“What do you do, exactly?” Sanghyuk asks, looking up from the last ten pages of Straight Line at Jaehwan's face as he sits by his leg, head against Jaehwan's thigh. There’s a hand on his shoulder, Jaehwan resting it there, and Sanghyuk keeps fiddling with it, his own fingertips running up and down Jaehwan's bones and joints absently.

“What do you mean?” Jaehwan asks back, pushing his glasses further up on the slope of his nose.

“I mean, outside of the library,” Sanghyuk clarifies. “When it’s closed and you go home. And, like, what did you do before you started hanging out here?”

“I went to the university,” Jaehwan says, moving his index finger a little, crossing it with Sanghyuk's. “And I graduated summa laude, thanks for asking.”

“Let me guess,” Sanghyuk grins, “you were a Literature major, weren’t you?”

“Biology,” Jaehwan replies and flicks Sanghyuk's ear.

“Oh, that’s surprising.”

“Not as much as you majoring in History.”

“Yeah, that was surprising to me, too,” Sanghyuk mumbles, because really, it was. He applied for it because of all the pictures of excavation sites on the university pamphlet, but he never would have thought he’d get accepted. Still, here he is, skipping classes to read books with Jaehwan. “But back to the point.” Sanghyuk turns around, not letting go of Jaehwan's hand, their index fingers still hooked together, hanging in the air. “If you’re not a student anymore and you apparently don’t work—how do you get money for, like, food and clothes and all that?”

“Who said I don’t work?” Jaehwan raises his eyebrows.

“Wait, you do?”

“It’s kind of twisted that I need to remind you of this,” Jaehwan giggles, “but life doesn’t stop at 6 o’clock when the library closes.”

“So you work at night?” Sanghyuk inquires.

“You’re one curious kid, aren’t you?”

“Why else would I be here?”

“That’s a good point,” Jaehwan says and stands up. “All right, I guess it’s time I let you in on my darkest secrets.”

“Do I really want to know, though?” Sanghyuk murmurs, but then Jaehwan is holding his hand, yanking him up on his feet.

“You’re way too deep in, at this point.”

Damn right he is.

They end up walking towards the bus stop Jaehwan goes home from every day, holding each other’s hand and mostly staying quiet; Jaehwan keeps his eyes on the pavement and Sanghyuk tries to fight off astigmatism, because he can’t stop staring at their laced fingers from the corner of his eye.

“Where are we going?” Sanghyuk asks once on the bus, Jaehwan placing their hands into his lap and playing with Sanghyuk's while half of his face is buried in his scarf, the tip of his ear red again. For a crazy moment, Sanghyuk wants to lean in and kiss it, but stops himself before he would make a fool out of himself.

“My place,” Jaehwan says, still not looking Sanghyuk in the eye.

That piece of information is heavy enough to shut Sanghyuk up.

Jaehwan's flat is in the better part of town; newly built blocks with lots of green around them, the main road running just perpendicular to the street where they get off the bus, shiny, tall office buildings towering above them on the other side of the road. They walk into one of the modern-looking buildings, Sanghyuk trying to close his mouth as he awes at the decorations in the main hall but feeling he’s unable to, and they enter a lift, Jaehwan pushing the button that brings them up to the fourth floor.

Jaehwan's flat isn’t big, but it’s fairly well-equipped with dark floorboards and cream coloured furniture in the living room.

“Is this where you live?” Sanghyuk asks, standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“I didn’t bring you to someone else’s place if that’s what you mean,” Jaehwan laughs, and tugs at the zipper of Sanghyuk's coat, urging him to take it off.

“Looks fancy,” Sanghyuk says, kicking off his shoes and following Jaehwan further inside, through the living room where there is a huge bookshelf running along the wall opposite the small couch. “Are you a drug dealer or something?”

“A hitman,” Jaehwan whispers and chuckles at Sanghyuk's unimpressed look.

“You have so many books,” Sanghyuk notes as he stops in front of the shelf, eyes roving over the neatly aligned volumes. “I mean, that’s kind of what I expected, but— is this Straight Line?”

He hears a sigh coming from Jaehwan, and Sanghyuk takes the book off the shelf, seeing the same circuit board-like cover. When he looks back up, he notices the lack of authors on the books that sit close to where Straight Line did just moments before, and feels that something isn’t quite right.

“You said you didn’t remember if you read it,” Sanghyuk mumbles, brows knit. “And there are so many anonymously published books here; do you collect them?”

Jaehwan holds his hand again and pulls Sanghyuk with him towards an open door, stopping in the middle of a room that looks much like a bomb has exploded in it.

There’s a huge desk under the window, a small lamp standing by a PC, printed and hand-written texts on paper scattered around the floor, pens that have lost their caps sitting on top of them. There are also quite a few empty energy drink cans and chocolate wrappings, and it takes Sanghyuk some time to place all of those things together.

“Is this… your study?” he peers at Jaehwan and almost recoils from Jaehwan's gaze, because it’s intense and begging, like he really wants Sanghyuk not to judge him for everything he’s seeing. “And you… write?”

Jaehwan nods, stepping to the desk to open a drawer, rummaging through it until he pulls out a thick batch of printed pages, the paper yellowed already and the edges wrinkled. He sticks it under Sanghyuk's nose.

“Straight Line,” Sanghyuk reads the title on top, “by… Lee Jaehwan? You wrote this?!”

“No need to beat me up with it,” Jaehwan grins at the way Sanghyuk holds up the published book and puts the manuscript on the desk. “But yes, I did. And all the others that have no authors, outside on the shelf.”

“Wow,” Sanghyuk says, blinking down at the book in his hand and sitting down in the chair in front of the desk lest his legs give in under him. “So this is why… are you a best-selling author or something?”

“Not really,” Jaehwan laughs and steps closer, sitting on top of his desk, on a bunch of papers. His legs dangle from there. “But I’ve made some money out of them.”

“How many have you written?”

“Twelve so far. They’re really not that great, but they’re enough to provide me with some income.”

“And why don’t you have your name on them?” Sanghyuk puts Straight Line on the desk. “I mean, I’ve only been reading this one and it’s crazy good, so—”

“I don’t exactly want to become famous,” Jaehwan smiles at Sanghyuk and gently caresses his hair. “I figured if I kept myself hidden, they won’t bring attention to me, though, I must say, they don’t even sell that well and my publisher says it’s because of the anonymity.”

“You’re… wow.” Sanghyuk's eyes turn to his current favourite book once again. “So, tell me, is she going to die in the end?”

“She’s an android, Sanghyuk,” Jaehwan laughs, “androids don’t die.”

“She’s going to get shut down by the government, doesn’t she?” Sanghyuk whines. “The straight line is the line on the monitor where he checks if her parts are still working, isn’t it? It goes straight like an ECG.”

“Do you really want to spoil it for yourself?” Jaehwan pulls a face at him.

“Ah,” Sanghyuk leans back in the chair, trying to process all this information. “I can’t believe you wrote this; it’s really good.”

“You must really underestimate me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Sanghyuk frowns. “I’m just… I don’t know.”

Silence falls between them and Sanghyuk looks around, catching some words on the pages spread out on the desk, wanting to read everything in one sitting, with Jaehwan's hand in his hair just the way it is now. He feels… so proud and excited, and his heart is about to burst the way it’s pounding in his chest, and when he glances back up at Jaehwan's prettily shining eyes, he swallows thickly.

“Jaehwan?”

“Hm?”

“This might sound weird, I don’t know. I just think you’re really wonderful,” he jabbers before he could really think about what he’s about to say, “so, I think I like you? Like, like like. In more than a… friendly way, you know? So, I’m— I’ve been thinking, would you… go on a date with me?”

There’s a blush on Jaehwan's cheeks again and Sanghyuk wants to kiss it, on both sides, because Jaehwan looks like a delicate little flower blooming whenever the pink appears on his skin, but then Jaehwan's hand disappears from between his locks, leaving Sanghyuk feel empty. There’s a sad smile on Jaehwan's lips when he says, “I have some work to do, the deadline is in two weeks.”

He gets off the desk and starts digging through his papers, with his back at Sanghyuk.

It’s like ice water being poured over Sanghyuk's head, his entire body going cold and he feels like crying; there’s not enough air in his lungs.

“I guess I’ll see you at the library, then,” he mumbles, standing up.

Jaehwan nods, leaning over the pages and Sanghyuk might be imagining it, but it looks like his hands are trembling.

Jaehwan sees him out of the flat, eyes glued to the floor, Sanghyuk examining his doormat once outside.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Jaehwan opens his mouth, but eventually just gives Sanghyuk a mournful glance before closing the door.