smile. “You have no idea.”
“I was stuck with Bianca in a car for that entire spring break trip to Florida, Y/N. So I do have some idea.”
Somehow, you and Tristan manage to bring all of Bianca’s stuff inside before she’s done telling Vivian all about her summer. Next, you unload your bags and a couple of cardboard boxes stacked in Cam’s back seat, which you labeled “19th c. Brit Lit,” “American classics,” and “Chinese novels.”
“All books?” Tristan marvels.
“Unfortunately for my weak arms, yes,” you wince at the weight of the box bearing your translated Chinese novels. “The used bookstore was really good to me this summer.”
“Please tell me they paid you in money, too.” She smiles.
You laugh. “They did. Don’t worry.”
Soon enough, your side of the room becomes an explosion of books—hardbacks, paperbacks, thick ones, thin ones, copies in terrible condition, and copies in excellent condition. You revel in the sight and find yourself with no desire to tidy it up.
One book in particular catches your eye: Persuasion by Jane Austen. It’s one you’ve read plenty of times before—and it’s the novel you’ll be reading for your senior capstone course this semester. Its cover is purple and simple and inviting, and it feels so good in your hands, and it smells so good, and it’s not all that long.
So, in a moment of sheer genius, you decide to ignore the rest of the unpacking you have to do, and opt to go read Persuasion at the café back on Main Street.
__________________________
It’s mid-September. The air is probably still a little too warm to be sipping a chai tea latte that isn’t iced, but that doesn’t stop you from doing so. Plus, the barista behind the counter is a new hire—probably a freshman—and you don’t know if you can trust her yet with anything more complicated. You toss a five-dollar bill into her tip jar, knowing that freshman Y/N would have appreciated it tenderly. Luckily, your current job at the library pays a lot better than your café one ever did.
The inside of the shop is packed, with every seat filled by students savoring their last bit of freedom before the start of classes. The aura feels chaotic to you, and you can’t exactly put your finger on why. Maybe there’s a wider gap between you and the incoming generation of freshman than you thought? (Many of them are wearing clothes and speaking slang that you don’t understand.) Maybe it’s just the sheer amount of people and, by extension, germs?
Gosh, I sound like an old person, you think. Let’s just go outside. You accidentally brush up against a tall, muscular guy with a tragically incomplete mustache. You mutter your apologies, but not before a girl in dark sunglasses almost knocks you to the ground while trying to get to the counter to pick up her drink. It’s okay, you tell yourself. I’ll be fine. I’ll make it outside. Just breathe. Wait—don’t breathe. You’re too close to too many people. You’d be sharing air and germs with all of them. You slowly nudge your way to the door. Just go outside. Go outside. I feel like I need to go outside.
You push the door open, but first-year whippersnappers litter the tables on the patio, too.
Ugh.
You walk a few paces so that you’re not blocking shop’s entrance, unsure of what to do or where to go.
But then, you turn your head and notice an empty bench.
It’s comfortable-looking, on the smaller side, and at least six feet away from any other living, breathing, talking being.
Perfect.
You make your move as fast as you can, but before you can sit down, you collide with a guy—a perfect stranger—and come face-to-face with his chest.
You push away. Your eyes snap to the stranger's face, observing his expression of surprise painted on a canvas of perfect, porcelain skin. A mop of dark hair covers his forehead and threatens to curtain his eyes, which are also dark—and unbelievably deep. He’s . . . well, he’s not bad looking. Let’s put it like that.
But you’re too close to him.
You both step away from each other at the exact same time, looking down and muttering profuse apologies.
“I’m so sorry,” you say, adjusting your glasses with one hand and gripping your book with the other. “Did you want this bench? You can have it; I can head on home–”
“No, no, you can have it,” he says, still not meeting your eyes. “I was going to leave in a few minutes anyway.”
“No, you can have it. Sit. Please,” you plead.
“No, no, you sit. Really,” he insists.
Silence ensues for a moment.
Well, if he’s not going to take it . . .
Then, as luck would have it, you both sit down at the exact same time, hips and thighs colliding in a way reminiscent of your bodies' first meeting just seconds ago.
“Oh, sorry–” he says.
“No, I’m sorry,” you interrupt. “I misunderstood. I’ll get going . . .”
Just as you plant your feet to stand up, you notice that he’s carrying a copy of Persuasion, just like you.
“Hey!” You exclaim, a little more excitement in your voice than usual. “I’m . . .” you lift up your book. “Me too.”
He lets out a half-chuckle. “I . . . don’t read romance. Well, not on my own. This is for a class.”
“Oh, yeah. Mine is too,” you backtrack.
“Cool,” he says, fidgeting with his hands a little. “Well, um, as long as we’re both here . . . I don’t see why we can’t share the bench. It fits both of us just fine.”
“Yeah,” you agree, your discomfort paling in the face of your desire to just read and enjoy your dang coffee. “Why not.”
So you both crack open your copies of Persuasion, and start reading.
You read in silence.
And you keep reading in silence.
For a while.
A long while.
I’ve never sat this close to a guy before, you think. Our knees are almost touching.
Before your thoughts can travel down another long, winding road of panic and speculation, you decide to do something courageous: talk to him again.
“I meant to ask you earlier,” you begin, lifting up your head. “What class are you reading that for?”
“Just a 300-level lit class,” he responds, his head remaining where it is, his face remaining an unwavering statue of indifference. “A general requirement.”
“Oh, nice.”
“You?”
“My senior capstone. I’m a lit major.”
“Hmm,” is his only response.
“I get that a lot,” is yours.
“What does that mean?” Now he looks at you.
“When I tell people I’m a lit major, they don’t often react with excitement,” you explain. “It’s the typical ‘useless college degree.’”
“I would argue that that depends on the person obtaining the degree,” he turns his gaze back to Persuasion. “If you’re not useless, it won’t be useless either.”
Then it’s too bad I’m useless, you think.
“I guess you’re right,” you say. He says nothing back, and for some reason, you have enough courage to venture further: “So . . . what are you studying?”
“Music production,” replies Mr. Stone-faced.
“Oh, that’s interesting.” You turn your eyes back to your book, because two can play at the I’m-more-interested-in-British-literature-than-you game. “I didn’t even know Hunsaker has that.”
“It’s . . . new.” His voice carries some sort of disguised emotion. Strangely intriguing, you think to yourself.
Who is this guy?
“What’s your name, by the way?” You ask, because now, you must know.
“Um . . . Yoongi.”
“I’m Y/N. You didn’t ask, but now you know.” Ugh, you had to say it like that. Normal people don’t say things like that. I always say the wrong things. Now he’ll think your weird.
It took him a second, but . . . he laughs.
He’s laughing at me?
“That was funny,” he spurts in between cute giggles. “Sorry.”
He thinks I’m funny?
You can’t help it. You start to laugh too.
Finally, you gather yourself enough to say, “Sorry about that. Super savage things come out of my mouth sometimes.”
Yoongi’s gaze turns away from his book, and it lands on you. “I . . .” His voice trails off a bit, as if rediscovering fond memories. “I get that.”
You smile. He smiles. You adjust your glasses, and he fidgets with his hands. A light breeze blows across the pages of Persuasion, making you lose your place, calling your attention back to the task at hand. You and Yoongi both turn back to your books, but you can’t focus on a single word. Instead, your thoughts dwell on the sound of him breathing beside you.
You’re close enough to hear him breathe. That means you’re too close.
t’s okay. He’s nice. He even smells nice. He’s not gross at all.
Doesn’t matter. Your personal space has been compromised. Your bubble has been popped. REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THE SITUATION IMMEDIATELY, AND COMMENCE RECOVERY CYCLE.
Ridiculous brain. I don’t need to recover from anything. People spend time around new people all the time, and they’re fine.
Those new people are STRANGERS. They’re STRANGE. Strange is BAD. REMOVE SELF FROM CAFÉ’S OUTDOOR BENCH NOW. GO HOME AND TAKE THREE SHOWERS.
“I’m sorry, Yoongi, I just remembered I have to help my roommate unpack her stuff.” You stand up, tossing your coffee cup into a trash can. “She’s a minor hoarder, so it’ll take us at least the rest of the evening and all day tomorrow. But it was nice meeting you. Maybe I’ll see you on campus sometime. Goodbye.”
Well, that was the quickest removal of self I’ve ever seen, your brain offers a compliment. It would clap if it had hands. Good job.
“Oh . . . okay,” Yoongi mutters, his expression turning into one of slight disappointment.
You walk away.
One step. Two steps. Three steps, four.
You hear him stand up behind you.
“Um . . . Y/N?”
You turn around. “Yeah?”
“Do you . . . would you help me read this book sometime? English isn’t my first language, and literature definitely isn’t my strong suit. I wouldn’t take up too much of your time, just an hour or two after class one day. And I’d buy you food for your trouble.”
“Um . . .” Well, this is new. “Sure. Why not.”
He pulls out his phone, and you type your number into it.
“Cool,” he says. “I’ll text you.”
“Okay,” you reply, taking another good look at him. His skin really is quite pale, but it’s also flawless—much more flawless than any college student you’ve ever seen. His eyes are a gentle almond shape, and his nose is adorably round. And his lips . . . well, they’re the most perfect pair of lips you’ve ever seen. Almost perfect enough to make you forget that hot, humid air from gross human innards passes through them tens of thousands of times throughout the day.
He begins to say something else, but then you’re reminded of how speaking is just breathing but worse and more disgusting.
So you tell him, “Goodbye.” And you walk away, back towards 9th street.