Entrance

Essa was a freshman in her university. Just an ordinary girl in thousands of others on campus. And yet he had smiled at her, out of all the others coming out of the shuttle bus. She didn't know why he smiled at her. She didn't know who he was or what his name was, and she hadn't been able to respond as she stared transfixed at his smile. It had been that stunning, that brilliant. She wouldn't forget it for many years to come.

He had probably thought she was weird or perhaps he felt discourage not have reply? She had wanted to ask if anyone had ever told him how handsome he was, but could not because she had been transfixed on his face. She had never seen anyone else turn so handsome when they simply smiled.

'Ah regret regret! Why didn't I get his name?' she thought. It would have been so easy to know more about who he was with just a name, especially in this age of social media - and search engines. But now even that was lost. You couldn't do a search based on nothing. Even reverse image search would not gain satisfactory results in finding a person, although the Facebook alothgrim may find a decent match. A name would be the best information to use to search him up. But immediately getting a phone number to contact him with would be nicer.

She wasn't extremely bad at talking to strangers, as long as they had caught her interest. But his smile had stunned her beyond words, so she had been speechless until her was out of sight. She had stood there in a daze for those long seconds.

She knew she wouldn't see him again as he wasn't from any of her classes. She had been attending her classes for more than half a year so she knew for sure he wasn't in any of them. And that she had never seen him before in uni. Still, she couldn't help but hope to meet him again. His smile lingered in her mind as she walked to class with a skip in her step, half excited, half hyper. Her mind and heart wouldn't stop for a moment to let her calm down.

It wasn't until 10 minutes into the lecture when she was able to dehype and calm down into a working, or rather, sleepy state. The words on her note pad turned into a blur both in reality and in her mind as she drifted off while the lecturer talked about maths formulas, quadratic equations and calculus which would be on their final exam due in a few weeks.

Her handwriting became nearly illegible as she struggled against sleep. She didn't have the strength to break through and wake up.

She shouldn't sleep. After all, tuition wasn't cheap. Even with government help, the cost of each term reached over $4,000, which although is not an extremely horrifying number, would increase by 4 times in a year! In a 5 year degree, that's $80,000! She couldn't imagine paying up that sum and she didn't want to.

Her mind drifted off again from tuition costs to considering ways to get money quickly. And then she thought of that guy with that amazing smile. The thought made her heart throb and her face felt hot even though she was not blushing visibly. It was useful to have a naturally tanned skin colour. She imagined if she could meet him again, she could perhaps... Ask him out? Did that make sense? It didn't have to because she was in a dream by now. Day dreaming of a life that wasn't single. And all the things in her fantasy that she could do with a partner. Things you wouldn't do alone, that you couldn't do alone or would just be more fun with a partner in crime.

As her dream progressed, her pen stopped moving, and remained motionless until 20mins had passed and the voice of the lecturer stopped. Yes the lecture was over, and she magically woke up and wasn't tired anymore. How strange.

It was a pity in university they didn't bother you if you studied hard or not, that was your own business and choice as it wasn't high school anymore. As an adult, yo're responsible for your own learning. Still, she felt it was a waste because you don't learn if you're not paying attention. All the money goes down the drain! And yet she couldn't help falling asleep when it came to some of her lecturers. She pinned this problem as related to the lecturer voice pitches. They all just sound too comfortable and perfect for sleeping to.

As she stretched and got ready to pack up and leave, the door opened and the next lecturer walked in. And behind him, a certain face she had been hoping to see again for the last 2 hours. The guy from the shuttle bus.