I remember when I saw you for the first time,
You were laughing,
Sparkling like a new dime,
I came over,
"Hello, can you be mine?"
Can you be mine,
Can you be mine?

- Never Let me Go, Lana Del Rey

Natasha Harvenhield

A single paper sheet; smooth, plain – so insignificant, and yet it sums thousand thoughts.

Baekhyun smiles as he picks up his subject.

Such a waste, he sighs as his eyes linger over the two single words on top of the page;

Natasha Harvenhield

“A certain work of hers, teacher?” his soft voice disturbs the old scholar and the man places his pen to the side, glasses sliding against his pointy nose.

“No,” he stops to think for a moment “just choose whatever book you like.”

Baekhyun is grateful; he bites his bottom lip, gaze never leaving the woman’s name. He is happy; he enjoys her writing. He deeply sighs; he is glad he woke up to be the earliest student.

She is born in 1891, on 23rd of March, in a place she calls ‘aftermath’; an aftermath of a love story that somehow went wrong; an aftermath of destiny, of illusions and blind beliefs. Natasha has always made sure to leave traces of this aftermath in each book she wrote. It is like a personal mark, like a sillage, like something that didn’t allow her to forget.

Baekhyun adores her.

Baekhyun adores her like he adores a God who has created and shattered universes after universes; he adores her like he adores a mother who has been by his side with each forward step he took in life; he adores her like he adores a woman who has taught him trust and equality; who has taught him confidence; who has taught him what colors he should paint himself in.

And yet, there she is; dead and forgotten by the world.

Baekhyun dislikes oblivion.

“A world in between the lines,” he whispers as his fingers slowly caress the book’s spine, there where the woman’s name is written in bold, green letters. “Grand.”

For Baekhyun it’s not work; for Baekhyun it is a nice way of spending his free time – the Literature assignments. He enjoys every bit of them, from top to bottom, and maybe people would call him a bookworm if they knew, but Baekhyun just likes reading.

He sits his bag at the foot of the table and with a deep breath, he flips the book open. There is a frown on his face though; the flyleaf isn’t supposed to be written in any way yet look, messy words are scribbled in black ink:

“Please don’t borrow this book on Tuesday, 16th November 2014. I need it for my Literature class. Page 37;”

Baekhyun titles his head on the side. Curiosity takes over him and he finds himself traveling to page 37. “Thank you,” he reads the two words highlighted in yellow marker. “Thank you?” he sounds a bit annoyed now and his right eye twitches at the sight in front of him. “Are we even allowed to write on school’s property?”

He shrugs in the end, pulling out of his bag a well-sharpened pencil.  “Fine,” he writes “but bring it back by Friday. I need to finish an assignment this weekend.”

He chuckles as he flips a few pages looking for the right thing to answer this stranger with. ‘You’re always welcome, sweet child.’ catches his eyes and he underlines the quote before going back to the flyleaf. “Page 19;” he adds and with a last smile, he puts the book back on the shelf.

Baekhyun rushes inside the library for his mother is waiting outside in the heavy rain.

Baekhyun dislikes many things and one of those is rain. It depresses him.

He wipes his damp hands on his clothed thighs and quickens his steps through the bookshelves until he finds himself somewhere in the back; there where the beautiful masterpiece of Natasha Harvenhield should be.

But it’s not.

The stranger didn’t keep his promise; and then again, Baekhyun wonders, what promise? Nobody promised a thing.

He looks again through the books on the first row and then he goes higher: second row, third row, fourth row – nothing.

“Oh, come on!” the boy whines, face contorting in one of anxiety and disappointment and perhaps betrayal.

Baekhyun turns around with a deep sigh and walks towards the librarian who welcomes him with a huge grin. “Is there something wrong, Baekkie?” he folds his arms over his chest.

“The World in Between the Lines,” he mumbles, staring at the other with pleading eyes “tell me it’s in this room, somewhere.”

“Ahh,” the boy laughs, bending down behind the desk to grab something. “There was some guy that came running half an hour or so and brought it back.” He hands the book to the other and looks for Baekhyun’s subscription. “He looked kind of out of breath if you ask me,” the librarian shrugs before he clicks his pen and writes down the book’s author, title and code. “Sign here please.”

Baekhyun is seriously overwhelmed to hear the stranger actually remembered he needs it. “Thanks, Minseok hyung,” he sighs. “Can you please tell me who this guy was?”

“I’m not allowed to do that,” Minseok frowns. “I’ll just let you know I don’t really see him around here that much.”

Great help

He finishes his assignment by Sunday afternoon and he falls flat on his back, bed bouncing along with his body. His eyes are glued on the ceiling, at the shining blue stars he has there since 1st grade of school. His mother never allowed him to take them down. He thinks it’s because she misses him; she misses the little Baekhyun who loved to sing to those stars right before he fell asleep.

“Remembering is easy. It's forgetting that's hard,” he sighs, bringing an arm over his eyes. “Brodi Ashton’s Everneath.”

There’s not much to his life except books and somehow Baekhyun is glad for that. He’s not an interesting person; he never was. He lives out of his passion for Literature; out of his passion of being somebody else just for a few hours a day; out of others’ adventures and happiness and tears.

But isn’t it a bit pitiful?, he wonders.

“Who cares anyway?” his bitter laugh cuts through the room’s silence and with that, Baekhyun gets up and walks towards his desk.

Maybe Natasha Harvenhield can help him with his sudden depressing mood.

Baekhyun brings his knees to his chest and wanders his fingers over the smooth cover. He asks himself how such complex worlds can hide under such thin pages; under such tiny words; how such colorful lives can hide under this black ink.

“Hope I made it. I’ve lost the track of time.”

The flyleaf

Baekhyun bursts out laughing.

Under the short apology, there’s the stanza of a song he hasn’t heard since long time now.

“Rain, rain, go away.

Come again another day.

This big guy just wants to play.

Rain, rain, go away.”

“This big guy?” Baekhyun’s laughter gets louder and he simply watches the paper with tears filling the corners of his eyes.

“What big guy still sings such a song?” he writes in his neat handwriting under the stranger’s song and somehow, a last soft chuckle lightens his night and makes him forget about the thunders outside.

“Rain, rain, go away;” Baekhyun hums, burying himself under the covers. “Come again another day.”

It’s funny how Baekhyun lunches himself for the back of the library at the end of the following week. He admits to himself that he’s curious regarding the stranger and if anything else is added on his favorite book’s flyleaf. He wouldn’t usually accept people screwing with such masterpieces and staining the first page of his favorite book with black ink makes no exception, but he finds his stranger quite comfortable to converse with so he lets it pass this time.

The book is not on its shelve again.

Baekhyun raises an eyebrow and watches the wooden structure for a while thinking about everything but nothing at the same time until he decides to spin around and confront Xiumin.

“A World in Between—” Xiumin cuts him with a sigh, obviously annoyed by Baekhyun’s constant whines.

“Buy your own copy, will you?” he snaps, shaking his head and turning around to type something on his laptop. Baekhyun just sits there waiting for an answer but Xiumin never turns around. When he finally clears his throat, the older one shoots him a piercing glare. “What?”

“Who took it?”

“I’m not supposed to tell—”

“Who,” Baekhyun breathes through his teeth “took it?”

Baekhyun’s eyes end up falling over the featured of some tall freak who’s napping above the book, probably – no, certainly, drooling all over page 54.

Baekhyun is not pleased.

He makes a face at the ugly mix of red and black and grey the student has in that mop he calls hair and decides to wake him up.

But how to wake him up?, he wonders.

He clears his throat a few times and even pokes the other’s forearm but nothing. Seeing the stain of saliva in the middle of the page gets Baekhyun’s eye twitch and he finds a sudden fire boiling somewhere inside of him. He grabs a book from the side of the table and slams it right in front of the student’s face, earning a few glares from the other people around.

The oddity doesn’t flinch.

So he slams the book again, and again, and again, and again, and in spite of probably looking like a five years old, he does it again and again and—

“What the is wrong with you?” the freak growls from under his curly bangs and Baekhyun carefully sets the book back on top of the others and sighs.