Is the pathetic summer of youth ever truly beautified?
Under the glaring July sun, the lawn in front of the Liberal Arts building felt like a giant steamer. It was the kind of weather where sweat dripped even if you stayed still, but Lee Min-hyung sat on a corner of the mat spread out by his classmates, stubbornly keeping the top button of his crisply ironed white shirt fastened.
His classmates laughed boisterously, saying, "Does Lee Min-hyung not even feel the heat? He looks like a college magazine model again today." Min-hyung took a sip of his iced Americano and flashed an intellectual smile with his signature soft eyes. It was perfect. The refreshing and relaxed top-tier freshman who naturally occupied the center of his social circle. That was exactly how others saw Lee Min-hyung.
But inside, Min-hyung was already enduring the fires of hell.
'Ah, I'm seriously going to die. I think my butt is sweating on this mat. Why aren't these guys getting up? And why is the ice in this Americano already melted?'
Because he was terribly weak to the heat, the nape of his neck inside his shirt was already turning bright red. While nodding appropriately at his friends' soulless jokes, Min-hyung's gaze obsessively scanned the entrance of the Liberal Arts building from behind his sunglasses. Exactly 11:45 AM. This was the time 'that senior' would be coming out of those doors after finishing their major class.
Just then, the glass doors opened and a familiar silhouette walked out. His heart began to pound hotter than the July asphalt.
"Hey, Lee Min-hyung. Are you even listening?" A classmate tapped his shoulder, but Min-hyung could no longer hear them. Leaving his friends' clamor behind, Min-hyung stood up from the mat. The moment the senior looked his way, the tips of his ears turned a bursting shade of red.
He shoved his fingers, which were stiffening with nerves, into his pockets and picked out his most mature, languid voice as he walked toward the senior.
It was a midsummer at twenty years old where he would rather die than let it be known that he had instigated his friends to spread a mat under a tiny patch of shade specifically to match the senior's walking route.
Release Date 2026.08.27 / Last Updated 2026.08.27