Everything was evanescent. Everything vanishing, everything disappearing. There was nothing in my life anymore. Not even my books could free me now. I'd read every one on the shelf. I knew practically everything there was to know. In my pursuit of knowledge, the people around me didn't understand, so they left me. I was sitting in my lawn chair outside my house, afforded through various inventions I'd submitted. I was selling all my useless books, all my useless furniture, all the useless things I'd bought over the years, hoping I'd have someone to share it with.

But it was hopeless. No one wanted to be with a guy like me. A guy with medium blonde hair, died through various experimental techniques and I can't seem to get it to grow any other color. A guy with large framed glasses and puffy cheeks. A guy without muscles, simple belly fat. No one wanted me. No one cared about me. I might as well have been evanescent,gone from the eye in a cloud of smoke.

I picked up the cigarette I knew I shouldn't smoke at the age of 19 years, but it was a way to relieve stress. Just as I was about to take my first puff of my first cigarette, it was taken from me. I looked up to see a slightly taller man with dark black hair. It was styled nicely in his flawless, pale face, soon realizing how beautiful he was. I blinked several times before I caught back up to reality, seeing him lightly smile down at my face .

“You're too cute to do this.” He threw the cigarette away. “You don't want to mess up your hair.”

“Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?” I rose my voice, unable to stop myself. Though he may have been the most perfect person I've seen on this earth, he was still trying to boss me around, at my own yard sale.

“Kim Himchan.” He smiled, and I couldn't help but sigh. He outstretched his hand, telling me he was just caring about my health.

I took it, introducing myself truthfully. “Yoo Youngjae.”

“Well, Yoo-ssi...” He slowly let go of my hand. “Make sure you don't pick up this portable cancer again.”

“What's my heath got anything do to with you anyway?” I asked.

“Nothing in particular I guess...but you are my neighbor.” He motioned to the larger house across the street. “Come on over if you need anything.

I decided then and there that I would never go to his house. I didn't want to grow attached and then lose him, too, like I was losing everything else. I didn't want him to become evanescent. He was too beautiful and too caring to disappear.

But what I wasn't expecting, was for him to come over the next day to check on me. What I wasn't expecting was him to come every day, determining on his own that he wanted to be friends with me. What I was expecting least of all, was for me to laugh when he told a joke, for me to feel a genuine sense of happiness when he shoved up at my door.

I wasn't expecting to like him. I wasn't expecting to like anyone ever again. After my own parents left me alone to rot, after my best friend after ten long years told me I was obsessed with science and left me, I promised myself I wouldn't trust anyone again.

I wasn't expecting Himchan to change all that.

He was funny, sweet, caring, rich, and someone who actually wanted to hold me when I cried. Someone who actually wanted to tend to me when I needed it. Someone who actually wanted to like me back. Someone who actually cared about what I'd learned over these years. Someone who taught me things knowledge could never teach.

Someone I've grown to despise being without.

Someone who told me daily how beautiful I was, when I knew I wasn't. Someone who told me daily how much they cared about me, when I knew they shouldn't. Someone who bought me books I'd never read before on my birthday, when I had looked for these books for years and never found one I hadn't read.

Someone who already knew me so well, someone who I knew so well.

Someone I'd fallen in love with.

And it absolutely terrified me.

This was something I couldn't read about. This was something I couldn't explain. Something I couldn't escape from. Something I wasn't sure was returned.

So I thought of the most knowledgeable thing to do. If you don't understand something, you push it away. If you can't define it, it doesn't exists. If you can't grasp hold of it, it's not real. If you can't figure it out, you simply disregard it.

But I knew it was real. I couldn't disregard it.

But I could push Himchan away.

“Himchan-hyung...” I whispered in his arms, both of us sitting on my couch, some movie playing in the background.

“Yes, Youngjae-yah?” He asked, rubbing my back softly.

“I-I can't...” I bit my lip. I knew I would start crying when I told him this, I knew it would hurt me, but I knew it was what I had to do. It was what knowledge told me to do. “...please leave me and never come back.” I wiped my eye when the tear started falling.

“What's wrong?” He asked, not moving a muscle. “Just talk to me, Jae-yah.”

“J-Just go.” I stood and walked in my room, shutting and locking the door behind me. I fear nothing, because I knew everything. I would not fear over something I knew nothing about. I would destroy it. It would not exist unless I knew every aspect of its existence.

I heard him knocking at my door, and I threw on headphones. I pretended he wasn't there. I pretended he never existed. I picked up my books, only to remember he gave them to me. I flopped on my bed, only to remember the times when I snuggled against his chest. I looked at my wall of blueprints, only to remember how many inventions were inspired by him.

I picked up the same box of cigarettes I'd vowed to never touch, remembering the time I first met him, when he took it from me. I put it in my mouth and lit it, coughing at the taste, but I puffed anyway. I understood everything about cigarettes. The threat they posed, the way they worked. They were something I could grasp. They were something that I could say existed by my terms.

So I sat and smoked, looking out my window at the people walking down the streets. Blasting the music in my ears, I couldn't hear anything around me. But without hearing, I knew he was outside my door. Without realizing it, I was thinking of him again. Without permission, this love was taking me over.

I soon realized that it would be here, despite all my defenses against it.

So I thought of the only option. When you fear something, that's usually because it can hurt you. If something hurts you enough, it can kill you.

Death. That was something I knew a lot about. Something I knew how to accomplish in more than one-thousand ways. It would end everything I hated about life, everything I couldn't handle, fix anything I didn't know about. If I died, I would know everything in the world. Yes. Death seemed like a perfect option here.

So, with cigarette in hand, I grabbed the gasoline I kept in the closet for experiments. I sloshed it all around, tears streaming down my face when I covered the books he bought me. I covered the bedsheets our feet would get tangled it. I covered the mirror where we would look in, telling each other what we liked about each other. I covered the blueprints. I covered the shelves. I drenched myself in it. I lit the burnt out cigarette and spit it out of my mouth, spreading my arms wide and embracing which I knew was to come.

But with Himchan, nothing went how you were expecting it. I wasn't expecting him to have figured out a way to unlock the door. Wasn't expecting him to grab hold of me. Wasn't expecting him to pull me out of my room as it went up in flames. Wasn't expecting him to pull me out of the house. Wasn't expecting him to hug me so tightly that I coughed from lack of air flow. I wasn't expecting him to whispered three words. Three words I'd been scared of. “I love you.”

I was expecting myself to cry, and so I did. I returned the embrace, returning those words, the fear that had washed over me now evanescent. Evanescent like the rest of my useless home. Evanescent like every bit of knowledge I held in that building.

No amount of knowledge could explain this warm feeling in my chest. No amount of knowledge could explain how happy I felt in his arms. No amount of knowledge could explain why he still kissed me, though I'm sure I tasted like gas. No amount of knowledge could explain us.

No amount of knowledge could explain why that didn't scare me anymore.

Knowledge was evanescent. Everything was evanescent, except this savior in my arms.

THE END.