nine pieces of yourself

| people watching

Studying is an activity Jaehyun just can't get behind no matter how hard he tries.

White, wordless walls. Avoidant silence. Squeaky clean and neatly ordered. He's not meant to be here, or at least that's what his stiff limbs tell him when he walks through the shelves. His steps cut through the focused silence like he's an intruder in a high-security tract. He almost expects somebody to grab him by the collar and drag him out for being an imposter.

None of the other people here meet his eye, though. They are too focused in searching for what they need, engrossed in the books they are reading on the couches in the corner or tapping on their phones, being Indeed Very Busy.

The town library is three stories high and consists of two big halls interconnected by a hallway where posters on pin boards advertise festivals, concerts, speeches held in the community center and so on. Jaehyun discovers his usual place at the table near the staircase occupied by a group of college students clicking away on their laptops with a stack of opened books and coffee cups for desperate mental support. So he tries the second floor. He manages to find a place to sit where a wall of glass allows him to look down at the hallway.

He crosses his arms on the table and rests his head on them while he observes the people trickling in from the other hall.

That's one of the few things he has found that he likes doing in the past weeks and months. He's been watching himself closely, listening to his heart whenever he tries something new in an attempt to figure out if he's doing it because he can or because he actually wants to. So far, he has gathered a lot to put onto the list of stuff he has been getting sick of without knowing: Revising chemistry and math. The physics textbooks his father buys him. The same old black adidas he keeps wearing because they fit and are seemingly indestructible. Playing chess with his father on Friday evenings. Sitting in the stuffy bus back home from English academy on Saturdays. He told his parents he wanted to stop going to piano lessons for the sake of having more time to study, and they had understood. Now he practices once or twice a week instead of six times and still feels bad about it sometimes. The piano must have cost a ton of money. Maybe, if he ever moves out, he'll take it with him as an apology.

The list of things he actually likes is looking a lot sparser.

After much consideration, he has decided that his favorite color is the muted brown that those detective characters in comics often wear in their long breezy coats. They remind him of autumn, which he has also recently found out is his favorite season for bringing cool winds and leaves that make satisfying noises under his shoes. And it goes along with Jewon's school uniform, which is a dark khaki. Jaehyun doesn't really know why this is important to him, but he thinks about it sometimes and feels comforted.

He just likes Jewon, he guesses. In a friend-way, in a you-happen-to-be-a-part-of-my-life-and-now-I-cannot-imagine-it-without-you-kind of way. He doesn't want to kiss him a second time or have him for himself or anything. It's just nice he exists.