He wears a beige sweater on top of the long-sleeved shirt. It complements his skin better than the dark coloured sweater he wore in the past days. The stream of light from the glass window humbly touched the left side of his face to the feet, casting a shadow that veiled the opposite side facing me.

"...In-ho."

His eyes moved to the right, turning his head lightly towards me. 

My legs froze at their spot. 

"Lukas…Hey."

I have no choice but to greet him back.

"What book are you looking for?" In-ho closes his book and hold it to his side. 

"Ah…I'm…novels." I can feel the linguistic part of my brain shutting off at a crucial time. My brain switched to an internal panic mode.

"Oh…Fiction section is over there." He points to a few shelves at the opposite end of the library. I turned around, but no thought follows so I stood there for a minute. I can sense In-ho looking at me from the back. 

He walks nearing me, and passes me. "Follow me, I will show you." I followed him at a whim.

He is averagely tall. Around 1.75 m. His hair looks really nice. It is neat, shiny. He must have taken good care of it. To be fair, he looks like someone who takes good care of his appearance. He looks organized and disciplined—

"Lukas?"

My breath stopped. In-ho stared at me. 

"We're here. This is the fiction section." He waved his hand to the side, signalling the place. 

"YES!" A sound jumped out of my throat. 

Ah…Why am I acting like an idiot in front of him?

"I will sit at the table there.” His index finger pointed to the four seated wooden table to his right. “After you found a book, you can sit with me if you want." 

I catch the phrase 'sit with me' and it is the only thing replayed in my head. I want to sit and read with him. I will be too happy if I can do that. I skimmed through the books fast. My brain is hyper-reading all the titles from the book bone at once. At the end, I picked a book with the most interesting cover.

With the book firmly in my right grip, I make slow steps towards the table. I cautiously pulled the chair crossly opposite to In-ho—the one that is not directly in front of him. I don't want to bother him.

"Why did you sit so far away? The table is big. You can just sit in front of me."

It feels surreal to me. How can someone like him be so kind? I sat in silence, trying not to make too many sounds. I opened my book and read the first line. It was a struggle to understand the meaning. I glanced over at his book. He had it spread wide on the table, so I had a clear look at it. There are diagrams of a labelled human heart with long paragraphs of tiny hangul. 

"..Arzt."

In-ho looked up to me.

"Yes?"

"No, um.." 

I wonder if it's okay to ask him. My eyes wandered around at his book, avoiding eye contact with him. In-ho slowly turned his face down to his book.

"Oh. You're right…Ich möchte Arzt werden."

He did hear me. He understood me. He also formulated an answer in German right after. I'm convinced there is nothing he can’t do. 

"That's really…cool. I think you will be a great doctor…"

What a low, unconfident voice. It was embarrassing to say it to a friend I respected deeply. I hold my book up 90 degrees against the table, pretending to read it. I slide down a bit while leaning on the chair, trying to hide my giant body. I must have looked funny to him.

"Really?" His voice bounced on my ears.

I nodded, slow. My face feels warm all of a sudden. My eyes were still glued to the book that I couldn't make out a word of.

"I think you're cool too, Lukas."

###

I couldn't sleep that night.

I stared at the ceiling, processing everything that happened at school that day. Particularly, the part where I met him at the library.

I couldn't stop myself from going back to the scene and reliving it again. I never had such a time with a friend — or anyone at all. It felt so…close.

I pull the blanket over my head. 

In-ho probably feels neutral about it. I know that I admire him too much. 

Now that I think again, how did he think of someone like me as 'cool'? I'm the opposite of 'cool'. I'm anxious, confused and…weird. I'm just a weird guy in general. 

Am I even worthy to be his friend?