A soft darkness reaches through the library windows, prompting the tinny announcement that there is ten minutes before the library closes. Hakyeon jerks awake, lifting his groggy neck from the pages of a fat notebook. He inwardly groans as some people weighed down with textbook-laden backpacks start shuffling towards the elevator. They’ve all had a nice long day of productive studying, while he lazily slept. Regret chews at him—next week is midterms.
 

Then he mentally shrugs. The damage is done.
 

He’ll just study tomorrow.
 

Hakyeon stifles a yawn, ready to sleep for ten more minutes, but just as he’s about to plop his head back down on his arms, a shadow in the bookshelves to his right causes him to sit bolt-upright.
 

A moment later, the tip of a cold finger is resting beneath his chin. The freezing touch shocks him awake more efficiently than a bucket of water.
 

“Hello, Hakyeon,” a soft, emotionless voice glides into his ear. The death angel’s gigantic black feathered wings hang over its back, ready to take Hakyeon away at any moment.
 

Hakyeon’s stomach twists, as if his professors just told him that midterms are a week early. Although the library is warm and toasty because it’s the dead of the winter, it suddenly feels like he’s been transferred outside.
 

“I’m too young to die,” Hakyeon croaks pitifully as the cold finger retracts. “I’m not coming with you.”
 

The death angel hisses in reply, “You weren’t scheduled for a painful death. Do I have to personally
change that?”
 

Hakyeon avoids the mocking, sadistic gleam in the death angel’s eyes as he slowly eases his legs out from in front of the chair. His mind’s racing—it might be crazy, even impossible to run from the death angel, but Hakyeon isn’t giving up his life without a chance.
 

Hakyeon stares fixedly at a spot on the black suit of the death angel. “I was wondering, before I go—”

The death angel barely has time to blink as Hakyeon sprints past it.

Librarians and lingering people at bookshelves and desks look on without batting an eye. With a trickle of fear, Hakyeon, dashing towards the elevator, realizes that he’s the only one who can see the black-winged angel that’s leisurely walking after him.

Flames explode all over the library, and Hakyeon screams. He throws himself at the elevator doors, which refuse to open. They look like they’ve been melted shut. The searing fire washes over his body, fusing blood to bone and his eyes to the back of their sockets.

The crack of a whip causes Hakyeon’s head to snap up. The obsidian leather whooshes through the air, right at Hakyeon’s head, and Hakyeon ducks, running towards the windows. The death angel unfurls its great black wings, diving straight at Hakyeon. With a crash of broken glass, the whip curls through a blast of wintry air, as Hakyeon cowers next to the empty window frame. Fire and air lash against each other, sending chills straight to the bone—Hakyeon feels like a corpse reanimated.

Death feels much better than living and experiencing this horrible sensation again.
 

“I’ve changed my mind,” Cold sweat pours down Hakyeon’s face. The drop from the window is five stories high.
 

“You can kill me now,” Hakyeon closes his eyes, waiting for the death angel to deliver the painless blow.

The death angel’s mouth hovers near Hakyeon’s ear, a smirk twisting its lips.

“Why, Hakyeon, you died the moment I touched you. It’s your soul that needed more convincing.”
 

It’s the library’s closing time, and the flames and cold air have never been there. The librarians that head over the Hakyeon’s slumbering figure shake him to no avail. Cha Hakyeon died peacefully in his sleep.