When had he gone from blowing up lab partners in Biochemistry, to stalking blonde, unsuspecting men in libraries?

Park Chanyeol wasn’t sure.

But it should have been around the beginning of the fall semester of his second year in college.

Falling in love felt nothing like he had expected it to.

The man had honey blonde hair, he was strikingly tall and was wearing nothing but a white shirt and a pair of blue jeans, even though it was late September and it was starting to get chilly.

He walked down the main street of the campus, going somewhere that was nowhere close to the place Chanyeol was going and he looked like he wasn’t even real.

The next day, the curly-haired Korean noticed that ‘Angry Eyebrows’, as his annoying best friend had decided to call the man, was just that kind of superior person who made no effort to advertise his superiority.

He didn’t smirk when some girls told him, quite blatantly, that he was ‘hot as hell’ and they’d love to treat him to some coffee later. He didn’t make any moves to show contempt, as he politely brushed them off with some excuse about not taking coffee breaks off of studying.

Then again he didn’t really need to.

The tall man, had that confident air around him, creating the idea that he was looking down on others when he wasn’t. He smirked without smirking, scoffed without scoffing and appeared generally perfect, without trying.

Someone who caused others to feel inferior, just by standing there.

That was the person Chanyeol fell for.

 And he didn’t feel it hitting him like a ton of bricks, or make his heart beat faster, or make butterflies flutter in his stomach.

No, the first thing Chanyeol felt was emptiness. Like that tall foreigner, had leaped forward, grabbed something from inside of him and claimed it as his own.

It was as if, suddenly, something was missing from his life and he wouldn’t be able to breathe normally until he got it back.

“Oh this is sad…” Jongin said from over Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “You look like the female protagonist of this drama we were watching the other day… What was it called again?” He looked over at the shorter guy for help.

“Playful Kiss.” Kyungsoo provided, not without a slight smirk.

“No, I don't!” Chanyeol barked, hand slamming one of the wooden tables of the campus library.

The short boy with the dark brown hair glared at him and pointed at a well-placed ‘No Talking’ sign. “Shut up, this is a library.”

“By the way, why are we in the library at eight o’clock in the morning?” Chanyeol asked a little irritated.

“Kyungsoo hyung has an essay.” Jongin explained, staring in adoration at the older guy who was biting the ends of his pencil, reading some book about musicals. At that moment, Kyungsoo looked up from his book, noticed the dark-skinned boy and gave him a small, cute nudge which was, apparently, part of their awkward flirting routine.

Chanyeol felt, once again, like the third wheel. And they were at a freaking library, so he expected the two of them to be a little more serious, but, as it turns out, they didn’t even try.

“You guys sicken me. I’m going to find a detective book, or something to read.” With a visible scowl, Chanyeol stood up and began walking towards the librarian to ask where he could find some good crime novels.

“There’s a computer with a database of all our books and a search engine, right behind me. Try that.” Chanyeol had been told.

Ten minutes later, he was in the middle of causing a system breakdown in aforementioned online search engine, when a soft, controlled voice reached his ears.

“Hello, I’m looking for the ‘Social Science’ section.” The voice spoke in a slightly foreign accent and Chanyeol thought someone had emptied a bucket of cold water on his head.

“I see. Do you have a library card?” The unsuspecting librarian said, completely oblivious to the mess the curly-haired Korean was slowly turning into, behind him.

“No. But maybe you could get me one of those.” Chanyeol couldn’t have missed that voice if he wanted to. A serious tone which always ended in something that wasn’t exactly conceit, but came very close to confident sarcasm. Like the person was calm and polite, yet, deep down, felt other people weren’t worth his full attention.

With every word the blonde uttered and every small sound of moving, Chanyeol held his breath and shrank even more in the spot. He was pretty sure that at some point, someone would notice him, trying to be invisible behind the librarian and people would start laughing at his ridiculousness.

 However, in retrospect, this first awkward meeting in the library was nowhere close as ridiculous as the ones that followed.

As it turned out, Kris (that was the blonde’s name according to the Borrowers’ List) was very fond of going to the library in the morning, before classes.

For the first week, Chanyeol managed to persuade himself, together with all his friends, that the reason he kept coming to the library at seven in the morning was to help Kyungsoo study for his essay.  

Of course the lie was short-lived, since the tall Korean, after one week of ‘helping out’ with Kyungsoo’s essay, had no idea what said essay was about.

And as if that was not bad enough, in a fit of lovesickness, he had ended up scribbling things about the Canadian in one of the books his friend had borrowed to study.

Kyungsoo smacked him at the back of his head. “Go write your love letters somewhere else.”  He ordered him with a stern expression that didn’t really fit his cute face. Chanyeol had no idea how Jongin found that tiny, grumpy man attractive.

For the next two weeks, Baekhyun, his overbearing roommate, had agreed to come with him to the library. The good thing about Baekhyun, Chanyeol thought, was that you could easily bribe him with SNSD merchandise. The bad being that he loved criticizing everything.

“I cannot believe you actually bought a diary to actually write down all the stalker-like things you actually do for this guy.” Baekhyun said, stealing looks at his brand new SNSD poster, decorating their dorm’s wall.

“It’s not a diary. It’s a notebook.” Chanyeol, for his part, was in the process of reading a rather interesting book about the social classes in the 19^th century, one that Kris just so happened to be reading last week.

“And I’m not a stalker.” He added on afterthought.

“You go to the library every day hide in a corner as you watch him study. How else would you call that?” Chanyeol didn’t dignify that question with an answer.

“Just go talk to him.” His roommate suggested, before turning around and going to sleep.

And Chanyeol thought about doing exactly that. Going up to Kris and saying ‘hi’ in his cheerful but deep voice which scared everyone a little, at first.

He imagined Kris giving him a very hard stare, with thinly-veiled disbelief, before realizing that Chanyeol was probably one of the most unappealing and uncool people he had met in his entire life and therefore had nothing to do with him.

Odds were, the curly-haired Korean would be brushed off, just like those flirty girls at the beginning of the semester. Kris didn’t seem like the kind of person who would feel comfortable –let alone happy- next to overexcited and dorky Chemistry students, like himself.

And that was why watching him from a distance was the best thing Chanyeol could do, until this infatuation disappeared and he went back to his normal self.

However, the infatuation didn’t seem to be going away. Not after one month, not even after two had passed.

Instead, the curly-haired guy was starting to get clingy.

Not so much to Kris, since he couldn’t even get close to the guy, but rather to the small notebook which Chanyeol used to write his thought about the blonde.

The stalker notebook.

It contained all sorts of observations. Starting from the Canadian’s way of talking (the sarcastic undertone and everything) and then going on to point out Kris’ little habits, like the fact that he bit his lower lip as he was reading and tapped his foot on the wooden floor when there was a line in front of the librarian and always checked his backpack before leaving the library.

There was also this small sketch Chanyeol had made of a dragon that reminded him of Kris and quite a few paragraphs of the younger boy’s critique on Kris’ choice of earrings and hairstyles.

The conclusion was that the foreigner looked really hot with his hair in a small ponytail and should do it more often, whereas, small, diamond earrings made him look like a girl, so Chanyeol had been strongly tempted to confiscate them a couple of times in the past.

Also, Kris should think about wearing thick-rimmed glasses.

Chanyeol could even let him borrow his, if he was able to actually talk to the guy. Which of course he wasn’t.

There had been only one time, during the Korean’s two months of stalking, that he seriously considered talking to Kris.

It was only once and the urge didn’t last more than five minutes. But it ended up filling around three pages of the stalker notebook.

Chanyeol hadn’t heard his alarm and had overslept for around an hour, so he was running to the library, when he noticed Kris at the entrance, pacing back and forth with a distracted look on his face.

He was talking to someone on the phone and everything was in Chinese, which meant that the Korean had no idea what was being said. Yet the expression Kris was wearing was clearly a sad one. The blonde sighed a couple of times and at some point, Chanyeol was sure, he was going to start tearing up.

As it turned out, the blonde didn’t cry. He only pursed his lips together very tight, listening to the voice at the other end of the line and trying to keep a straight face. Then, he nodded obediently a couple of times, even though the person he was speaking to couldn’t possibly see it.

And suddenly, his eyes were those of a small kid, sad and scared and very, very lonely. He looked like he needed someone to- well... like he needed someone in general and Chanyeol had already taken a step forward without registering it.

He was going to say ‘hi’ and ask if everything was ok.

Just that. Nothing exaggerated like flirting with Kris…

Just greet him politely and make sure he was feeling better. Because, it actually hurt a bit to see the older boy in that state and Chanyeol was never good at handling pain.

But then the blonde was smiling to the phone call. “I miss you too.” He was saying in English. “I’ll call you back soon, mom."

The time it took Chanyeol to translate the words, with his mediocre knowledge of English, the tall Canadian was already back inside the library and the moment was over. 

The curly-haired boy was left staring at the space that Kris occupied seconds ago in awe and just a tiny bit of despair. 

He clutched the small notebook to his chest and forced himself to push back the feeling of emptiness. 

Because Kris had leaped forward and taken something from inside of him.

And Chanyeol didn't know when it had all began, but it was already too late to call it infatuation and wait for it to pass.

A/N: Well, this is a prequel of sorts. Don't know if it was terribly boring, or just unnecessary. 

Please tell me what you thought of it... T_T

Hope I didn't just ruin the story. 

This chapter is dedicated to my two daughters, ing and KrisYeolStalker who have been cutely showering me with affection, even though I don't deserve it.