Her fingers tapped swiftly on the keyboard of her laptop, characters filling up the word document. So-eun had only a day left to finish the paper that was due the next day. She wasn't one to cram but when there was so much to do, some things would just slip her mind until she remembers at the worst possible time.

The caramel macchiato she ordered was already cold but she had already finished maybe half of the drink. She could care less about what time it was or how long she had been sitting there. What mattered was the assignment that she was cramming for. There was no way she was going to get her first failing grade because of one five-paged paper. She hadn't gotten a bad grade yet and she wasn't planning on it ever happening.

There weren't too many people inside the coffee shop, but maybe that was because it already getting late. The sun was already down and the moon was up, and here she was with the few people who drank coffee in the evening, maybe other students also cramming for school. There was music playing in the background. It sounded faint through her earphones, which were blasting one of her favorite Nell songs into her ears, but she could tell it was a song by AKMU playing in the shop.

Star Shell stopped playing all of a sudden and So-eun also paused from her task. She muttered a curse under her breath as she tried pressing 'Play' on her iPod shuffle before realizing the battery had died. Checking her laptop's battery percentage, she realized that it didn't have much time left either. The worst part was that she had stupidly forgotten to bring her charger. Out of all of the things she could forget, it was the thing that gave life to her chance at finishing her paper. She pulled off her earphones and stuffed them into her bag, saving her file then turning off her laptop so she could also put it in her bag.

Although she didn't like doing school stuff at home, she had no other choice but to leave. She got up and had only taken one step when she walked into something hard. "Shit," she heard the other guy mutter as she felt hot liquid seep past her shirt and burn her skin, making her hiss at the pain.

"Omo, are you okay? I'm so sorry."

So-eun but her lip to refrain for crying out loud and took a deep breath. Calm down, she told herself. She felt that she was close to losing her cool. "It's fine. Accidents happen," she muttered as she held the wet part of her shirt away from her skin.

Don't lose it.

"Are you sure you're okay? You don't look like it?"

"You spilled hot coffee on me! Do you think I would be okay with that?" It was probably the pressure from cramming on the paper that caused her to snap at him, but the boy flinched when she yelled at him. "What if it wasn't just my shirt but also my bag? My laptop is inside so what if you had damaged that? An apology wouldn't be enough."

The boy was startled by the sudden aggression but he didn't back down. "It was an accident! There's no need to start yelling."

So-eun heard him mutter the word "bitch" under his breath and was about to retort when someone came up to them. "Uh, excuse me." It was one of the employees, holding a mop in his hand to clean up the spilled coffee. "Please do not fight here. You're causing a disturbance."

So-eun scanned the shop and, upon seeing only three other customers inside, scoffed. "What disturbance? There's barely any people here."

The boy decided to pipe in and said, "You don't have to be so rude."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she mumbled and walked out. She knew she was acting like a brat but she would blame it all on the stress she was going through. First there was school to worry about. She was in a pre-med course and needed the good grades to get into the best school for medicine.

Other than school, there were things at home that she didn't want to think about. Her sister had been getting into more trouble lately and her parents were not happy with that. Being the older sister, she was meant to guide the younger girl when her parents couldn't. That was before the incident. Now she couldn't be a guide when Dahye had a reason not to follow, even if that reason was shallow. Besides, she had more personal matters to worry about. She had to make things better for herself before thinking of anyone else.

()()()

The streets were dark as she walked. Lights from the houses and the street lamps were the only ones that kept her from stumbling along the way. She turned at the corner of the familiar street, seeing the house some feet away. As she got closer, she noticed a figure coming out through the gate of their home. She would have been worried that it was some thief but she recognized her sister. Dahye was sneaking out of the house. Again.

The girl slowly shut the gate then ran off in the direction opposite from where So-eun had come from. So-eun didn't call her out and just shook her head. If she were in a better mood then she would have, but at that moment she was exhausted. She couldn't be bothered to give her sister a scolding, especially when she knew Dahye wouldn't listen.

She went inside the house, muttering a greeting to her mother who was watching something on the TV, and headed straight for her room. The first thing she did when she got inside the room was grab her charger and charge her laptop. She changed into something more comfortable than her jeans and stained shirt and then she was glued in front of her laptop for the rest of the night.