THURSDAY, 6:15 PM

It’s loud.

Rather unusual in a college library.

There’s the murmurs from nearby students, the barely audible whirring of computers and laptops, the click-clacking on computer keyboards, and the faint shuffling here and there; all the usual sounds you’d hear in a college library at dusktime. With all these sounds, it should still be quiet, but every sound is amplified. Everything feels closer than it really is.

It’s distracting.

A pencil breaks, and with it, the rest of an author’s concentration.

The author looks down at her open notebook, and at the dark streak of lead her pencil had created. It’s the only mark on the empty page. She watches the broken piece of lead roll down the page until it finally falls to the floor beneath her.

She looks up from the floor to her surroundings, her eyes unable to look back at the empty page and her mind unable to focus. She glances towards her friend, the librarian. Her eyes are distant, focused on something just across the library. Curious, the author sits up in her chair, looking over the tall desk and across the room. She finds a girl, a young college freshman who frequents the college library, sitting in a comfortable chair set against a pillar and reading a thick book. Her name is unknown to the author, but it’s now clear to her that the librarian’s eyes are not distant, but lovestruck.

“Yo, Chaeng,” the author calls.

Chaeyoung jolts, as if some invisible ear plugs over her ears had been ripped off and all the quiet sounds of the library had become amplified. She blinks, once, then twice, before turning to her friend. The author can’t help the suspicious look on her face, her right eyebrow and the corners of her lips raised.

“Staring at the pretty girl again?” she asks.

A blush consumes Chaeyoung’s face. She tries desperately to keep her eyes from falling back to the “pretty girl,” unnaturally looking up to the ceiling. “Dahyun, stop.”

Dahyun laughs. “Stop what? Reading you like an open book?”

She laughs again at her cleverly placed joke, but Chaeyoung only glares at her, her lips tightened.

“You’re very readable. And I’m serious. I’m not just saying this because you work at the library,” Dahyun clarifies.

“I. Wasn’t. Staring,” Chaeyoung says through gritted teeth, each word coming out of slowly.

“Fine, fine,” Dahyun dismisses Chaeyoung with a wave of her hand. She hides her face behind her notebook. “You were daydreaming about the pretty girl,” she can’t help but mumble, her eyes glancing over the top edge of the notebook.

“You’re a little b—” Chaeyoung stops herself, realizing her inappropriate volume in the library. “Why don’t you just continue writing?” she says, her voice in a loud whisper. She nods her head towards Dahyun’s notebook.

Dahyun returns her attention to her notebook, frowning when she actually sees the empty pages, and not just blankly stares at it like she was doing so earlier. For hours, these pages have been empty; that is, until she broke her pencil against the page when she dug the lead in too hard, most likely out of frustration. Her mind’s been thinking too hard, but also not thinking hard enough, that it’s become extremely draining. Writer’s block, it’s the absolute worst for an author.

Unlike Chaeyoung, Dahyun doesn’t work at the library. She says she’s an author, but that’s a lame excuse to avoid facing the fact that she’s unemployed. But she’s happy to be an unpaid author, whose stories aren’t read by anyone. She’s not hunting for any job, though it would do her much good. She likes to write. Writing is her way of escaping reality. Ironically, it helps her forget that she’s unemployed, or that she’s exhausted, or that college is a pain in her . It’s an ideal reality, one far from the reality that fate’s written for her. So she’s happy to be an author. She likes to write.

Each week day, when she’s been dismissed from her final class, she comes to the library. She comes to write, in the quiet and serene environment. Until the end of Chaeyoung’s shift, Dahyun accompanies her, even if her idea of company is just sitting there with her, silent while she writes up stories for no one to read.

Dahyun glances back up, her mind unable to turn its gears to put something (else) on the empty page. She notices Chaeyoung’s eyes back on the pretty girl. It’s cute, how the girl who finds so many things to hate about the world can look so smitten.

“Do you have any idea how obvious you are?” Dahyun pesters yet again.

Chaeyoung growls, rolling her eyes from the pretty girl to Dahyun. “Can’t you find something better to do, other than bother me all day?”

“I’m booored,” Dahyun whines. “Why don’t you tell me about your lil’ daydream?” she asks, placing her chin on her palm.

The librarian glances at her friend and her expectant eyes, and only scoffs like she always does. She doesn’t bother to entertain the thought.

“My shift’s over,” Chaeyoung says, standing. “I’m leaving.”

She swings her backpack over her shoulder and heads around the front desk towards the door.

“Hey, wait!” Dahyun’s left fumbling behind Chaeyoung, frantically gathering her stuff. She glances up at the clock on the wall in the midst of her struggling, reading it to be 6:28.

“You still have two minutes, you know!” she shouts much too loudly, gathering the attention of the students in the library.

Dahyun messily throws everything into her backpack, crumpling some papers, as she stumbles around the front desk. She jogs out the door, trying desperately to catch up with Chaeyoung, who had already reached the sidewalk across the lawn in front of the library.

“Y-You’re so fast,” Dahyun gasps, as she catches up to Chaeyoung’s side.

“Aw, damn,” Chaeyoung clicks her tongue, “Not fast enough apparently. I was trying to lose you.”

“I’m sorry that I teased you about the pretty girl, okay?” Dahyun apologizes, her eyes cast downward as if she were a child who’s been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“...It’s fine. I’m sorry I was being so harsh… Just— don’t worry about the girl, alright?”

Dahyun nods slowly, now more curious than ever. She’ll pester her again some other time.

At the conclusion of their light bickering, the two women head back to their dorm together, as they always did whenever Chaeyoung finished her shift at the library. It’s a fifteen minute walk to their dorm, and for the first half of the walk, it’s silent. Both women have their minds on other things, so they keep to themselves. One thinks too much about a single person, while the other is unable to think at all about the next step in her story.

The sun reaches the horizon, and paints the sky with streaks of red and orange. Dahyun and Chaeyoung simultaneously slow their walking pace, their busy minds distracted by the new color palette in the sky. The sunset takes them away from their worries, even if it’s only for a moment.

Chaeyoung exhales, thankful for the distraction of the sunset. Her audible sigh earns Dahyun’s attention. The author looks over her shoulder, curious about what ails her friend. There’s a pained expression on her face.

“You okay?” Dahyun asks, eyebrows wrinkled in worry.

Chaeyoung nods, rather unsurely. “I’m fine.”

“That’s real convincing,” Dahyun comments plainly.

“It’ll pass,” Chaeyoung waves her hand across her face, an attempt to dismiss Dahyun’s worry. But it doesn’t work, as the latter continues to stare at her with shifting eyes.

“Anyway, you’re writing a story?” she asks suddenly, pointing to the notebook tucked under Dahyun’s arm. She asks not because she’s curious, but to both keep her mind distracted and to keep Dahyun’s mind from worrying too much.

“Oh,” Dahyun hides the notebook from Chaeyoung, out of shame. “Yeah, I was…”

“Was?” Chaeyoung raises an eyebrow. She notices Dahyun’s slight frown. As friends who have been at each other’s sides for most of their lives, they always notice the little things.

“What’s wrong?” Chaeyoung asks. Suddenly, the tables have turned, and it’s Dahyun under the interrogation lamp.

“I’m having the worst writer’s block with this one,” Dahyun admits, disgruntled.

“Which story is this one?”

“The one about how this girl can wish for anything she wants, except when it comes to the one she loves.”

“Hm,” Chaeyoung nods, “There are too many ways to go with that one.”

“I need something new.” Dahyun visibly slouches her shoulders, in irritation.

“Something new?”

Dahyun nods. “I need inspiration.”

“Right.”

“So, can you tell me about you and this pretty girl you’re always staring at?” Dahyun asks carefully. She can’t help her curiosity. Yet again, she tries to steal some cookies from the cookie jar.

Chaeyoung scoffs. It’s the conversation she was hoping to avoid.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“What’s her name?”

“Tzuyu. I don’t know her last name.”

“So?” Dahyun asks, leaning towards Chaeyoung and eager for her response.

“Well…” Chaeyoung clicks her tongue, “Other than her coming up to the desk every now and then and asking where a certain book is in the library, there’s nothing to tell about us. That’s the only interaction I get with her.”

She tries to keep the conversation short.

“Okay, then, so what do you think of this girl?” Dahyun rephrases. She’s a curious cat with nine lives who’s willing to risk it all to get Chaeyoung talking.

There’s a pause as Chaeyoung thinks to herself. The silence draws, and Dahyun begins to wonder if her friend will actually respond or if her mind has gone too far with thoughts of Tzuyu that it’ll never return to their conversation.

“She is so beautiful. Like really goddamn beautiful. Her face, but especially her eyes. Like you wouldn’t think there’s anything