~[Chapter 1] Life at at 17~
The library smelled like dust and rusty woods.
Min Jae pushed through the heavy door, wincing as it creaked loud enough to wake the dead. Not that anyone came here anymore.
The university had built a new library—all glass walls and charging ports and climate control—and abandoned this one.
Most of the books were gone now, carted off or discarded. What remained were empty shelves, water-stained ceiling tiles, and a collection of furniture too broken to bother moving.
It was perfect.
He spotted Han Siwoo immediately, sprawled across the only couch that didn't have springs poking through the cushions. The basketball player had one arm thrown over his eyes, the other tossing a ball up and catching it in an easy rhythm.
Up, down. Up, down.
The sound echoed in the hollow space.
"You're late,"
Siwoo said without moving.
"I'm not late. You're just early."
Min Jae dropped his bag on the floor, grimacing at the cloud of dust it kicked up.
"And stop doing that. You're going to break something."
"What, my perfect hand-eye coordination?"
Siwoo caught the ball one-handed and finally cracked open an eye.
"Please. I could do this in my sleep."
"I meant the ceiling. Or a window. Or that already ugly face of yours."
"My face is perfect, girls tell me all the time—"
"Those girls need glasses."
"Says you with your—,"
The door swung open again. Lee Hana stepped through carrying a cardboard tray with three paper cups, her nursing school backpack slung over one shoulder.
She'd pulled her hair into a messy bun, and there was a stain on her shirt that looked suspiciously like blood. Or ketchup. With Hana, it could go either way.
"Children," she announced. "I come bearing caffeine and the will to live. Try not to waste both."
Siwoo sat up, suddenly very interested.
"You're a goddess."
"I know."
She handed him a cup, then crossed to Min Jae and pressed another into his hands. The warmth seeped through the paper, almost too hot to hold.
"Drink. You look like death."
"Thanks," Min Jae muttered.
"I mean it. When's the last time you slept?"
"I sleep."
"Lying down? For more than three hours?"
Hana settled onto the arm of the couch, cradling her own cup.
"That's what I thought."
Siwoo took a long sip and made a face.
"This tastes like sadness."
"It's called 'cheap coffee from the convenience store because someone spent all her money on textbooks,'"
Hana said sweetly.
"If you don't like it, I can take it back."
"I didn't say that."
Siwoo clutched the cup protectively to his chest.
"I'm just noting the flavor profile."
Min Jae smiled despite himself and took a drink. It did taste like sadness. Bitter and watery with an aftertaste that lingered too long. He took another sip anyway.
"So,"
Hana said, turning to him with that look. The one that meant she was about to say something that would annoy him.
"How's the YouTube empire? We up to thirty-one subscribers yet?"
"Thirty-two, actually."
Siwoo choked on his coffee.
"Wait, seriously?"
"One of them's my grandma's friend. She subscribed yesterday."
Min Jae stared into his cup.
"Pretty sure she thought it was Facebook."
"That's amazing,"
Hana said, fighting a smile.
"At this rate, you'll hit a hundred by the time we're forty."
"Fifty," Siwoo corrected. "Let's be realistic."
"You're both not funny."
"We know."
Hana reached over and ruffled his hair, ignoring his protest.
"But seriously, Jae. The singing—"
"Can we not do this today?"
"I'm just saying—"
"Hana."
She held up her hands in surrender.
"Fine. Fine. I'll drop it."
Siwoo bounced the basketball once.
"For now."
"For now," she agreed.
Min Jae sighed and pulled out his phone, mostly to have something to look at that wasn't their concerned faces.
Thirty-two subscribers. The number sat there on his screen, small and pathetic and somehow worse than thirty. Because thirty felt like nothing. Thirty-two felt like proof that he was trying and still failing.
He'd uploaded a new cover two days ago. An acoustic version of a song that had been popular five years ago, filmed in his grandmother's living room with his phone propped on a stack of books. Sixteen views. Three of them were probably him, checking to see if anyone had watched.
"Earth to Min Jae."
Siwoo waved a hand in front of his face.
"You still with us?"
He locked his phone.
"Yeah. Sorry."
"Good. Because we actually have to study today."
Hana pulled a massive textbook from her bag and dropped it on the table with a thud that echoed through the empty library.
"Anatomy final on Friday. I plan to pass, graduate, and never look at another cadaver as long as I live."
"You're going to be a nurse," Siwoo pointed out. "You know there's going to be bodies, right?"
"Living bodies. With pulses. That's the dream."
She flipped open to a bookmarked page covered in fluorescent highlighting.
"Now shut up and let me study."
Siwoo looked at Min Jae. Min Jae looked at Siwoo.
"She's scaring me," Siwoo whispered.
"I can hear you."
"I know. That's why I said it quietly."
Hana threw a pen at him. He caught it without looking and grinned.
Min Jae pulled out his own materials—sheet music, mostly, and a notebook filled with lyrics that would never become anything.
He had an exam too. Music theory. It should have been easy. He'd been writing songs since he was fourteen, teaching himself chords on a secondhand guitar his grandmother had bought from a pawn shop.
But there was a difference between knowing something and being able to explain it on a test. Between feeling music in your bones and proving you understood it on paper.
He clicked his pen. Stared at the notes swimming across the page.
Siwoo's ball bounced again. Up, down.
Hana muttered something about the brachial plexus.
Outside, the campus was probably buzzing with end-of-semester chaos. Students cramming in study groups, couples taking last walks before summer break, everyone moving toward something. Futures. Jobs. Lives that made sense.
And here he was. In an abandoned library with thirty-two subscribers and a dream that felt more like a delusion every day.
Min Jae took another sip of the terrible coffee.
It tasted exactly like it should.