Dates & Mistakes (Love Letters #1)

1

Several factors came into play when choosing a university: the prestige and ranking, the courses available, and the student life. Whether it had study abroad programs, clubs and societies, career counselling, or mental health support. The location, the food on campus, and the quality of the teaching.

I didn’t choose Lygon University for any of those reasons.

Granted, my parents had long ago decided I’d go to Lygon University since it claimed to be Australia's number one university, and my parents cared about that sort of thing.

But two things cinched the deal for me. The first was the campus. I’d toured it during an open day when I was sixteen. It was a fifteen-minute walk from the centre of Melbourne, and while it was surrounded by modern buildings, the campus itself was green, with endless lawn, oak trees and dappled sunlight. The stone buildings reminded me of Oxford and Cambridge (or, at least, what I assumed Oxford and Cambridge looked like, according to all of the British period dramas my mum watched).

The second reason? Lygon University Love Letters.

Lygon University Love Letters, or LULL for short, was a popular social media page with almost a hundred thousand followers. Anyone could submit a letter, and I’d read the posts since high school, imagining what it’d be like when I finally attended Lygon U.

Lygon University Love Letters

#13012

Jennie from Macro

I like your handmade keychains, and I think you’re really cute. Do you wanna get coffee sometime? Heart react if you do!

Lygon University Love Letters

#15765

Guys, I think I’m in love with my tutor…

Lygon University Love Letters

#16414

Should I dump my boyfriend? He has a life-sized body pillow of this anime girl, and he says he only sleeps with it “ironically”, but every time I sleep over at his, he always puts the body pillow BETWEEN US and hugs HER and not me?? Also, one time, we were watching an episode of the anime that the character’s from, and I started kissing him (bc I was bored), and he PUSHED ME AWAY and said he needed to focus on the show because it was “important plot development”????

Lygon University Love Letters

#17055

Hey, any queer girls out there want to hang out and be friends and maybe something more? A little bit about me: Fine arts student, learning to crochet, enjoy thrift shopping and cafe hopping. Heart react, and I’ll reach out 3

Lygon University Love Letters

#17867

Last weekend I was about to hook up with this girl, and she said she wanted to role-play as a teacher and student, and I was like, okay because I thought it’d be hot, and also, she’s a total 10, but then she made me sit at a desk and do a maths test. And not just any maths. SHE MADE ME DO CALCULUS. And when I failed, she said she was going to “punish me”, so I thought it’d be exciting stuff, but she made me do the test AGAIN. I swear I was at this desk for an hour just because I wanted to get laid, and every time I got a question wrong, she called me stupid.

Btw — I’m an Arts major. Haven’t touched maths since high school.

But when we did finally have sex, it was pretty hot, though, so would do it again.

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 tiniest hint 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.

“Oh, I’ve heard it’s a lot of work.”

He gave me a half-smile, half-grimace. “Yeah, I now have a crippling addiction to coffee.”

“I’m not a fan of coffee myself. No matter how much sugar and flavour I add, it still tastes too bitter.”

Leo chuckled. “That used to be me.” He nodded towards the menu, which was written in artsy handwriting on wooden boards and hung on the back wall behind the counter. “What are you going to order then, if not coffee?”

“My go-to these days is a matcha latte.”

“I’ve never had one.”

I raised my brows. “Seriously?”

He nodded, lips twitching in amusement.

“You need to. I’m pretty sure there’s caffeine in them as well.”

“Probably not as much as a triple espresso,” Leo pointed out. “What are you studying?”

“Marketing.”

He nodded. “That’s cool.”

“I feel like you’re just being polite.”

“No, I’m not,” he protested. “C’mon, at least it’s not accounting.”

I laughed. “True. Or actuarial studies.”

Leo pretended to shiver. “Or worse,” — he lowered his voice to a stage whisper — “finance.”

The student standing in front of us turned around to give us a dirty look. His hair was short and styled with gel, and he wore a button-up shirt as well as a belt with a huge designer logo smack bang in the middle, gleaming silver.

Leo let out a tiny squeak, and I elbowed him before he could collapse into complete laughter. Despite his height and broad frame, he had an innocence, which reminded me of a little kid.

“Tell me about marketing,” he said. “Why’d you choose to study it?”

“Well, it’s practical,” I said. “But it’s also creative. I think it’s really fun to generate ideas for campaigns. Also, for a lot of our projects, they let you choose any brand you want, so you can personalise assignments, which makes them really fun to do.”

“What brands have you done?”

“A lot,” I said. “My first assignment was for a cat cafe —”

“You’re a cat person?”

“More of a dog person.” I had mentioned it in my LULL post, but he must’ve forgotten. “But I think it’d be impossible to have a dog cafe. Anyway, I’ve also done projects for sushi restaurants, clothing stores, and my last one was for dating apps.”

At the last point, something crossed his face.

“What, not a fan of them?” I asked.

“To be honest,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially. “I’ve never used one before.”

I took a tiny step back — not because his proximity bothered me, but because otherwise I couldn’t think straight. “Why are you saying it like it’s some awful sin?”

“I mean, everyone’s used them these days. But honestly, the idea of going on a date to meet a stranger freaks me out.”

“But —”

Before I could finish my sentence, the barista behind the counter, with pink and purple hair and about a hundred facial piercings, called out, “Next, please.”

Leo stepped forward, and I arrived beside him in time to hear his order. “— iced Americano, please.”

“And can I get a regular iced matcha latte?” I added. “Thanks.”

After the barista typed the order into the tablet and gestured at the card reader, I put my debit card down. Only when we moved off to the side where people waited for their drinks did I notice Leo staring at me.

“You didn’t have to pay for me,” he said, a hint of alarm in his eyes.

My skin warmed. “Sorry, I should’ve asked. I figured it would’ve been easier to order together.”

Now that I thought about it, I didn’t know why he was so shocked. Had he never been taken out on a date before?

“Shit, now I sound ungrateful,” Leo said in a hurry. “Thank you. Really.” He gave me a grin.

I couldn’t help but smile back, my shoulders relaxing. When I woke up this morning, all I hoped for was that my date with Fine wouldn’t be completely awkward. But Leo was…nice.

“There are dog cafes, you know,” Leo said.

I blinked. “Pardon?”

“There are dog cafes,” he repeated. “You know how you said it’d be impossible for there to be dog cafes? There are some in Melbourne. My friend told me about them.”

“No way,” I said. “Wouldn’t they run around, all hyper-active and knocking things over?”

“My friend mentioned that all the puppies are really small, so I don’t think they’d be able to cause that much damage.”

I dug out my phone. “What’s the name?” I asked.

“If you search up puppy cafe…yeah, that’s the one.” Leo leaned in close to point at a website on my phone screen. He smelled like clean linen, and I managed not to react visibly to his closeness as I clicked on the website link.

While it loaded, the barista called out our order. “I’ll grab it,” Leo said.

He returned a few seconds later with two drinks. After passing me mine, we stepped out of the cafe, standing in the shade, out of the sun. Autumn had only officially begun a few weeks ago, so the sky was still bright and hot.

Leo took a sip of his drink and sighed. “That hits the spot.”

I took a sip of mine, relishing the faint sweetness and matcha flavour. I flicked my eyes up to see Leo watching me. “Do you want some?” I asked, taking my mouth off the straw and offering the drink to him.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“You’re not sick, are you?”

“No, but I’m still a stranger.” He took the drink anyway, and I watched his lips wrap around the straw before quickly averting my eyes.

Mind out of the gutter, Edwin.

“That’s good,” he said, holding the drink out as if to study the light green contents. “It doesn’t have the hit of coffee, but…it’s yummy.”

I pushed down a laugh because I’d never heard anyone over the age of ten use the word “yummy.”

He handed me my drink back. “I’d offer you some of mine, but you don’t like coffee.”

“No. But thank you anyway.” I pulled my phone out again, returning to the site I’d been loading before. “Is this the one you were talking about?”

“Yeah, that’s it!” Leo leaned in close and scrolled through the page. “There are snacks you can buy to feed the doggies, and my friend mentioned the entrance fee includes a drink. Oh! That’s the puppy my friend sent me a picture of, isn’t he so cute?”

“Do you want to go?” I asked.

Leo pulled back so he could look at me. Once again, his eyes were wide, but he looked surprised more than alarmed.

“Unless you don’t want to,” I added. I hadn’t planned anything for this date and maybe Leo was happy to walk and talk, but I heard that doing an activity on a first date was a better way of getting to know each other.

Not that I’d been on many first dates. Most of my previous “dates” consisted of me talking to a guy at a bar or student event, being mostly sure he wasn’t a serial killer, then taking him home to fuck.

“No,” Leo began slowly. “No, I’m happy to go. I’m not doing anything else this afternoon. I mean, apart from working on my upcoming assignment, but a puppy cafe sounds way more fun.”

“Okay,” I said, trying not to look obviously relieved.

“From memory, I’m pretty sure it’s in this direction.” Leo pointed north, and we started to make our way through the leafy campus.

“I’ll pull up the directions,” I said, fiddling with my phone.

We passed the modern languages building and continued down the brick path. Some of the bricks were engraved with the names of important alumni and donors.

“How old are you, by the way?” Leo asked.

I told him I was twenty. Leo was in his second year, like me, but he was nineteen. “I’m turning twenty this year,” he told me.

We discussed why we chose Lygon U as we left campus and made our way through a quiet suburb with a huge park and several big mansions converted into smaller apartments.

Leo admitted that a big reason why he chose to study at our university was because it was his parents’ alma mater. “They hyped it up for me, and I suppose the architecture program is pretty good too.”

I explained my own reasons.

“Lygon Uni Love Letters?” Leo echoed.

“That was only one of the reasons!” I said loudly, which did nothing to discourage his laughter. “I was obsessed with it in high school and had this delusion that university would be exactly like a rom-com. Don’t judge me, okay?”

“I’m not judging you,” Leo said. “The page is pretty entertaining to read, although I wonder whether some of the stories are fake.”

“Some probably are,” I say. “There are ones that are really outrageous.”

“I wonder if anyone’s ever actually gotten together because of the letters, though,” he says. “Some of them are so vague. Like, “dude who was at the tram stop wearing Docs and a crochet cardigan. U single?” Like, that just describes every male Arts student.”

I grin. “Maybe it’s not common, but LULL has produced relationships. People have met because of it, at the very least.”

“Really?” Leo asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, just look at us.”

Leo was silent a beat, and I noticed a tiny crease forming on his brow before I was distracted by my phone chiming.

“According to the map, our destination is on our right,” I said after glancing at the screen.

I gazed at an unassuming building; the only thing that indicated it was any different from the residential homes on either side was the sign with painted paw prints announcing it as the puppy cafe.

“That was fast,” I said and led Leo inside.