Ziff’s Endearing

    Mr. Troublemaker’s Mischievous Love

    I drove for miles and miles and wound up

    At your door

    I’ve had you so many times but somehow I want more

    I don’t mind spendin’ everyday

    Out on your corner in the pourin’ rain

    Look for the girl with the broken smile

    Ask her if she wants to stay awhile

    And she will be loved, and she will be loved

    Song :: She Will Be Loved – Maroon 5

    Ziff’s Endearing

    ~01~

    “Please, I’m begging you. Please, help me.”

    I clasped my hands together in a plea toward a guy who now looked completely shocked by my approach.

    Hmm, maybe I should introduce myself first. Wouldn’t want to freak him out any more than he already is.

    My name is ’Panya.’

    I realize how awkward—and probably just as annoying—it must be to have some random, slightly disheveled girl like me appear out of nowhere asking for help. Especially, when he was about to go into the bathroom.

    But there’s no way I’m letting him go. The dark blue workshop uniform he’s wearing tells me he’s in engineering department.

    And now here I am, a student of the Humanities department, armed with *charm and wit* (—yes, you may gag) pulling on his shirt with all my strength. People around are looking at me like I’m some kind of lunatic, and the guy I’m hanging onto clearly feels the same.

    “Hey! Are you trying to make me lose it or what!?” He lowered his voice and, under my relentless tugging, finally followed me all the way to the vending machine.

    He looked like he was two seconds away from whacking me, but this is a life-or-death situation for me.

    See, I have this big report project due in one of my major courses, which requires studying a single person over the course of two months. It’s a shot at bumping up my less-than-stellar grade. But when I drew the engineering department, I nearly fainted.

    Everyone knows how intimidating engineering guys are.

    Then again, I only have myself to blame for not researching the male-to-female ratio before choosing my university. As it turns out, there are about four—no, six—men to every woman here.

    So now I’m stuck trying to hunt down a victim—I mean—subject for my research.

    Everyone knows engineering guys have a reputation for being rough and rowdy. In fact, our university practically feels like a guy’s training camp, so forget about anything remotely feminine here.

    Luckily, I spotted him by chance at the cafeteria, saving me from the deadly journey to the engineering building, which is way further than any other department. And on top of that, he seemed normal—not radiating that ’do not mess with me’ vibe like some of the other engineering guys I had seen in the hallways.

    “Excuse me, but it’s extremely rude to just grab someone’s shirt like this. Also, I don’t even know your name, where you’re from, or what you want. All I know is that you want help but have given me absolutely no other information!”

    I couldn’t help but wonder if my judgment was off. At first, he had seemed so warm and approachable, but now he felt more like someone who would bite my head off.

    “Still staring at me, huh? What’s your name? What exactly do you want, you clueless woman!”

    He yelled again, and I snapped back to reality. My action must look insane.

    Why am I still hanging onto him if I can’t even say anything coherent? Ugh, what’s happened to my brain?

    “Pan... Panya. My name’s Panya, from Humanities. I’m working on a project report, and I just happened to find you,”

    I replied in a softer voice. But even then, I didn’t let go of his shirt, despite how hard he tried to pull it from my grasp.

    "Grr! Are you out of your mind? I’m going to the bathroom. Can’t this wait?" He tried to yank his shirt free in frustration, and I quickly realized this was not the moment to push him further.

    If I did, I might end up dead right here.

    "Seriously, so annoying!" He snapped, storming off toward the men’s room, his frustration and irritation plain in his every step.

    As for me, I could only stand there, looking sheepish and full of regret.

    Right… I was totally out of line. I should have talked to him properly, explaining everything bit by bit, not just dragging him around like that.

    But at the time, I had been so thrilled to find an engineering guy without having to trek all the way to their faculty.

    So what do I do now? He’s obviously really mad. Defeated, I turned to the canned coffee in the vending machine as my last resort.

    Bowing my head, I clasped my hands together and prayed to the can for good luck. Just then, he returned and, seeing me, wore an expression of utter disbelief.

    "A-Uh, Um… Oh! It’s so cold." I stammered, fumbling with the ice-cold can, tossing it from hand to hand in panic.

    He just stared at me, clearly exasperated.

    Alright… I had completely lost it.

    "Here, this is for you..." I muttered, bowing my head and handing him the can of coffee.

    He accepted it without a word, looking at me as if I were some alien creature.

    "Alright then. Whatever it is, just say it," he said, tilting his head with a raised brow.

    "Hehe, well." I fumbled, now completely lost for words.

    What do I even say? I couldn’t even phrase my own words.

    "If you’re not going to say anything, I’m leaving. I’ll just assume you’re some kind of lunatic," he added, raising an eyebrow and shaking his head.

    That look on his face screamed confusion, like he couldn’t figure out what exactly I was—a strange creature babbling incoherently and making faces for no apparent reason.

    "Um…"

    "Hurry up. I’m leaving. I don’t have all night to watch you stand there squirming."

    "Uh… yes, alright."

    •

    Eventually, I managed to tell him the whole story, though initially, it must have looked like I was some kind of weirdo stalking him.

    His name was ‘Ziff,’ a third year student in the Computer Engineering department. Seeing him up close, I noticed he was seriously good-looking, a stark contrast to me with my thick glasses and jittery, borderline-suspicious behavior, like I was some illegal migrant.

    Ziff was tall with broad shoulders, his face sharp and rugged but strikingly handsome. His eyes were piercing, with an upward tilt that made him look permanently unimpressed, while his thin lips curved slightly at the corners, giving him a fierce look—though not so much that he looked mean, more like an annoyed kitten.

    Attractive people are intimidating. No matter how annoyed he looked, he still looked good.

    He was drinking the coffee I had given him and staring at me intently, making me feel more nervous by the second.

    "So, this is what it’s about?" he asked, looking at me skeptically.

    I nodded, my glasses nearly slipping off from the force.

    I quickly pushed them back up, only to find him staring without blinking. That look made me feel like crying.

    Please, stop looking at me like that. I know I’m not pretty.

    "Fine, no problem. So, you just need me to report everything that happens to you every day and around the clock, right?" he summed up, and I nodded quickly again.

    "I’ve got a project too. I’m building a robot that’ll have a sensor system to read heartbeats. For example, if you’re excited, your heart will beat at this rate; if you’re angry, it’ll be at that rate. We’re designing it as a watch that changes colors based on the wearer's emotions. Originally, I was going to look for a volunteer, but since you’re here, we could work together and exchange data."

    Ziff set the empty coffee can down on the table and leaned forward, moving closer to me.

    As his face neared, my heart started pounding faster.

    Oh no… he’s so handsome that he looks so beautiful—intensely rugged yet somehow delicate at the same time.

    His short, styled in a slightly messy way exposed his face, which looked bright and clear, with skin that seemed to almost glow. His sharp eyes sparkled, making him even more intriguing.

    Is this guy really a man? How does he look so pretty, almost like a beautiful woman?

    “Hey! I’m talking to you. Did you hear me?”

    “Oh! Yes, of course,” I answered instinctively, not even registering what he had just said.

    Oh no, am I losing my mind? Ugh! I want to cry.

    “Alright then, let’s go. Get up.”

    “Wait. Hehe, what was that again...”.

    Ziff’s expression darkened like he was about to clobber me. Was it a mistake to have stumbled upon him by chance?

    Soon, the two of us were walking toward the massive engineering building. Compared to my faculty building, this one was practically a mansion while mine felt more like the help’s quarters. I followed him in a flustered state, my hair thoroughly mussed from riding on the back of his motorbike.

    I should have drawn a different department slip, shouldn’t I? Oh, someone save me.

    “It’s because women’s emotions fluctuate more easily, so we wanted data from women more than men,”

    one of Ziff’s friends explained when I asked why they were not testing it on the guys in their group.

    As I looked around, I realized his group had five members, each one as good-looking and well-put-together as the next, though Ziff seemed to stand out just a little more than the others.

    "Oh... I see?” I mumbled, suddenly understanding his clear explanation.

    I took in the large, open hall with computers lining the walls and wooden partitions marking off separate areas for privacy. We could use the wall desks or even sit on the floor to work, so I settled onto the floor to help them draw gridlines on a large sheet of cardboard.

    Ziff returned holding a gadget of some sort—probably a heart rate monitor, I guessed.

    Without a word, he looked me over, grabbed my arm, and strapped the monitor onto my upper arm.

    Startled, I stared at Ziff, but he muttered a curse when he noticed someone else entering the room.

    "The professor’s here! What do we do?” one of his friends whispered urgently.

    Ziff sighed, then took off his workshop jacket and draped it over me.

    “Just stay still, act casual… pretend you’re asleep if you have to,” he said, pushing my head down to rest on his lap.

    And just like that, I found myself lying across Ziff’s lap, my heart hammering uncontrollably.

    This is too much. my heart can’t take this...

    “Is your friend asleep?”

    I heard a voice ask, and I was pretty sure it belonged to the professor, which only made me even more nervous.

    We were not doing anything inappropriate, but being here in a private research hall within another department’s building was not exactly ideal. It made me feel uncomfortable.

    Ziff responded, then asked a few more questions, and soon after, he nudged me to sit up. My hair was a mess, and my heart was still pounding. As usual, Ziff did not say a word, just took my arm to check the heart rate monitor strapped on.

    “Excited, huh? Wow, your heart’s racing like crazy,” he remarked, passing the heart monitor device around for his friends to see.

    “Should we call this excitement or just plain panic?”

    Ziff did not pay me any attention. Instead, he went right back to discussing the project report with his friends.

    Couldn’t he notice me even a little? I was practically on the verge of a heart attack here.

    I wasn’t even sure what had made me so nervous—the fact that the professor had walked in, or the fact that I had been lying in Ziff’s lap.

    Not knowing what to do with myself, I wandered around restlessly, unsure where to put my hands.

    And then, disaster struck again: I bumped into Ziff’s robot model, which he had worked on all night, breaking it in the process.

    I froze in shock. His friends froze in shock.

    And finally, Ziff froze in the biggest shock of all!

    He did not say a word, or rather, he was so stunned he could not even bring himself to yell.

    After we all stared in silence for a while, Ziff slowly turned to look at me, his expression a mix of frustration and sheer rage.

    “I’m canceling our agreement. We’re done!”

    His voice was cold and unforgiving, and I could feel the seriousness behind his words.

    His friends whispered urgently for me to apologize, but I was too speechless to respond, standing there frozen in the engineering research hall with only his group left in the room.

    As Ziff stormed off in another direction, I did not know what else to do, so I chased after him.

    This time, I wrapped myself around his leg and wailed, while his friends burst into laughter behind us.

    “What on earth are you doing!” Ziff yelled, trying to shake his leg free from my grip.

    “No, Ziff, sob… don’t do this! I’ll fix your model, I swear. Just please, don’t abandon me!” I cried, and his friends laughed even harder.

    “Are you insane? Let go of my leg, damn it!”

    Ziff clutched the ruined model, trying to shake me off, but I only clung tighter, sliding along the floor as he attempted to walk.

    “Ziff, I’m sorry. Don’t do this, please.”

    “Hey! Someone come get her off me before I completely lose it.” Ziff yelled, looking utterly flabbergasted.

    Finally, his friends managed to pull me away.

    He shot me a look of deep irritation before gathering up the broken model and storming out, slamming the door in my face.

    How many ridiculous things have I done in front of him today? Ugh… I want to scream.

    “Come back tomorrow. Apologize properly, and he’ll cool down eventually,”

    Ziff’s friend, Golf, reassured me with a light pat on the shoulder.

    But I was not convinced in the slightest. Now that Golf had driven me back to my department, he told me not to worry about it—but how could I not? I felt absolutely horrible.

    “Wait a sec!” I called to Golf as he was about to leave.

    I had suddenly thought of a way to make it up to someone as irritable as Ziff and hopefully get him to forgive me.

    “What’s up...”

    “The model I broke, what exactly was it? If I could find a replacement, do you think he’d forgive me?” I asked, folding my hands in a hopeful gesture.

    “Hmm… no guarantees, and that thing was pretty expensive. We need it for building the project structure too.”

    Hearing that, I shrank with guilt.

    It sounded like that model was more than just ordinary.

    “Well, could you at least tell me where to get it? I really want to replace it.”

    •