Chapter Text
“Really? They requested it again?” Jihye asked with a huff. Her brows were furrowed and the corners of her mouth downturned in annoyance. She was starting to find the situation to be completely ridiculous.
This was the sixth time someone had requested the book she was reading in as many months. Of course, she had already finished it 3 times by the time the person requested it for the first time, but she didn’t really care. She absolutely loved it, and if she could’ve, she would’ve just bought it for herself. But being the broke high school student she was, she didn’t really have the money to spare on the book. It didn’t help that the school only had one copy of the book and someone was intent on making it their personal mission to make sure she never had it for more than a few weeks. It was seriously starting to get on her nerves, which she found to be one of the first times she’s really gotten this frustrated about something. She usually just shrugged this kind of thing off, but she really, really liked this book. She had even begun to leave little notes in the margins and highlighting some of her favorite quotes. She even got excited just thinking about having enough free time to read through a couple pages, even if it meant postponing her homework for an hour or two. It was something she had never done before, being well known for putting academics before any sort of free time she could possibly have.
“Unfortunately Jihye-ssi, there’s not really a whole lot I can do for you. Once requested, we need the book within a week, as you already know.” The librarian gave a look of sympathy to the younger girl, her hands continuing their clicking rhythm against the keys of her keyboard.
“I know,” she started, catching the attention of the older woman again, “but there really isn’t any way I can have it for just a few more weeks? I’m only half-way through.” Jihye pleaded, hoping for some kind of a blessing in the moment. The librarian seemed to think carefully about her next response, not wanting to upset the girl but also wanting to be firm enough for the conversation to end. This was, of course, the third time the girl had asked this question.
“Jihye-ssi, you know I can’t do that.” The librarian glanced back up a the girl’s face, noting the forming pout.
“I know, I just,” she paused again, thinking of her next words carefully, “they keep doing this.” She ended her statement with a sigh, holding onto the book in question tightly.
The librarian didn’t respond to the girl, she just held out her hand expectantly and gave the girl a look. Jihye gripped onto the book tighter, her frustration evident by the expression she was wearing on her face. This was not fair in her eyes. She should be able to keep the book for longer. She stared at the hand in front of her, weighing her next options carefully. She could either give the book up without much of a fight and preserve whatever system this stupid library was using, or she could run with the book and possibly get in trouble with the school itself.
Deciding that she’d rather not have this be the first time she got fined, or serve a worse punishment, she regretfully placed the book in the waiting hand. She received a smile in return from the older woman, to which she wanted to roll her eyes in response. The woman had to know that this annoyed the hell out of her, Jihye was sure it was written all over her face. This entire situation had just placed itself at the top of the things that had ever frustrated her, most of the list just consisting of stupid student council paperwork. With a forced smile toward the older woman, Jihye turned on her heels and began to make her way toward the exit of the library.
She was running through the experience in her head again, maybe wishing that she had just taken the book and ran. She might have to do that if there was a next time, as she was really starting to get “mad,” at the person occupying her thoughts. What did the person even want with the book? It wasn’t like it was the best thing she had ever read, even though she was lying to herself with that statement. The book was amazing. But when she had her friends read a couple of pages of the book, they had just looked at her with a weirded out expression on their faces and had told her she was kind of weird for reading the book. Especially Hanni, the girl that Jihye considered her closest friend, had told her that her taste in books was very… interesting.
Shaking those thoughts from her head, she grabbed the long handle to the door of the quaint school library, only to be shocked when another person opened it first. And good lord almighty, she was surprised to say the least.
The girl standing in front of her couldn’t have been much shorter than her, and to say the girl looked like a cat would be an understatement. With small, almond-shaped, mono-lidded eyes and a rounder face, she would say that the girl could win a contest for most cat-looking person ever. She had long, black-hair that was pinned up in a low-ponytail which sat on top of what she assumed was the girl’s choice of uniform for the day- the required white button-up polo which was tieless, the tan blazer the student body was required to wear with a name tag stuck to the right side of it, and the black skirt girls were expected to wear stopping just above her knees. She let her eyes fall on the name tag the girl was wearing, reading the korean without any difficulty.
Kang Haerin.
Jihye shook herself out of the daze the girl had put her in and glanced up at the other’s face again. The girl was also staring at her with an eyebrow raised, as if she was expecting the other to either move out of her way or speak to her.
Jihye let a small smile slip and moved so stand behind the opened door, allowing for the girl to walk past her unobstructed. Haerin, Jihye thought while watching the girl’s fleeting back, cute. She realized she was just standing and staring at the girl, her cheeks becoming slightly red as she looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Once she was one hundred percent sure no one had noticed her embarrassing moment, she slipped out of the door and walked into the school hallway. Her mind was running and rerunning the girl’s name over and over again, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. She found herself thinking about it for the rest of the school day and into her after school student council meeting. She hadn’t really been paying attention to it until someone had called her out on it.
To say today had been interesting would be an understatement.
When she opened up the book for the first time in 3 weeks, she had not expected to see a note on the title page. Even more surprising, it was not exactly passive.
“Read a new book, please.”
Jihye let out a huff of annoyance, staring back at the words written in curly hand-writing. Someone was clearly upset with her choice of book, and if she had to guess, it was the same person who kept requesting the book after her. The person wasn’t exactly wrong in their word choice- it was her 4th time re-reading the book- but did they need to be so passive-aggressive about it? Like she could say the same thing about the other person, they had to of read it through the same amount of times as her, if not more.
Getting an idea to write something back herself, she ducked her head under the dark-brown wooden desk she was sitting in front of to find her backpack. She unzipped it carefully, searching for her pencil case. She grabbed it and placed it near the book on the desk, opening it to rummage around for her favorite pencil. S he lit up as her hand grazed the number 2 pencil Hanni had lovingly dubbed, “timothee” and opened the worn book back up to the title page. She sat staring at it for a few moments, thinking of a sentence that would both surprise the person, and hopefully elicit a response. Not that she was looking forward to it or anything. She just wanted to see what she could get out of the person that had become the bane of her existence. Her mind ran through most of her options, and when she finally landed on the one she liked the most, her hand forced the cover of the book down on the top of the desk.
“I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t keep asking for this one. So, no!”
She nodded at her response and flipped to the first page of the book, where apparently, the other person had left another note for her under her own handwriting, of which her own read, “Love this opening line.”
Underneath it in the other person’s neat handwriting read, “Well, you’ve read it so many times I’m sure it’s been ingrained in your otherwise notably empty head. Judging from your other notes, of course.”
Whoever this person was, they were just as upset as Jihye was when she had to give up the book. She frowned at the statement, at the way this person could judge how she was as a person without even really knowing her. It hurt her pride a little bit. She didn’t think her head was empty. She thought the opposite actually- her head was always full of her either thinking about what she was to do for the day or her studies. In the heat of the moment, on the other side of the margin the person had chosen to write on, she wrote, “Well considering you care so much, I can safely assume you are the same way, no?”
She smirked at her carefully crafted response after she wrote it, hoping that the other had the gall to respond to that. She glanced down at the watch on her right wrist, reading the time as 20:41. It was getting late, and as she had already finished her homework and readings for the night, she closed the book in front of her with a sigh. She hadn’t even gotten the opportunity to really read, she had just written responses to the other person. As frustrating as it was to admit, she was starting to get excited thinking of the other things the person had written in the book. It would have to wait for another day though, she thought as she placed her pencil carefully back into the yellow-colored box she used to put her stationary items in. Carefully, she closed the box and placed it back into the similarly yellow-colored backpack at her feet, zipping it with ease and standing up from her spot. She stretched out her arms above her head and let out a sigh of relief at the feeling, a small smile lining her lips.
She was tired, she had to admit. The day had been taxing on her, what with the run in at the library that she still couldn’t get out of her head from weeks ago (and the person she had seen, although she didn’t admit that to anyone else) and all the paperwork she had done after school for the student council. Being the vice president had its ups and downs, she supposed. She’d have to text the president, Kim Minji, in the morning about what she didn’t get done, but for now, she was content enough with what she had done to grab her favorite pajamas and climb into her bed for the night. And with one final thought for the night, she had thought about Kang Haerin, the girl from the library she had found so fascinating. She hated to admit that she had returned to the library a few days later, hoping to catch another glance of the mysteriously gorgeous girl. But alas, fate had not been on her side, and after catching up on some research project due that week, she had given up on seeing her and left soon after. It frustrated her. The girl, whom she had never even encountered before, had left more of an impact on her days in the past couple of weeks than people she had known all her life. The girl had to have been a transfer, she thought, she knew everyone in the school.
Perhaps she would see the girl again soon. She hoped she did, because just one glance at her had already made her want to know more about this mysterious Haerin.