With just a couple of months left before the summer holidays, Hayoon followed Baekhyun’s request and gave herself one week of selfish time. She removed Chanyeol and Soojung from her mind, forcing herself not to worry and interfere between the two friends. It was not easy, however with the commencement for the preparations of the end of semester summer extravaganza, Baekhyun had sneakily signed both himself and Chanyeol up for the organising committee. Hayoon was certain that Chanyeol protested plenty when he found out, but what could he do? No one went against Byun Baekhyun once he had an idea set in his mind.

Hayoon meanwhile kept herself busy by volunteering in the multimedia archive room whenever she did not have classes. She had always been fascinated by the myriad of collections that the archive sported. Containing first edition vinyls of forgotten singers, homemade VHS tapes passed down from notable alumni of KNUA, and even DVDs showing some of the most influential members of the entertainment industry back in their university days, it was truly a trove of hidden treasures.

She had only briefly visited the archive in the past, but just as luck would have it, Jongdae was the one who had previously solely been in charge of filing and archiving the contents of the multimedia room. Since he had graduated, the place was now functioning on random students volunteering and, most importantly, students teachers wanted to punish for whatever reason.

Sitting by the desk in the innermost corner of the multimedia room, Hayoon had spent most of the afternoon sifting through the newly donated items, grouping them into media format with the relevant sticker label and listing every one of them neatly in the excel spreadsheet on the desktop computer that fed directly into the online system. She was suddenly interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Excuse me, I was sent here to orga—” The new presence halted in his steps. “Hayoon?”

Looking up from the cassettes she was analysing, Hayoon was surprised to see a dumfounded looking Jongin.

“Hey,” murmured the girl, “Are you here as volunteer or as punished student.”

“Why would anyone volunteer to do this?” Questioned Jongin, but then looking at Hayoon he lifted a brow. “You mean to tell me that that you have been sitting by this desk in a room with no windows for god knows how long because you wanted to? All by yourself?”

“What’s wrong with that? There’s another student volunteering too, he’s in the basement sorting through some delicate film rolls.” The girl pouted. “Plus, this place is filled with interesting stuff and I get to have some real alone time to contemplate on my life choices.”

“At our age we should be contemplating on our life choices while stumbling along empty streets after having drunk way too much from a party that ended way to late,” rebuked Jongin, “Not behaving like a hermit.”

Hoisting himself onto the desk, Jongin twisted his torso so that he was facing the girl. 

“Are you running away from someone or something?” 

Hayoon chewed on her lip, contemplating on the question.

“A little bit of both.”

“Well then, sitting here is not going to do you any good. Why don’t you show me what it is that I have to put where,” replied Jongin as he removed himself from the table. “I’ll do the manual labour so you just do the talking and pointing.”

“What did you do to end up here?”

“Fell asleep in class.” Jongin shrugged while pointing at a large trolley labelled ‘filed’. “Those the ones that need to be put away?”

“Oh yeah, wait.” Reaching across the desk, Hayoon gathered the amalgamation of materials that she had just finished filing into the system. “These too.”

Stacking them on top of the trolley and making sure nothing would fall off, Hayoon led the way as Jongin followed closely behind while pushing the trolley. Stopping in front of a series of shelves labelled ‘rare films’ Hayoon pointed towards the correct stack of items.

“Here is where films that pretty much don’t exist anywhere else are stored. Every item has a sticker that corresponds with its category and shelf grouping so just make sure not to scratch anything.”

Nodding, Jongin lifted a VHS, a look of amusement and nostalgia filling his face.

“The Thief and the Cobbler? Haven’t seen this one in ages.”

“You know it?” Hayoon looked at him with surprise.

Outside of the animation aficionados, few people were aware of, much less recognised the animated film.

“It’s a pity really, that one is the Miramax cut which completely butchered the film, filling it with annoying singing, making it into a cheap Aladdin ripoff. Every time I think of the mastery of 2D animation behind The Thief and the Cobbler and all the issues that prevented the film from ever being completed to match Rirchard William’s vision, I am reminded of the fact that we were denied of a visual experience that would have completely revolutionised animation storytelling.”

“Do you really think so?” Questioned Jongin. “Artists and academic types like you may be fully enthralled by the visuals since you can fully appreciate the technical skills needed to achieve those effects back in the days where there was no help of computers. But for the standard mainstream audience, they rely much more on the storyline. In this case, this film has little to offer to fully engage them.”

“It’s a visual experience. It’s Richard Williams unapologetically showing off everything he’s learned as a top animator over his long career. It was literally a lifelong passion project.” Hayoon insisted.

“But even he learnt to let go eventually,” Jongin murmured.

“He had no choice.”

“There is always a choice,” i