One (1/1)

But all he knew is that when he did, his world was a still life. The world of imagination and fantasy immediately shunned him as if pouting with their backs turned. He couldn’t return to the fictional characters that had consoled him for so long.So why was he here now?Sehun, now in the last year of highshool with side swept hair and faded jeans, shoved his hands into his pockets, taking care not to ruffle his white dress shirt and seemingly, trying to stand. Or at least, that’s what the members of the Science Club would snicker as they shoved pass while taping their glasses to their heads.He had changed. Changed because in the real world it was the people that needed to accept him. Not books. Not characters from fantasies. But people in his homeroom. The senior class president. The girl that always flipped her hair and fluttered her eyelashes.  It was ridiculous and quite shallow. But Sehun knew that was how he survived high school. If he had not changed…then he’s not sure how he would survive the jeers and taunts while failing to survive at all.It was late and though the giant window panes enveloped the shelves with the shimmering moonlight, Sehun somehow found his way inside the library. He continued to stand helplessly, gazing at the silent books that all refused to talk to him. There had been a time where the moment he would step into the library all the characters of all the books would greet him hearty hellos. Half of them would coax him into reading, and the other half he would just stroke their binds and save for another day.Sehun didn’t know what he was doing but suddenly he began to walk deeper into the library, casting shadows on the tables and stacks of books. His eyebrows furrowed, when he realized that usually the librarian would return all lovelies to their rightful places. So does that mean someone was currently there?Glancing at the stacks, he finds that they’re all classics. Huck Finn. The Great Gatsby. Frakenstein. They were all that he’s read before. Whoever currently inhabited the library was starting the chapter of their lives that Sehun had passed. The bliss of entering the lives of those people, reading what it was like to live in the past.Sehun slid his hands across the covers, and finally permitted himself to pick up the top book. It was Lord of the Flies, the one book that consoled Sehun in times of terror.  Lord of the Flies was an analogy to the society he lived in. Dog eat dog world. The world where those who were once nice to you would stab you in the back and become animals, slaughtering each other for their own gain.  Back then, he believed himself to be the main character, the one who would fight against all odds and not lose his sense of identity. But suddenly, he shuddered, realizing that…he had entered that dog eat dog world.And those people that had accepted them, those lowly, one dimensional people, had torn him apart.Placing the book gently back down on the stack, Sehun swallowed and licked his lips, shoving his hands back to their pockets and stepping around the taunting shadows to breathe in the books. To live them again. To experience their glory once more.But they still ignored him, and Sehun let out a breath. They were banding against him. Sehun failed to realize his hands were in fists, until a choking tear emerged from behind the last shelf. The Classics shelf.So he was right.Forgetting his frustration, Sehun gently strode to the area, trying not to be too loud, yet too discreet.  That would be fake, pretending that there had been no one there. But Sehun was already fake enough. Right?Slowly, he peeked his head around the shelf, and fair enough, there was a girl curled up against the back wall, holding a book (where the title was not too evident in the dark depths of the area) and tissues pressed against her nose.  I did not look like a sorrowful cry. It did not look as if she was just a lonely person crying in the library.She was crying over the book. A feat, Sehun would’ve accomplished years ago.In fact, he’s not sure if he’s cried over anything since then.The girl continued to sniffle, but suddenly she burst out into a full out cry and startled, Sehun stumbled backwards into the table, his head making contact with the stray chair.  As the shadows moved around his form, the girl suddenly gasped, her tears abruptly at a halt, when she realized there was man standing, or rather sprawled out on the ground now.Without a beat, she rose to her feet and dashed over to the groaning figure, her hand covering her mouth in shock.“OH MY GOSH, are you okay?”Sehun turned his head to meet the girl’s eyes, his hand resting on the oncoming bruise.  It took him a moment, but he adjusted himself so he sat against the table’s leg. Suddenly, as she moved her figure so the moonlight shone, he met her sparkling eyes, the ones tainted with tears.And she swallowed. Hard.It was him. The well dressed, famous, popular, handsome guy that always had a trail of girls following after him. She licked her lips nervously, and Sehun noticed the sudden change in her demeanor as she slightly leaned backwards. The moonlight continued to shimmer her messy bun and she continued to crouch in a worried yet cautious stance.Sehun pursed his lips into a tight line, and glanced out the window. For a second the girl’s heart caught and she found it hard to breathe. But maybe it was because she was cooped up in the library for five hours.Seeing as though the guy (known for being soft-spoken either way) was not going to initiate the conversation, the girl began.“So…what are you doing in the library at this time at night?”“I should be asking you the same thing.” He replied almost immediately. The girl swallowed again, her mouth parched from the encounter.“Well, I’m always here. From after school till midnight and beyond.”Sehun pondered the thought for a moment, and looked back into her eyes. It was just like he used to. Back when the library was his domain. He guessed the reason the books were ignoring him was that they found a kind, loving soul who in her vulnerable years, took the books in under her wing after he left them.