The scent of warm coffee and old paper lingered in the air, occupying the quiet building's every hallway and floor.

The public library of this neighborhood was bigger than any Felix had ever visited before, even hosting a cafe on one of its upper floors. Its signs displayed the whereabouts of more book genres than he even knew existed, and he couldn't help but stare at everything around him.

He'd come with Hyunjin to the library today, a bit bored of staying cooped up in their motel room. Felix figured he would at least see what the boy was up to during his occasional visits to the place.

"So," Hyunjin spoke as he strolled through the area, Felix by his side. "Do you want any books? Since you're here, you might as well look around."

"Umm," Felix mumbled, still overwhelmed by all of the options. "Nah, I think I'll just... follow you around and see if anything looks interesting."

Hyunjin softly laughed at this. "Suit yourself," he said, hurrying off towards a certain section of the building.

It was quite the talent, in Felix's eyes, how Hyunjin seemed to know this place like the back of his hand already. The boy did go here at least once a week, but the area was so big, Felix swore he would be constantly getting lost.

A certain shelf caught his eye, and Felix stopped, tugging on Hyunjin's sleeve.
"Can I look over here?" he asked as if needing permission, followed by a nod from Hyunjin.

"Yeah? Of course," the elder answered, before pointing in another direction. "I'm, uh, gonna go over towards that section. Come get me when you're done."

Felix nodded at this, giving Hyunjin a cute smile and a thumbs up. The elder playfully scoffed, before turning on his heel and walking off.

Left alone in the comics section, Felix was free to ignore the presence of actual literature and dash straight to the manga, picking up what looked like a knock off version of Sailor Moon.
Sure, he respected his roommate's whole intellectual thing going on, but Felix?

Felix was an anime type of guy.

At one point, he found himself sitting on the floor, flipping through a volume of some 1990's shoujo manga, when he realized that he'd been in this aisle for a rather long time...

He stood up, stretching, and taking a couple of books with him as he wandered out of the shelves.
Glancing around, he didn't see the person he'd come with anywhere nearby, and thus Felix made his way over to the area he'd been told to go to.

"20th Century Literature," a sign on one of the shelves read, making Felix smile in amusement. Typical Hyunjin, he thought. He would probably have to force the boy into reading something written after the year 2000.

Felix paused in his footsteps as he caught sight of Hyunjin, a few shelves away. The boy was facing away from him, staring towards the shelf, and didn't seem to notice Felix's presence yet.

He watched for a moment, curious at the boy's behavior. Hyunjin's fingertips sat against the edge of a book, lightly caressing its spine, as if afraid to take the initiative and pick it up.

"Hey, Hyun," Felix called out quietly, walking towards him as if he hadn't been looking at him for a solid minute.

Hyunjin flinched, whipping around at the sound of Felix's voice.
"Ah, Lix..." he addressed, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. "Did you find something you want?"

"Actually, yeah," Felix confirmed, keeping an eye on the nervous movement of Hyunjin's hands. "But I need a library card to check them out."

"No problem, I have one," Hyunjin waved his concern off, striding over to Felix and taking the pile of manga out of his hands.
"Come on, I can check it out for you."

"Mm, thanks," Felix nodded enthusiastically, but a nagging feeling held him back.
"Could you go and check them out for me? I kinda wanted to look at the display they had over there," Felix gestured towards a shelf with books and pictures, advertising some event about marine life.

"Sure," Hyunjin gently flicked Felix on the shoulder. "Be quick though," he gave him a little smile before turning to leave.

Felix watched as Hyunjin walked away, slowly disappearing from sight among the forest of shelves that took up the room. As soon as he was absolutely sure that the elder was gone, Felix immediately stumbled over towards the bookshelf next to him.

He honestly didn't give a single damn about the marine life event display. He just wanted to know what book was capable of embarrassing the literature nerd Hwang Hyunjin enough to the point of not getting it.

Felix grabbed the book he'd seen Hyunjin staring at and flipped it over, glancing at the cover.

"Maurice," it read, in a simple serif font. Well, so far so good. The title didn't give Felix any idea as to what it could contain, so he turned it onto its back, scanning over the plot summary.

"Maurice, written in 1914, yeah yeah..." Felix muttered to himself as he got through the mundane information on the back.
"A schoolboy deals with becoming an adult in 20th century England, and comes to realize his romantic interest in the same sex—"

Felix stopped for a moment, squinting at the words on the page, not understanding them at all for a brief moment.

What?

He felt almost numb as he read through the rest of the paragraph on the back cover.
A pinnacle of classic gay literature, one of the reviews read. A fairytale-worthy happy ending.

Felix shoved the book back into the shelf, glancing away from it. He instantly regretted looking. He should've minded his business, and not opened this can of worms just to satisfy his stupid curiosity, because he knew he was going to be up thinking about this all night now.

It made sense, in retrospect, why Hyunjin would be embarrassed for reading this kind of thing. Felix couldn't imagine how mortifying it would be if a classmate of his caught him reading something like that...

But then again, Felix was actually gay.
And Hyunjin, was...

Straight?

Felix shook his head, not wanting to overthink anything. He decided to make his way towards the front of the library now, and soon came across the long, dark haired boy lingering near the front entrance.

"You ready to leave?" Hyunjin asked as he saw Felix approach, not noticing the way Felix looked him up and down for a second.

"Yep," Felix responded, taking his precious mangas out of the elder's arms and carrying them instead. He glanced down at the check-out receipt as they left, noticing the date in the top corner.

"Oh, it's already the 12th?" he wondered aloud, catching Hyunjin's attention.

"Yeah?" Hyunjin spoke, kicking a rock along the sidewalk.

It's Jisung's birthday in two days, Felix immediately thought. He was used to planning their celebration a few days in advance, and felt a sort of ache in his chest at the thought of not seeing him this time. The pair always had a tradition: to go out and party late at night, exchange gifts, and then, when midnight hit and the date changed...

"Shit!" Felix blurted out, as if just now realizing. "It's my birthday in three days!"

Hyunjin stared at him, wide eyed. "Really? Fuck, you should've told me earlier! I have to find a gift in three days now," he complained.

Felix only grinned at this, gently elbowing the taller in the side.
"You don't have to get me anything, it's fine," he said. "I honestly would've forgotten about it if I didn't see the date just now."

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, clearly showing distaste for that answer.
"How sad would it be to celebrate your... wait, how old even are you?"

"Seventeen..." Felix mumbled, not sure where the other was going with this.

"Right. How sad would it be to celebrate your eighteenth birthday with no gifts? You think I can let that happen?" Hyunjin continued, explaining his motivation animatedly.

Felix tensed up a bit as Hyunjin swung an arm over his shoulders, giving him a friendly squeeze.
"I'll get something for you, I promise," he spoke, with Felix too distracted to do anything but nod.

His mind was clouded, unable to decide what thought to focus on. Hyunjin's hand on his shoulder, the book he'd been reading earlier, and the unexplainable recent kindness of the elder boy... all of these seemed to prefer being kept silent, and thus all Felix could think to say was:

"Where'd you get the library card from, by the way?"

Hyunjin blinked, a little thrown off by the question out of nowhere.
"Why? They're not that hard to get."

"Oh, well, you know," Felix backed himself up. "You need an ID to get those. Wouldn't the police get notified if yours was used?"

"Well," Hyunjin said, pursing his lips. "I didn't really have that problem, becauusee I uhhh, stole iiiitt?" he admitted, lengthening his words as if to lessen their impact.

Felix jokingly glared at him.
"You're robbing people now? What if somebody needed that?"

"No, no, trust me, she didn't need it," Hyunjin argued on his own behalf. "I stole it from my family's maid."

Felix raised his eyebrows.
"You stole it from your family's m—"

"Ex maid, really," Hyunjin elaborated. "She was moving to Japan. It would've been completely useless there."

"Hyunjin..." Felix spoke with a mix between scolding and confusion.

"You know I'm right!" the elder argued. "How is she gonna use a Korean library card in Japan?"

Felix only sighed, accepting that he would never fully understand the way that the elder boy's mind worked.
"I guess so," he gave up. "Just... don't start mugging people, okay?"

"Fine," Hyunjin dramatically sighed, as if it were the hardest thing in the world. "I'll try not to mug people. No promises."

Felix fought a stupid grin back at this, slowly growing used to the feeling of the taller's arm still draped over his shoulders.

Maybe he needed to accompany Hyunjin on another library trip later, because something about the air there just felt perfect.

And he wasn't entirely sure that it was the library's fault.