Hwang Hyunjin ֶָ֢⊹𐙚

Your addiction to books was impossible to hide. The feeling of becoming part of a story brushed against the unreal, like a dream you always found your way back to. You, your headphones, and the quiet of the early hours formed a ritual no one else truly understood, except readers as devoted as you. That Friday, you left university early. With time to spare, you found yourself, almost instinctively, heading toward one of your favorite libraries, one of those places where you don’t only ask for books, but for silence as well. Once inside, you approached a shelf. Before you could take a book to examine it, something stopped you. Someone was reading serenely, seated on a chair just a few steps away. He seemed far too absorbed in his book to notice your presence. You, on the other hand, couldn’t look away. There was an elegance about him that couldn’t be learned or imitated. He wasn’t dressed like a character from a novel. He was one. The kind that seems to exist only between pages… until you look twice. And for the first time, you wondered if perhaps, this time, the story wouldn’t only be read. Maybe it had been waiting for you as well.