“Next patron, please,” Kyungsoo says, his tone flat and his face blank. The tall patron approaches the reference desk and immediately leans on it with one arm, drumming his fingers against the mahogany surface. Kyungsoo has to look upward in order to see the patron’s face. He recognizes Kris from his Thursday philosophy class, and from Suho’s Literature class.

“I’m looking for a book,” Kris announces, and Kyungsoo forces himself not to scoff. Well, obviously, Kyungsoo thinks. Since you’re at the Reference desk. But Kyungsoo pushes aside those thoughts and smiles like a good customer service associate.

“What’s the title?” Kyungsoo asks. He expects Kris to say something like The Republic or The Prince since it was required for their mutual philosophy class but he knew for a fact that the Chinese transfer didn’t have either of them. But Kris continued to drum his fingers nervously.

“I don’t know what it’s called,” he answers. Kyungsoo raises one eyebrow at him.

“Well, who is it by?”

“I don’t know either,” Kris answers. Kyungsoo stares up at the boy blankly, trying to discern whether or not he’s being serious.

“Well, what is it about? Is it an essay? A peer-review? History? Fantasy? Mystery?”

Kris shrugs. “Well, that’s the thing; I haven’t read it yet.”

“How do you expect to find it without knowing anything about it?”

“Well, that’s your job isn’t it?”

 “You don’t know the title, the author, the genre, or what it’s about?”

“I think the cover is black.”

“Yeah, that narrows it down.”

After dealing with Kris for another five minutes, the tall boy eventually gives up, declaring that he is going to some chain bookstore to find the book instead, or someplace without rude library interns. Kyungsoo scoffs aloud, obviously amused that the tall boy thinks that the insult is going to faze him any way. When he storms out of the library and yells at other people not to go inside, Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and goes back to collecting the books off the abandoned study tables. His manager, a fifty-year-old man in a linen shirt, approaches him.

“Kyunghwan!” the man says, and Kyungsoo forces himself not to correct him. “That’s the fourth patron in two weeks who’s stormed out of this place! What have you done this time?”

“I just told him that if he was looking for a particular black book, he’d have to narrow in on a specific shade of black, first,” he replies. “Honestly, he came in here looking for a book that doesn’t exist. No title, no author, no plot, no content – ”

“Well, you’re supposed to help people in situations like that!” the man says. He suddenly takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose. After a few more seconds, his manager warns him to do better from now on, or he’d have to find a work study position elsewhere. Kyungsoo, rather than argue back, simply bows his head, apologizes, and continues to restock the books on the cart.

Kyungsoo sighs as he pushes Geoffrey Chaucer in between Alice Clary and John Clare in the classic fiction section of the university library. Kyungsoo hates being a library intern; when he first started the job, he hated it but figured that a natural love for the position would come along with time. Much to his dismay however, it didn’t. He hates it more every day, especially when he has to deal with patrons like Kris. The old, rotting smell of brown pages and evaporating ink was bearable at first and but now, it was becoming seriously sickening.

He pushes the cart over to the peer-review section and begins stowing away the bound papers. Despite his dislike for the job, he’s memorized the layout of the library. After taking three, distinctly placed strides, he turns to his right and finds himself standing in front of the peer-review journals by a professor named Hong. And when he turns his head, he faces a clear, unobstructed view of the second-to-last private study table. And as usual, she is sitting there.

Da Eun sits at the private study table with her feet propped up on an overturned wastebasket. Her eyes are trained steadily on the line of text in the novel she currently reads. She holds the book open in her palm with her thumb and pinky spread apart. Her other hand curls into a fist and supports her chin as she leans against the arm rest of the chair.

Kyungsoo lets his hands rest on the space between the books on the shelf he faces. He wonders which novel she is reading today. Da Eun comes into the library every single Monday and Thursday without ever failing to show up even once. At first, she was just a regular patron like anyone else in the university library, but soon, Kyungsoo was becoming anxious every Monday workday to see her walk in through the entrance, her bright yellow purse slung across her torso and shoulders and sporting the same worn pair of penny loafers every week. He looked forward to seeing her, even.

He’d never seen a girl so quietly consumed by a book before. It was just the little things that only he could see when she sat there alone with her books, completely and contently lost in the pages and the ink. She always mouths the words to herself gently, the subtle movement of her pink lips just barely detectable. He loves to watch the way her eyes, bright orbs that looked much too wise for a girl her age, dart across the pages as she drinks in the words and inhales the stories. She finishes entire novels in just hours. It wasn’t long before Kyungsoo quietly fell for her.

Kyungsoo goes back to shelving books, only occasionally stealing a look or two. He has to be careful not to get caught staring, or it could be incredibly embarrassing. Plus, he doesn’t want to freak her out so as to prevent her from coming to the library ever again. She is, after all, the sole reason he still fights to keep his job as the library intern despite his disdain for it. At the end of the day, she packs up her things as usual, walks toward the exit and gives a friendly farewell to the manager, and sometimes to Kyungsoo as well if he happens to be at the reference desk when she leaves.

He finds himself caught up in the graceful way she walks, one foot in front of the other; he admires the way her hair bounces up ever so slightly at the tips and how comfortable she looks in her worn penny loafers and how her smiles makes her look, even just a little bit, like a kitten. When she leaves, Kyungsoo runs a hand through his hair, feeling frustrated with himself for always watching and never talking to her.

It’s Thursday, and Kyungsoo dresses himself in a red and black checkered shirt before making his way over to the University library for his shift before his night class. On Thursdays, his manager is a stick thin woman several inches taller than him; she’s a foreigner from Vietnam named Miss Luong Thinh, and Kyungsoo always smirked with amusement at how well her name suited her. Today, Miss Thinh instructs Kyungsoo to reshelf some DVDs on the second floor of the library, and he sighs, eventually relenting.

When he pushes the cart of DVDs across the second floor, he is amazed at how heavy the cart is. There must be at least 300 DVDs that need reshelving. When he gets to the designated area of the library for DVDs, he curses his job once more before starting to restock the shelves in alphabetical order and by year of release.

“Indiana Jones… Monty Python… Les Miserables… The Sound of Music…” he chants to himself, reading the titles aloud in a slightly sing-song voice to make the job at least a little more interesting. He is in the middle of trying to sing Christine’s song in Phantom of the Opera when he sees a shadow gliding across the floor toward him. When he turns, he’s shocked so much to see Da Eun that he backs into the cart and sends the remaining DVDs scattered across the carpet.

“Shoot,” he whispers to himself. But after recovering from the embarrassing mishap, he straightens up and instead offering a smile, he finds himself just staring at her blankly. Da Eun smiles like a shy kitten again and pulls on her sleeve.

“Sorry,” she says. “I wasn’t trying to scare you, and I didn’t realize you were busy – ”

“Oh, no no no,” he says in a hurry and puts on a goofy smile as he turns back to the DVDs. “I’m not busy at all, it’s, uh… it’s just 300 DVDs.”

“Right,” Da Eun says. Kyungsoo stares at her again; he can’t believe how close she is to him, without a check-out counter in between them. She’s even prettier up close, and he has to force himself from making a gawking face. He lets out a nervous laugh.

“Sorry, uh, did you need some help?” he asks.

“Yeah, actually,” she says. “I’m… looking for a book.”

“A book,” he says. “Well, you know that this is the DVD section, right?”

She laughs. “Of course,” she says.

“Is… there no one at the reference desk, or?”

“The reference desk,” she says, cutting him off. “I’ve been there already, and they told me to come see you about it.”

“Oh,” Kyungsoo answers, finding it strange that Miss Thinh would send a patron all the way up to the second floor to see about finding a book when she could easily locate it herself. “Alright then. Which book is it?”

“A Room With a View, by Forster?”

“Forster,” Kyungsoo says. He places the DVD in his hand back on the cart and starts to walk toward the staircase. Da Eun follows closely behind him, and he thinks he can smell her perfume as he walks by. It takes a lot of willpower not to turn and stare at her again. Kyungsoo walks her over to the classic literature section and immediately, he starts to search for the F authors.

“FOL… FOM… FOP… FOQ… FOR… Forster… Hmm?” Kyungsoo says, stepping away from the shelves for a bit. “It’s not here,” he wonders aloud.

“It’s not?” Da Eun says. Kyungsoo turns and smiles nervously at her.

“You know what? It’s probably at circulation desk, let me go check there.”

Kyungsoo leads her over to the circulation desk, where he scours every inch of the place in search of the book she was looking for. The longer he spends searching for the book, the stupider he feels, and the fact that this all was taking place in front of the girl of his dreams was absolutely no help at all. Kyungsoo tries his best not to hyperventilate or blush while he looks for the book, but when it’s painfully obvious that it’s not here, he turns and laughs nervously again.

“Sorry,” he says. “I guess it’s not here. Someone seems to have checked it out on long-term and never returned it.”

“Oh, I see,” she says timidly. She looks at Kyungsoo with expectant eyes, and she chews on her bottom lip, which Kyungsoo finds incredibly cute. His heartbeat races, and he forces himself to speak up.

“Would you like to… order it?” he asks, hating the way his voice squeaks towards the end of the sentence. Da Eun laughs a little, however.

“Umm, sure,” she says, her voice sounding a little breathless. “How long will it take?”

“Uh, usually about two weeks or so,” Kyungsoo answers, shuffling over to a PC in the corner of the circulation desk. He furiously starts to type away the title of the book in the order form and sends for the book from another city.

“All done,” he says when he finishes placing the order. “Two weeks,” he reminds her. Kyungsoo watches the way the corner of tilts upward into a sort-of smile and he reminds himself not to stare so much. Da Eun nods slowly and then catches his gaze, and Kyungsoo has the sudden urge to swallow.

“Can I reserve it?” she asks. Kyungsoo smiles with his teeth.

“Uhh,” he says. “What?”

“Can I reserve the book?”

“Oh,” he says, his smile fading. “Uhh, we actually can’t reserve books that have been ordered until they get here. Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” she answers. “You’ve been a really big help either way.”

“Thank you,” Kyungsoo answers. “I mean… you’re welcome.”

“My name is Da Eun by the way,” she says. “Sorry. I realize we haven’t properly met.”

“No that’s fine, I… I know you.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo answers, but suddenly hearing how creepy it sounds, he corrects himself. “Well, only because you’ve been here so often! Not like I’m watching you or anything. That’s… weird.”

Da Eun laughs at him and Kyungsoo feels like dying on the spot. “I guess it would be weird,” she answers. “But, hey, I know you, too… also just because I come here so often. Are you a work study employee?”

“Intern, actually,” he answers.

“So, you do this for free, then.”

“Pretty much,” he says, looking around the library. “It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. It’s not all that bad; there are whole courses dedicated to library science around here.”

“Well, libraries are interesting places,” Da Eun answers.

“Is that why you’re always here? For the books?” Kyungsoo asks. Da Eun meets his eyes once again, and she smiles shyly.

“Yeah,” she answers. “Books.”

Kyungsoo nods. “Well,” he says. “You came to right place. Plenty of books here. And it’s nice and quiet, great place to date.”

Da Eun furrows her brows at him for a moment and Kyungsoo implodes on himself. Hearing himself, Kyungsoo flushes and struggles to fix his mistake. “I mean read!” he says. “I meant to say ‘read’ not ‘date’, I just said ‘date’ on accident because…”

Kyungsoo picks up the desk calendar next to the computer. “I just accidentally said ‘date’ because I was looking at the date on the calendar here. But I really did mean to say ‘read’. You know, because it’s a library; it’s a good place to read, not date, because library dates are not acceptable dates! Damn it!”

“Shh,” Da Eun warns him, pressing her finger to her lips. He laughs lightly at him. “You know, as the intern, you should be the one shushing people.”

“Yeah, of course,” he says. “Damn… sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Da Eun, gathering her things and preparing to leave. She smiles at him before she backs away toward the exit. “Thanks for ordering the book,” she says. “And you were sort of cute.”

Two weeks go by and Kyungsoo patiently awaits the arrival of Forster’s A Room With a View. He checks the mailbox and the classic literature section every day, anticipating it’s arrival and Da Eun’s return. His heart still races when he thinks about how after just watching her quietly for such a long time, he was finally able to talk to her. He certainly butchered the conversation with a few Freudian missteps, but for the most part, he thinks it went well. She even called him “cute”. Albeit, he doesn’t always enjoy being called “cute”, but it was certainly a progressive step toward getting to know her better.

It’s Wednesday by the time the book arrives, and when Kyungsoo clocks in for another day working as the library intern, the first he does is check the circulation desk.

“Hey, Suho,” Kyungsoo says, calling out for the other intern working with him that day. Suho pokes his head through the door, pushing his glasses into place. “Did any orders come in?”

“Yeah,” Suho says, and he pulls out a lift of the orders that just arrived. “Voices of Pain, Plato’s Republic, A Room With a View, Dante’s Inferno – ”

“Where’s A Room With a View?” Kyungsoo asks. Suho checks the list again.

“I shelved it already,” the older boy says. “Check the Classic Lit section under FOR.”

Kyungsoo makes his way over to the Class Lit section of the library with a hop in his step and a smile on his face. Even if it is just a book, it’s something that will lead him a little closer to his dream girl. He stops when he gets to the Classic Lit section and immediately starts to scan the shelves again.

“FOP… FOQ… FOR…Ah,” Kyungsoo’s eyes zoom in on a black book spine with the words A Room With a View on it. The title seemed familiar; perhaps it was on a University reading list for some class or other. Kyungsoo smiles as he reaches out to take the book from the shelf and put it on reserve for Da Eun. But before he can even ouch the spine, someone else’s large hands snatch the book from the shelf.

“Ah, here it is!” Kris’ voice says, and Kyungsoo’s eyes widen at the taller boy. Kris shows the book to Kyungsoo. “See? This was the black book I was looking for! Spent two weeks looking at every black book in this library and it was here the whole time.”

“You?” Kyungsoo asks. “This book? This was the black book you meant?”

“Yeah!” Kris says. “Finally found it.”

“I… I think you must be mistaken,” Kyungsoo says, snatching the book from Kris’ hand. “It couldn’t have been this book; this book was just ordered!”

Kris scoffs. “Well, then, no wonder I couldn’t find it,” he tries snatch the book back from Kyungsoo, but Kyungsoo keeps it out of reach.

“No, you don’t understand!” Kyungsoo says. “You can’t check this book out. It’s on reserve.”

Kris wrinkles his brows. “I thought you couldn’t place newly ordered books on reserve.”

“Yeah, well….” Kyungsoo says, trying to think fast.

“Give me the book,” Kris reaches for the book again but Kyungsoo hides it behind his back.

“But I need it!”

“No, I need it!”

“Just borrow it next time! I need this for tomorrow!”

“Give me the book!”

“It’s on reserve!”

“No it’s not!”

“Yeah, well, I work here so you gotta follow what I say!”

“I’ve been looking for that book for two weeks!”

“I’ve been wanting this girl for months!”

“That’s my book!”

“It’s a library book!”

“I saw it first!”

“I ordered this!”

“What’s going on here?” Suho asks, appearing suddenly. Kris uses Kyungsoo’s distraction to his advantage, grabbing the book from his hand and raising high above his reach.

“Ha!” Kris taunts. But in the next split-second, Kyungsoo lets out a battle cry before Suho can shush him. He tackles Kris, making the taller boy fall against the book shelf. The shelf creaks and whines under his weight until it finally gives away, falling backwards against the next shelf, which topples over the next shelf and the next and the next in a domino effect. Meanwhile, Suho stares in utter horror while the shelves topple and the book go flying and the patrons scream their heads off. Kyungsoo’s eyes widen, and when the last shelf falls to the ground, Suho turns and glares at him.

“Holy , I was not trying to do that,” Kyungsoo says. Kris grabs the book from Kyungsoo’s hands and runs toward the check-out counter. Before Kyungsoo can even object or ask for the book back, Suho stops and detains him. Kris swipes his library card at the check-out counter and throws Kyungsoo an arrogant look of victory before strutting out the door, A Room With a View tucked under his arm.

After the book shelf dominoes disaster, Kyungsoo’s employment is placed on probation. He spends his time sighing and cursing himself at the circulation desk the next day. He should have known that the day a small kid like him decided to take on Kris and his 6 feet of strength, that nothing good would ever happen. He stacks books on the cart and starts to wheel it over to the empty shelves that need restocking after yesterday’s disaster.

But before he can get anywhere, he hears a voice behind him:

“Hi, I’m returning this book, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got a huge fee to pay.”

When Kyungsoo turns around, his breath steals away and his eyes grow wide when he sees Da Eun with her hands folded neatly on the desk, resting atop a book. At this moment, he wants to turn and run and hide somewhere. He promised to have the book ready for her; instead, he let some six foot tall koala scamper off with it and ruined the library in the process.

Da Eun’s shy smile discouraged him.

“Da Eun,” Kyungsoo says, preparing his apology. “I… Okay, I know you were expecting the Forster book, but the truth is, someone checked it out before I could reserve it for you and – ”

He stops his verbal rampage for a moment when he notices the book she is returning. It’s cover is a little beaten but he can easily make out at the stamp and circulation sticker on the spine. It’s black cover bears the name “Forster” on it. He raises his eyebrows and tries desperately to connect the dots.

“…and yet, it’s here?” he asks. Da Eun starts to bite her lips again. “Wait a second… I’m not getting this. If… If you already had this book… why did you ask me to find it for you?”

Da Eun makes herself look up at Kyungsoo, feeling quite sure that he would be angry at her. But his wide, confused eyes looked more like they just wanted to know what the heck was going on than angry. She takes a deep breath.

“You’re going to think that I am so stupid,” she says. Kyungsoo waves his hands.

“Nonono, of course; please, I just want to know what the hell just happened here. You were the one who checked it out and never returned it?”

“Guilty,” she says. “I totally just forgot that I had it, to be honest. And… I only asked you because I wanted an excuse to talk to you, and I knew that if I asked you to find any other book that you find it and we’d never talk again and – ”

“Hold up!” Kyungsoo says, and Da Eun shushes him again. “Hold it right there. So… you just asked me because you wanted to talk to me?”

Da Eun shrugs. “Pretty much,” she says, blushing. “That was really stupid, wasn’t it?”

Kyungsoo stares blankly at her for a while. “But why didn’t you just talk to me?”

“I don’t know,” she answers. “Because… I was shy? I mean, I’ve been coming here for a long time just to see you even though I don’t always read and – ”

“Wait, you’ve been wanting to talk to me this whole time?” Kyungsoo asks. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time.”

Da Eun lets out a small laugh, and Kyungsoo laughs along with her. “No, wait, this is great!” he says. “I mean, pssh, the only reason I stick around this library was to see you, but this whole time, you’ve been only coming here to see me? This is… this is good!”

Da Eun blushes a little, but Kyungsoo can’t contain his smile. “So, did we just inadvertently confess to each other?”

Kyungsoo scoffs. “I think so!” he says. “Who knew that this job I hate so much would actually yield some wanted results.”

Da Eun laughed. “Well, hey, the library is a great place for dates,” she says. “So… would you want to go out sometime?”

Kyungsoo smiles. “Sure,” he answers. “But unfortunately, just because we’ll be dating now doesn’t mean you can get out of the overdue fee.”

“Darn,” Da Eun says with a laugh, fishing out her wallet to pay the fee. Kyungsoo takes the money from her hand as he lifts the holds on her library card account. Once everything is finished, he hands her card back to her.

“You know,” he says. “I thought you came here because you actually liked reading.”

Da Eun shrugs. “I do,” she does, and then she smiles shyly. “I just like you better.”