Mark Lee/Kim Doyeon

Mark was alone, but he didn’t feel lonely. In fact, he cherished the loneliness – he wasn’t much of an extrovert, though he was one of the best players in the school basketball team. He wasn’t playing for the name of fame or whatsoever; he played because basketball has been a big role in his life, and whatnot, he could get scholarship if he worked harder for the national championship next summer.

The quietness of the library was more than just ethereal to Mark’s belief. The place was ordinary, just like any other library. But the boy has found the perfect solace that fitted himself whenever he felt in slight loss of dazed with the real world.

It was almost late in the evening; school hour has over long ago. Mark has to stay back at school because his mother was having an urgent meeting with the company’s director. He has no problem going home by subway, but his mother has strongly insisted to fetch him at school – the weather forecast had told that today’s weather could be below seven degrees Celsius. No mothers would have the heart seeing their own child walking home in such a cold day.

So, it’s giving Mark a chance to sink himself with old classic literature novels in the school library. There weren’t much of the genre; just a one small shelf of it, but he was more than grateful. Some people might find Shakespeare typical, but never to Mark, though he needed to go through difficulties understanding old English. It was certainly unavoidable.

He was too engrossed with Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day” – he chose poetry books today. Too immersed without realizing the wheeling sound of a pushed trolley beside his table.

“Oh, Mark. The first snow of the year has fallen. Look at that,” the middle-aged librarian, Mrs Park finally caught the boy’s attention when she pointed out the snow outside the window. He wasn’t a stranger to the library keeper when she has seen him most of the time, compared to any other students in the school.

Mark was in utter awe, as his eyes widen at the sight of snow falling from the sky. It was almost the end of November, he noticed. Of course.

Stood up from his seat, abandoning the book before he reached to the windowsill as his eyes admiring the wonderful view of white puffy sleet dropping from the sky, in small plethora.