Armin’s room smells like fabric softener-scented plug-ins and pencil lead. Our rooms are almost identical when it comes to the layout, but his is substantially cleaner and more organized. 

His bed is made, sky blue sheets tucked in neatly and pillows lined up at the head. His nightstand has a picture of us on our middle school graduation day. My smile is big and loud even on film, and my arm is thrown over his shoulder. Armin’s smile is reserved and calm, his diploma in front of himself for the picture and mine lifted just outside the frame. 

We’re sitting on the futon in front of the television, and Armin leans his head back, lets his controller dangle in his hand. The futon is big enough for us to have maybe an inch of space between us, but I lay across the middle and let my legs hang over the side, my head resting on his thigh while I hold my phone over myself to casually scroll Instagram. The television screen is still lit up with my character posing and “WIN” in big yellow letters with the score. 

“Yo,” I say, my thumb gliding slower on my phone, “what do you know about the new library assistant?” 

Armin hums. He reaches over my head to grab his glass of water from the table and shrugs at me while he sips it. 

“Nothing,” he says. “I didn’t even know there was going to be another library assistant after Carter graduated. I’m not privy to that kind of information.” 

I nod and that slow scrolling turns into me just running my thumb over the cracks in the top corner of my screen. If I didn’t hate the Apple store so much, I would go get it fixed. 

“Why?” Armin asks. 

“No reason. I was just, I don’t know. You know that’s Mr. Anderson’s nephew, right? The library assistant. Have you, uh, talked to him?”

Armin doesn’t say anything for a good, long while. Just stares at me, calculating. He knows something I don’t, and he’s not telling. 

“Nope,” he says. “Never spoke to him a day in my life. Don’t even think we’ve crossed paths.” 

I crane my neck up. He’s not lying; I would know. He’d shift his eyes and do a half shrug, scratch his nose. I huff a breath out of my nose. 

“Why?” he asks again. 

“Nothing.” I wag my head back and forth. 

It’s suspicious of me to ask about Lyle and especially of me to ask Armin about Lyle, but if anyone would know, it’d be him. The quiet ones are always the ones to look out for, and he’ll puzzle piece things together and find information in ways you wouldn’t even think of. 

He chugs his water until it’s almost empty and goes completely still before he gets up abruptly and my head falls into the futon cushion. 

“She’s about to come screaming at us to eat before it gets cold.” He picks up both of the glasses in his fingers and slides his phone into the pocket of his sweatpants with his other hand. 

It’s eerie the way he predicts it. As soon as I get up and stretch, there’s a knock on the door and a pause. A harder knock when we don’t respond. 

“Minjun-a!” Amin’s mother calls him by his Korean name from the other side of the door.

He yanks the door open while he yells in Korean, and she’s already pouting at him on the other side, her long black hair pulled into a sleek ponytail and arms folded loosely across her white, ruffled shirt. 

She unfolds her arms and stands on her toes to ruffle Armin’s hair and he chuckles. Just then, her eyes flick behind him and catch on to me easing over. She starts to smile, pushes Armin out of the way, and skips to me to grab my hand and lead me out of the room. 

“Come and eat before it gets cold. I made it spicy just how you like it,” she says.

“Really?” I say and smirk over my shoulder at Armin, wiggle my eyebrows. “You treat me so well.” 

Armin pretends to gag and rolls his eyes.