Chapter Text
TAEHYUN🧪
I don’t understand how a book like this even exists.
Not at a university that prides itself on academic excellence, international rankings, and shaping the brightest minds in the country. Even if, in reality, half the students spend more time in the cafeteria than in class, and the other half survives on watered-down coffee and borrowed notes.
And yet, it exists.
It sits in a secluded corner of the library, third shelf from the back, Aisle B. The spine is black, untitled, and the cover is so battered it looks like it has survived a minor war or, at the very least, several generations of emotionally unstable students. On the first page there is a printed, laminated sign
Confession Book for Students
Write whatever you want
Respect
The word respect is underlined three times, as if that has ever accomplished anything.
Our tutor explained it to us during the first month of classes with an optimistic smile he clearly didn’t believe himself. He said something about “building community” and “empathizing with others.” I thought, statistically speaking, this was going to end up full of drawn dicks and complaints about exams.
I wasn’t wrong.
I come almost every day.
Not because I want to write. I’ve never felt the need to tell my problems to an inanimate object. I come out of curiosity, to see what has changed. It is also a surprisingly effective way to try and understand the people who sit next to me in class and then act like you don’t exist outside of it.
I’ve read so much nonsense that I’m surprised the university still allows this. I suppose someone decided the emotional benefit outweighed the risk of someone writing “if you read this you’re gay” for the seventeenth time.
The first time I went was out of pure curiosity. Nothing more. When I finished studying, my feet took me there without consulting me.
I sat down.
I opened the book in the middle.
Dicks. Lots of them. Some with questionable artistic skill. Others with faces. One wore sunglasses. That confirmed for me that these people had passed the entrance exam with the bare minimum number of functioning neurons and probably thanks to a statistical miracle.
I kept flipping through.
Insults.
Kim from Economics is an asshole.
An arrow led from that message, and another hand, in different handwriting, added
Yeah, but he’s hot.
I closed my eyes for a second.
I turned the page.
If you read this, you’re gay.
I rolled my eyes. I wanted to think a freshman had written that and that it was just a phase. That university would eventually polish that kind of humor. Empirical evidence says otherwise.
That was a year ago.
I still visit it almost daily, though now it is more habit than curiosity. I’ve learned that the book changes depending on the time of semester. At the beginning, new students are excited and write their full names, their majors, and the date as if it were a historical monument. At the end, graduates say goodbye with sudden nostalgia, promising eternal friendships that probably won’t survive their first job.
Today was no different.
My routine unfolded with precision. Classes in the morning, library in the afternoon, back to the dorms at night.
Soobin fit into that routine perfectly. We ate together when our schedules aligned, studied in comfortable silence, and knew exactly how much to talk. He never asked more than necessary. He never laughed at things I didn’t understand. And when I talked about something I genuinely cared about, he didn’t cut me off after thirty seconds like most people did.
“You know,” Soobin said, “a guy almost ran me over in the Humanities hallway today.”
“Literally?”
“Almost. He was sprinting while looking at his phone. His name is Hueningkai.”
“Not a very subtle name,” I commented.
“An even less subtle person,” he laughed. “He’s pretty big, but he looks like a baby. I thought he was focused on something important, but no. The idiot was just playing a game on his phone. He was probably late for something, but the game mattered more. Still, he was very polite when we collided. He apologized about five times.”
That caught my attention.
“So he’s not an idiot,” I said.
“No. He’s in one of my electives. I think he’s nice, and I’d like to sit near him again and talk some more.” He paused, evaluating. “And... mmm... he seems friendly.”
“I’m happy for him.”
Soobin glanced at me.
“I’m not trying to set you up with anyone,” he clarified. “Just making a comment.”
“I know.”
We stayed silent for a moment, listening to the tapping of keys and the rustling of pages from other students. I watched the window light reflected on the table, the way dust floated almost invisibly in the sunbeams, and how Soobin adjusted his hair every time he moved his head.
The library was my favorite place on campus for logical reasons. No one expected you to be charming or to start conversations. Silence wasn’t an absence of noise, it was the norm, a mathematical constant. The lights always had the same color temperature. Everything was always in its place. No surprises.
Except for the book.
I’m not sure exactly when I left Soobin with his notes and stood up. I had finished that study block. The next one could wait five minutes.
Aisle B.
The book was still there.
I opened it. The first thing I read was:
Today I cried in the bathroom because I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.
I tilted my head, evaluating it.
I didn’t understand the need to write that. If you have a problem, you analyze it. If you can’t solve it, you share it with someone specific or make an appointment with the university’s counseling services. That’s what they’re there for. An anonymous book full of strangers writing disorganized emotions seemed inefficient.
Still, I kept reading.
There was everything. People who didn’t understand a subject. People who hated someone with worrying intensity. People claiming to be in love after only seeing each other for a few seconds in class. People who clearly just wanted attention and external validation.
I was about to close it.
Until I read the sentence.
Sometimes I wonder if love is something that happens as a chemical coincidence or something you decide. What do you think?
I stared at the sentence for a moment too long. I shouldn’t care. It wasn’t a message directed at me. And yet, something about it irritated me. The blend of coincidence and decision wasn’t framed correctly. Love, chemical coincidence or conscious decision? Could they not be more precise? The question implied that one could choose something that, in reality, couldn’t be chosen or feel something that, in theory, followed rules. It was confusing and more than confusing, it was incorrect.
I leaned in a little, holding the pen between my fingers. My hand began to move. As I wrote, I felt a kind of tension in my shoulders. Not from physical effort, but because I was doing something I usually avoided. Exposing myself, even if only to an inanimate object, was disconcerting. When I finished, I rested the tip of the pen on the page and took a deep breath.
That was the first time I wrote in that book.
When I was done, I reread what I had put down and nodded to myself. It was accurate. I closed the book carefully and returned it to its exact spot, perfectly aligned with the edge of the shelf.
I went back to my table.
Soobin looked up.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I just needed to move around a bit.”
“Okay,” he said. “If you want, we can go down to dinner later before it gets crowded.”
I nodded.
I put on my headphones. I sat down. I opened the file on my laptop.
And I didn’t think about it again.
Or so I thought.