Jongin was a year into his adulthood when he first fell in love. Love at first sight perhaps. He didn’t know then that he was falling in too deep into the abyss of love, too deep that he could feel so much pain when he found out something that was out of his expectation. At first Jongin thought that it was merely a crush, a puppy love, people say, and that the feeling will disappear in no time but no matter how much he tried to forget her, tried his hardest to make the feeling go away, he always failed.  Whenever he was met with the girl’s face, the innocent eyes of Jung Soojung, Jongin will fall in love with her all over again, like when he had laid his eyes on her for the first time.  

The university’s library – a place of hell and heaven. How he wished he never went there. How Jongin wished he never met Jung Soojung because then he will not have such feeling. Because then Jongin will never have to experience a heartbreak. But then again, what’s done is done. He can’t turn back the time, to where it all began, to the time where he was supposed to walk away and not turn his back. He can’t wash the feeling away, not when he had fell too deep into the bottomless pit of love.

Kim Jongin was never a fan of library to begin with. Stepping into the building, for Jongin, was like stepping into a sauna room, although it gives you something good in return, you still have to experience something unpleasant. A torture, he called it, as absurd as it sounds.

“Are you seriously bringing me to the library now?” Jongin asked with a look of incredulity, and when his eyes landed on the building, the expression on his face turned to that of wary. Sehun had told him that he wanted to go to the said place to search for some references for his essay, and since they never separated from each other, always sticking like glue, Jongin had no choice but to follow the other guy.

His question received a snap of an answer from Sehun in return. “What? If you really don’t want to go then don’t. Just go to the student centre or something.”

Jongin raised his eyebrow. He guessed it was one of those days where Sehun would snap at him for no apparent reason. He didn’t snap back every time it happen though because he knew better to just close his mouth and listen. Jongin knew his friend had a temper issue but he didn’t know it was this worse. He then adjusted the strip of his bag before he scurried his way to Sehun’s side.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” Jongin asked as soon as he caught up with the other guy. His voice was laced with concern, because really he wanted to know the reason of why his friend had turned a hundred and eighty degree from his usual self. He wanted to know what or rather who had changed his friend. “Are you on your period or something?” He then joked with a wiggle of eyebrows. Jongin always has his ways to lighten up the mood and this was one of the many.

And Jongin knew his way was effective because a smile, although small, was painted across Sehun’s face at his words. He received a playful shove on the shoulder then. “Oh shut up, Jongin!”

Sehun’s form had somewhat frozen on the spot not long after they reached an empty table. Jongin had put down his bag and was about to sit but seeing that his friend didn’t even move an inch on his spot, his eyebrow raised. What the hell is wrong with this guy? Jongin questioned internally. “Sehun,” he called but the said guy didn’t even budge, seemingly lost in his own world. Jongin then inhaled before he snapped his fingers several times in front of the other guy, “Oh Sehun! Hello? Anybody there?”

Sehun snapped his head to look at Jongin, a blank look on his face as he spoke. “Uh? Yeah? What?”

Jongin couldn’t help but to roll his eyes at the face his friend was making. “Didn’t you say you needed to find books?” he asked urgently, “Come on! Get your going! We have practice in an hour.” He gave a little push on his friend’s shoulder, effectively making Sehun walked away to the thousands shelf of books.

Oh Sehun. He shook his head with a little smile plastered on his face as he looked at his friend’s figure disappearing into the sea of books. Feeling bored out of his wit, Jongin let his eyes wandered around as he sat down. The smell of library was slowly making him nauseous; probably he wasn’t used to the foreign smell of books. The pair of eyes then landed on a certain girl, seemingly having a hard time with her work as she had creases in between her eyebrows. For some unknown reason, there was a tingling in his heart and his stomach fluttered in some weird way that he couldn’t describe as he looked at the girl.

Jongin didn’t even know why his feet brought him to the table that was occupied by just a person, two tables away from where he had seated seconds ago. Maybe because his heart had told him so. Maybe because he was meant to be there all along. Jongin didn’t know. All he knew was that he might have developed some sort of attraction towards her the moment his eyes fell on the figure of the girl.

“Hi,” greeted Jongin at the girl, offering a light smile as his hand made a little wave.

The girl across him just nodded her head in a curt manner as a form of acknowledgement without a word being spoken.

“I’m Jongin. What’s your name?” Jongin asked with a smile gracing his lips as the words rolled out of his tongue. His eyes never left, looking straight to the girl’s face, scrutinizing, or maybe taking in the beauty that was sitting in front of him.

“Jung Soojung,” she simply introduced without even sparing a glance.

A little part of him was broken, a small part of his heart cracked, fell and shattered from the lack of attention, maybe she doesn’t like him, but nevertheless he kept his smile, even though it didn’t reach his eyes, not that the girl cared anyway.

“Can I sit?” He asked, at which Soojung just nodded her head albeit with so much hesitancy, which didn’t go unnoticed by Jongin but the guy just brushed off the feeling that slowly growing inside him and smiled instead.

“Jung Soojung?” Jongin questioned as he took the seat across from the girl. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the name seemed familiar to his ears, as if he just heard that name being uttered few days ago. Where did he hear that name before? He wondered. In the midst of his curiosity, Jongin’s eyes landed on Oh Sehun that just appeared from the hundreds (or what felt like hundreds to Jongin) of bookshelves. By instinct he called out the guy, his loud voice earning looks from the people around him but being the carefree he was, Jongin didn’t pay much attention to them.

“Oh Sehun!” Maybe Sehun didn’t hear his voice, which was utterly impossible, or Sehun was probably embarrassed that he didn’t answer back. He just sat back to his seat and started doing his work like he didn’t just hear his name being called out. Jongin however had missed the way Soojung had frozen on her spot after Sehun’s name escaped his lips out loud, and the way Sehun looked at his direction with words spoken under his breath.

“What the hell?” Jongin muttered under his breath. Seeing that his friend was completely ignoring him, making him looked like an idiot and the girl in front of him was not giving any heed of his existence either, Jongin stood up.  “I’ll see you around, Jung Soojung,” he bade with a smile.

Again, the girl just nodded meekly without a word.

The wheel of his mind rotated relentlessly, questions and the probable answers appeared and vanished as he pondered on why the girl was acting like the way she was, giving little to no attention to him, as if he was not there at all.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jongin shot as soon as he seated himself across his best friend.

“Don’t you see I’m busy here?” Sehun shot back in a mutter without looking at him.

Jongin rolled his eyes in irritation at the lack of attention given. Is today some sort of ignoring Jongin’s day? He then crossed him arms over his chest as he exclaimed with a little exaggeration, “Geez! Since when did you become a nerd?” Sehun just stayed quiet at his words. Shaking his head, a grin made its way to Jongin face as he suddenly said, “Anyway, do you know that girl? Her name is Soojung—“ he suddenly stopped in mid-sentence as something suddenly clicked in his mind. Jongin then leaned forward as he asked, “Wait, didn’t you tell me you helped a girl name Soojung before? Is that her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember the girl’s face.” Sehun shrugged. If only Jongin could see through Sehun’s lie. If only Jongin could read what was on his friend’s mind at the very moment.

“Should I make a move?” Jongin then asked.

Sehun then looked up at the question. “What?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowing briefly before his face turned back to that of expressionless.

Jongin rolled his eyes before he repeated his words, “Soojung. Should I make a move on her?”

“Why?” was the only word that escaped Sehun’s lips.

Jongin rolled his eyes again. He wasn’t exactly sure why his friend had asked him such question as there was definitely only one answer to that. Why would a person make a move on someone anyway?  “What do you mean why? Because I like her, you dumb.”

“You don’t even know her,” Sehun stated a matter-of-factly and a little too quickly one might add.

Jongin just shrugged his shoulder in response. “That’s not really a problem. We can be friends,” he told. The corner of his lips twitched at the thought of being friends with Jung Soojung.

“I don’t think she’ll like that,” Sehun voiced out as he stopped writing for a short while before continuing again. Jongin had missed the way Sehun had spoken through gritted teeth.

Sehun’s words made Jongin stopped moving as he looked at the guy. Jongin narrowed his eyes then, feeling a little suspicious at Sehun’s remark. “And how did you know that?” he asked, giving Sehun a side look.

“She looks like a loner,” Sehun reasoned and surprisingly Jongin didn’t question the other guy further, probably afraid that Sehun would snap at him again. It would be a lie to say that he wasn’t afraid of the moody Sehun. A grumpy Sehun was like a time bomb, he could explode at any time without a warning.

Jongin was already determined to befriend the girl and if possible get close to her like how he wished them to be but looking at the state he was in at the moment, with Soojung ignoring him, he could already picture what the future of the two of them will be. Jongin chasing the running Soojung.