College life is not all that it is said it would be.

I thought college would be different than high school. I had high hopes that it would be all I dreamt it to be and that I would fall head over heels for my adultish college life. I would be independent, I would be free to do whatever I want. I would explore new horizons and meet new people.

I had this rosy picture painted in my mind, one which is the stuff of what YA romance novels and romcoms are made up of.

I thought wrong. Clearly.

The rosy picture was just a blurred one, a mirage in plain sight. When one looks closer, one can see the glaringly obvious fissures and cracks, the problematic elements which suck out the 'rosy' from the picture and leave it just a wilted flower.

All my hopes are dashed to bits just a month and a half after my Freshmen orientation at Hope University. Bits which are crushed even further by each passing week and dreary one (and sometimes two if I am not lucky which is quite often) hour long lecture.

The place is so not aptly named; and I realize that grim fact after just a month as I lie buried neck-deep in assignments and tests and all kinds of stressful thoughts consuming my brain and running around inside it in circles in my mind at a speed which can rival that of a bullet train.

College life is hard. Adulting is hard. Living all on your own when you used to be the spoilt youngest kid in a family with two overprotective parents and a pair of even more overprotective brothers is hard.

In short, being eighteen and juggling my non-existent yet thriving (go figure, I'll clear up the cobweb surrounding the oxymoron loaded in this sentence shortly) social life and my studies is very hard.

But nothing beats starting the first day of the week, a day filled with important lectures on the wrong foot.

You see, I forgot to charge my phone before going to sleep so it got switched off due to low battery and I could not get up because there was no alarm to wake me up.

So I start the day running late, which is not that uncommon among sleep deprived broke college students like me- To top it off with a red scrumptious cherry on the cake, I am an insomniac so my sleep schedule is messed up and that's putting it mildly.

Apart from running late, I also make the idiotic mistake of washing my hair because they seemed grimy. And it's not that I haven't washed them in weeks because I just washed them the day before yesterday; I blame the city's pollution levels and humidity for the grime and oiliness in my hair. Now the question looming in your minds would undoubtedly be the connection regarding washing my hair and how it served as one of the series of events to mess up the start of my day.

Well you see, I am very clumsy and my pink hairdryer which was a stupid gift from my second older brother sucks.

Okay, that is not entirely true. I might also like to add that my hair drying skills are not that great. That, coupled with me in a hurry to make up for lost time and avoid being later than I already am is a deadly combination.

Well, a deadly combination for my poor chestnut hair strands if you may, for I accidentally end up getting a few of them stuck in the blades inside the hairdryer.

How I managed this feat is a mystery to me as well, but there you go.

Because tugging my hair or yanking it free does nothing but make me wince in pain, I feel utterly helpless for a solid ten minutes because not only am I alone in my room due to my roommate having frolicked off to god-knows-where in the wee morning hours, I am also wasting time; most of which has already slipped through my fingers, making me very, very late.

She is a senior and is the reason why my non-existent social life is thriving a bit on campus; something my loner self does not want but I cannot say no to the Kang Sora. No one can in fact- she is a force to be reckoned with whenever she decides she wants something; and in this case it is parading me around and introducing me to the whole damn college because as my luck would have it; she is a social butterfly.

Everyone at Hope Uni knows Kang Sora. Those who are not close to her want to be, and those who are, well let's just say that they along with her make up the most popular seniors here at Hope.

She's a bit intimidating, a known bitch to whoever is crazy enough to piss her off, and a big control freak but she's been kind to me ever since I arrived. Ish. If being 'kind' overlooks the fact that she judged me for the fact that I drink a lot of coffee- she says it's bad for my body or something; I wasn't listening. 

However, she did make it up to me when she sweetly offered to take me under her wing and 'show me the ropes of sneaking out of the women's dormitory at Hope Uni.' So I do guess that counts for effort right? Still, she's not been that rude. On the contrary, she has extended her wish to help me by appointing herself as my Hope Uni Tour guide.

Spoiler Alert: I tried to firmly decline her kind offer but failed miserably. What Kang Sora wants, Kang Sora gets.

Anyways, at last, I am left with no other option but to cut those strands. Yeah, cut them with my emergency scissors (I do have use for them and not in a psychopath-y way) and give myself a natural side fringe.

Luckily, my hair are already cut in layers so won't stand out.

Much.

And still, after all this yet another hurdle stands in my way, making my morning worse by each passing second. I had been procrastinating and avoiding to do my laundry so much that I hardly have any clean clothes; and the ones I do aren't ironed.

So much for 'I will do it later'. Later never comes, especially when you are at Hope University.

Thus, I try to quickly iron my clothes, slightly burning my index finger in the process before I give up and decide to borrow a t-shirt from my roommate by texting her about it.

She replies instantly with a thumbs up emoji and I grab the first one I can find and pair it up with my well-worn light blue favorite comfy jeans which I usually do not wear when I go out because they are a bit tight around my curvy backside and that's putting it mildly- I have had the pair since I was a freshman in high school. I am surprised they still fit. 

When I turn to look at myself in the mirror, I realize that the T-shirt I just borrowed is actually a dark purple crop top ripped at the shoulders, with a logo of some indie band I do not know on the center. It's a bit tight around my bust, because unlike my roommate's tall and willowy frame, I am curvy and petite.

I just sigh at my appearance and mumble "Beggars cannot be choosers" before grabbing a scrunchie and wearing it on my wrist because I know at some point during the day, I would want to tie up my elbow length chestnut hair in a bun or a low ponytail due to the humidity.

Then I hastily proceed to wear my sneakers. One good thing about my lazy self is that I never untie the laces (it is because I do not really know how to tie them properly, please do not judge me, it's just that I was spoilt by my eldest brother as a kid who used to do it for me back before puberty happened; after that I hopped on to my second elder brother who still does it for me. Or used to, until I came here.) so I do not need to spend a lot of time in tying them.

Easy peasy lemon squeasy.

And then grab my bag and I run.

I run like I have never before. My university campus is very big so usually people rent bikes and ride them to their respective classes because our dorms are a whopping fifteen minute walk from the various department buildings where classes are held. And the department where I am headed is even farther. 

I thankfully had the foresight to rent one for the entire year. Its the standard light blue bike of the university, with Hope Uni's logo on one of the wheel guards. I am sick of the logo, and I haven't even appeared for my first semester exams yet. 

I pedal so hard that I can almost feel my feet protesting in response. Being a sloth and hating exercise does come and bite me back in the ass eventually every now and then. 

 I can NOT afford to slow down, already being twenty minutes late to class as it is.

It takes me around five more minutes to reach the parking space in front of the Literature department block, and I do not even bother to lock my bike. I just rush inside, internally letting out a sigh as soon as I step into the centrally air-conditioned building.

English Literature is my elective subject; and right now as I sprint to the lecture hall with my white tote bag flapping against my side, I am regretting choosing it even though I like the subject. The department is just so far away from my dorm, I reckon by the next semester I will lose a lot of pounds and that's saying something; along with a couple of hair strands from the stress of the whole ordeal. 

Hope University has strict rules pertaining to classes and being punctual. Yet sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes students get liberal professors who are flexible with us being tardy. It's so rare that when something like that does happen once a purple ('cause let's be real, blue is way too common than purple) moon, it's nothing short of a miracle.

And that is exactly the one thing that I am thankful for towards my usually stupid fate: that miracle. My English Lit professor is one of those aforementioned professors and that is the only thing which serves as the silver lining to this horrible day. Ms. Hwang is a fifty-something spinster who is quite fun. I always look forward to her lectures.

I skid to a stop in front of the double doors to L107, which is the usual lecture room for first years who have taken this elective and take in a deep breath before opening the doors.

Unsurprisingly, the lecture hall seats are already occupied and heads turn in my direction to see who has arrived thirty minutes late to the one hour class. But those heads do not unnerve me in the slightest, for I look straight ahead as I try to calm my racing heart.

Straight ahead to the elevated center of the lecture hall which is the wooden dais for the lecturer and the projector screen which currently shows a PPT.

However, when my gaze falls on the wooden dais and fails to meet a pair of kind spectacled eyes of Ms. Hwang with wrinkle and laugh lines around them; a sinking feeling prickles in the pit of my stomach.

The sliver lining to this horrible no-good day? Yeah, it is nowhere to be seen.

***

a/n

the picture used on the banner at the beginning of the chapter is the very much real campus of underwood international college, yet the hope university which serves as a backdrop to the story is totally fictional.
i will have more to say in the next author's note, stay tuned guys xx