As I balanced the stack of books in one hand, my free hand reached over to pull out a book but then another hand came out of nowhere to take it too. I obviously didn’t grow a third hand just to get the book. So I looked to my right to find none other than my nemesis with his chubby cheeks.

“So you do cram!” he widened his eyes and put a hand up to his mouth for emphasis.

Yoo YongJae had always been such a drama queen. I decided to ignore him because I had literally too much in my hands to entertain him. Leaving him and the book behind, I made my way to the checkout counter with much difficulty. The thing about libraries was that they didn’t provide enough facilities for students like me. Something like a cart or a trolley would’ve made my life so much easier.

“You forgot this,” YoungJae appeared again, placing the book that we had both reached for on top of my pile. “Your brain must not be used to all this studying you are put it through, which could be the explanation why you are scatterbrained. You know, all these books are in fact”

I let out a long tired sigh and told myself to be calm and just mute whatever nonsense he was spouting from his mouth. But it was really hard to do because once he got started, there was no stopping him. And the old librarian lady wasn’t helping me one bit; she took her sweet time to check each and every book in my pile before running them through the scanner for checkout.

If there was one thing that YongGuk and I could agree on was that Yoo YongJae was the most despicable person in the whole wide world. I bet YongGuk wouldn’t believe it when I get to tell him what I was going through right now without getting angry. He would be so proud of me.

“Yaa,” YoungJae’s annoying voice suddenly got too loud that I failed to push him out of my hearing. “Are you disregarding me? How dare you? Just because you are doing all this reading, you think yo-”

“I don’t have time for this.” I simply stated as the librarian finally finished with the books I was borrowing. Then I quickly picked up all the books and escaped from more gibberish that was bound to gush from his full lips.

“Yaa, that is truly discourteous of you,” he came running after me even outside the library. This guy really didn’t know when to give up. “I personally came here to –”

“To insult me? To tell me how high your IQ went up? To make me more depressed than I already am? Eo, or is it to brag about how you finished the assignment before the semester even started?” I didn’t even try. It was so plain obvious. “So which one is it, Yoo YoungJae?”

He seemed upset for a moment but then he put up his arrogant front again. “You truly cannot differentiate between a miracle and a calamity, can you?”

I really wished YongGuk was here so that he could hold me back from punching YoungJae’s face. But I knew better than to be provoked by his meaningless words. “For someone so smart, you have a really hard time with getting straight to the point, don’t you?”

The books I had been carrying fell all over my feet as YoungJae relayed the message. Every ounce of energy left in my body dissipated and I hated Yoo YoungJae a bit less and also a bit more that day.

“The assignment is curtailed, which means it is cancelled so you should return those books now. And my IQ went up by 18 points."