Lygon University Love Letters
#17055
Guy from the International Students Society party with purple hair and the tattoo of a butterfly,
I’m so sad I didn’t get your number or your name!! Ur so cute, and I really wanna see you again.
Naturally, when I started university, I had a romanticised idea of what it would be like. I thought I’d look across the lecture theatre and meet eyes with a hottie or accidentally brush fingers with a campus cafe barista, and that’d be the beginning of an amazing love story.
When I hadn’t received a love letter addressed to me, Edwin Kim, after a week of class, I was disappointed.
After a semester of zero love letters, I was aghast.
However, it didn’t matter too much when I was busy going out on weekends and hooking up with strangers. But now it’s three weeks into my second year of university, and I’m looking for something more serious. So, I’ve decided to be more proactive, so I submitted a letter auctioning myself off.
Of the eighteen people who responded, either by heart-reacting or filling out the Google doc, half didn’t respond to my messages, a quarter responded with a variation of DTF? and of the remaining four, there was only one guy who I deemed not crazy.
Funnily enough, I don’t know his name. He reached out by filling out my Google doc, using [email protected] as his email, and he never signed off with his name.
It was okay, though. I was about to find out soon enough.
I turned around and glanced in the window of the cafe I was standing in front of, checking my reflection. I thought I looked okay, and I hoped Fine (which was what I temporarily named him) was attractive. I had no idea what he looked like, apart from the fact he told me he was 5 foot 10 and planned to wear a black shirt.
I returned my attention to the path before me, where students passed by carrying tote bags or backpacks on the way to class. Several guys in black shirts looked 5 foot 10, but none of them turned to me.
He couldn’t miss me. I’d told him I was 5’11, Asian, with short black hair and would wear a blue jumper embroidered with a tiny Shiba Inu.
I checked the time on my phone again. I was ten minutes early. There was no reason to feel antsy.
I raised my head when I sensed someone near me and saw a blond caucasian guy smiling at me. “I like your jumper,” he said, his smile widening impossibly.
I blinked. 5’10? Yeah, right — he was taller than me, at least 6’2. He probably got confused by the imperial system. Everyone used the metric system in Australia except for height (and…well, one other body part), probably because feet and inches sounded more impressive than centimetres.
“The little doggie’s so cute,” he continued.
He was still smiling that big, blinding smile, and I had to take a moment to force my brain to work.
“Thanks,” I said. “My mum knitted it.”
“Really? She’s so talented.” His brows were a few shades darker than his hair, and his eyes were grey. He had the tiniesthint of stubble on his jaw. I shaved that morning because I wanted to look neat for my date, but the faint facial hair suited him — he looked masculine, but not so much that he looked scary because of his huge, disarming smile.
“Thanks,” I said again.
He nodded at the cafe entrance, which I was standing beside. Professors Lane Cafe was one of the busiest cafes on campus, and today, the line was almost out the door. “Are you in line?”
“Not yet, but…” I gestured at him to step in front of me, then took my place beside him. “Now I am. What’s your name?”
“Leo,” he said. “What’s yours?”
“Edwin. Most people call me Eddie.” I reached out to shake his hands and caught his eyes widening a fraction before he took my hand and shook it. Maybe he thought shaking hands was a bit weird for a first date, but I thought it would be too forward to hug him.
“So, what were you doing before this?” I asked after we finished our handshake.
“I just finished a class.”
“What are you studying?”
“Architecture,” he said.
