It was a Tuesday morning, Hoseok was off for his morning exercise again. He was running with his headphones on. He was in the same park where he goes every morning. This time he skipped upper body stretching because of his shoulder pain.

He was running when he spotted the same figure he had seen yesterday. She was in a gray nylon T-shirt with black jacket tied around her waist and black leggings.

"HEY!" he shouted to get her attention but this time, she was the one with loud music blasted in her earphones. "OYE!" He shouted again but got ignored. He increased his pace to catch up with her.

As soon as she noticed hoseok next to her, she increased her pace. Hoseok did the same and caught up with her again. Her brows furrowed together as she looked at him through the corner of her eyes. She kept overtaking hoseok and he kept catching up to her. After some seconds, she stopped to catch her breath.

Both of them were panting as they tried to speak.

"why..." she took some deep breaths "are you following me?"

"I was about to" he paused to fulfill his body's oxygen requirements. "I was gonna ask you the same thing," he said.

"I didn't follow you"

"you are at the same place as me at the same time"

"this-

"Again" he cut her off to emphasize the word.

"This is a public park for fuck's sake" she retorted.

"I can't consider that after you planned your confession so perfectly"

silence engulfed the two of them for some seconds.

"I wasn't following you" was all she said before putting her earphones on and walking away. Hoseok was perplexed by her MO. She handed him her handkerchief so instead of her, hoseok could be the one to approach her and confess her feelings for him. Hoseok was, indeed, impressed by her intellect but he could not understand her intentions at all.

"yo, wait" he ran towards her. They were jogging next to each other again.

"what do you want?" she asked, still running.

"I don't even like you, yet I'm the one chasing you when it should be the other way around," he said as a matter of fact. Silence took over for a span of three seconds until she increased her speed and overtook him after letting out a casual "okay" from her mouth.

"*beep*" hoseok mumbled to himself when he realized what he just said. He caught up to her and ran in front of her. He turned around so he could face her whilst running backwards. "I didn't mean it like that" he said, eyes on her face, which was trying its best to ignore him. "What I meant was, I don't know you, and-

"yeah I understand" she cut him off and said in her normal voice while she breathed heavily as they were still jogging.

"itna bhav kyu kha rahi hai?" Hoseok asked with a chuckle.

("Why are you playing hard to get?" {informal})

"tujhse badi hu saale, tameez se" she mumbled and ran away, leaving behind a surprised hoseok.

("I'm older than you, mind your manners")

"*beep*" hoseok mumbled to himself. "what the fuck" he said and immediately regretted it because a man, probably in his late forties, heard him and was now giving him glares. "sorry uncle" he said and ran towards her again. Hoseok wasn't ready to go back home with unanswered questions and doubts. She was a fourth-year student which meant Hoseok was supposed to refer to her as "ma'am" coz in most colleges, being a senior is quite a big deal. As he ran towards her, things started making sense in his brain. She might be having second thoughts coz of her age, which is why she is trying to avoid him. This is what hoseok thought. After all, we do live in a judgemental society, regretting a decision is the basic unit of our lives because *"log kya kahenge?"* runs our world.

*("what will people think?")*

"okay..." he started once he caught up to her. "I want to talk but first, let's stop running. I can barely breathe" he let it out in one breath as he was panting so hard coz of the long sprint he had to run.

This time, she stopped. "Thanks for listening," hoseok said as he held his waist to support his body as he breathed. He glanced at his wristwatch to get a quick sense of the current time. "I totally understand your point of view now." he said, still a bit short of breath.

She crossed her arms across her chest. She tilted her head upwards to look at hoseok and squinted coz of the sudden sunlight which entered her eyes. Hoseok noticed the change in the sun's position so he shifted a bit to his left to block the rays in order to make it comfortable for her to look at him. Hoseok's face now replaced the sun and the sun rays seemed to come from behind him, making him look like a silhouette. She took a few steps back and pictured the scenery in front of her. Hoseok was babbling somethings she failed to understand, or rather chose not to hear. Right now her mind was occupied by the breathtaking view in front of her.

With his hands in his pockets, so he could avoid the awkwardness and pretend to be cool, hosoek tried talking to her about his thoughts on our judgemental society. He was on about how we should care more about our happiness. She didn't hear a single word though.

"would you mind looking up for a second?" she said out of nowhere.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"upar dekho" she said whilst checking her phone.

("look up")

Hoseok looked up with the intention of finding something in the sky, probably a bird or a ball that was about to hit his face. He did what he was told only to find nothing but a clear blue sky. He heard a strange sound which made him cock his head towards his senior.

"did you just-

"look" she showed him her phone with a satisfied smile on her face. A smile filled with childlike innocence and excitement. He took a moment to look at her smile then shifted his eyes to her phone.

"Woooaaaaah" he let out his astonishment. "this is wallpaper material" he took her phone in his hands and wowed two-three times. He got excited, like the ball of sunshine he was, he couldn't help but smile. "this is great"

"thanks"

"Are you into photography?" he asked in a voice, some octaves higher than his natural one.

"kind of"

"send me this" he automatically opened her contacts and before he could type his number, he stopped. "wait... is this another one of your tactics?"

"what? no"

"*beep*" he said in astonishment and chuckled. "you're so frickin smart, you lured me into giving you my number"

"no way, what the fuck?" she said in disbelief, clearly offended. She said it in a calmer tone rather than the one hoseok had expected to hear. "just use airdrop" she said with her resting bitch face.

"I use android" he said with a tight-lipped smile.

Android and iOS are hopeless for each other when it comes to sharing things without using social media. But Jung Hoseok is a chalta-firta (walking) can of hope.

"then... email?" she asked, unsure of whether it's the smarter way or not. She was gonna suggest instagram but she knew, he'd think of a way to mock her again.

"I'll give you my number because I need your previous year question papers and notes." hoseok said whilst rubbing the back of his neck. He avoided eye contact meanwhile she just frowned at him. He entered his digits and told her to send the pic to him.

"your name?" she asked.

"you've been stalking me for weeks and you don't know my name??"

"proves that I have not been stalking you"

"then what was all that yesterday?"

"coincidence"

"oh for fuck's sake, accept it" he said with a dry chuckle as he ran his hands through his hair. He looked at her, waiting for her to accept that she was following him but she didn't budge. "Jung hoseok" he said after letting out a sigh.

"okay" she said and turned around to jog away.

"and you are?" he shouted as she got farther away.

"Y/f/n" she replied without turning back.

--- Some Hours Later ---

Hoseok's day went waiting for a text from Y/n. After finishing all his classes, he was heading towards the dance room when he saw y/n.

"Ma'am!" he yelled, gaining attention from everyone in the hallway. Everyone but Y/n.

"Y/n Maam!" he shouted. She facepalmed herself in her head before stopping.

"don't call me ma'am"

"why?"

"it's weird"

"okay, so di- Y/n" He cursed himself in his brain. "Y/n. Y/n, I'll call you y/n. okay y/n?"

"what do you want?"

"my photu" he said in a dialect. She took out her phone and immediately sent it to him. Hoseok took two seconds to look at his notification, which was enough to lose sight of y/n. He ran again to catch up with her. "you know, you're like a butterfly, one glimpse and swoosh, you fly away."

She didn't respond. Now, they were both normally walking towards the college exit.

"look, I just wanted to say that I'm not really good at handling relationships. I'm... always a bad trip"

"haha lol"

hoseok gave her a look, a frown, for her dry as fuck reaction. weird, he thought again.

"I always end messing things up," he said.

Y/n figured out he was here for a rejection. She didn't want to initiate anything, she just wanted him to know how she feels. That's all. She didn't want to regret anything. She didn't think this through because she didn't expect him to actually acknowledge her.

When she didn't respond, hoseok continued. "you see, I have this habit of swearing a lot. I tend to swear in every sentence I speak, that's how brutal it is. This is why girls leave me. So..." He paused, probably waiting for a reaction.

"I doubt you've had any girlfriends in the past"

Hoseok gasped. "Kya keh rahi ho?" he said in a dramatic way with a hand on his chest.

("what are you saying?")

"I've had girlfriends, okay"

"kitni" ("how many?")

"bohot" ("plenty")

"name a few, I might know em" she said. Hoseok, again, couldn't understand her intentions. She seemed to be a weird kind of person, a very rare specie.

"uh... Hema, Rekha, Jaya, Sushma, Nirma, Geeta, Babita, Sunita, Shilpa-

"kaunse mohaulle ki auntiyo ke naam bol raha hai?"

("these are the names of aunties from which street?")

"Okay, Nirma, Geeta, Babita don't exist but wait, do you think I'm making things up?"

"I might... coz I barely heard any gaali (profanity) from your mouth."

Hoseok paused. He stopped and retrospected his actions since this morning. He recalled the current moment, since the beginning of his conversation with y/n in the hallway. "I must've said something, you probably didn't hear it"

"I heard every word you said"

Hoseok knew he had to be cautious before speaking to her but he didn't expect himself to actually adhere to the rules he had set for himself in his brain.

"Holy ship" Hoseok said and jumped a little at his own voice. "Did I just say ship?" He laughed at himself.

"Yeah"

"What the duck?" He laughed again. "Why am I censoring things?"

"I don't know"

"And she's gone again" Hoseok sighed.

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Ya'll, I didn't sleep and it shows. 😂
It's 7:04am, Good morning.
A teeny tiny spoiler for the next part.
It's gonna be about a student from Bangtan Institute of Technology.