Her Voice / han sanghyuk (#14)

Episode 22

JooEun

I scanned through the books on a shelf as I searched for a book title that I would be interested in reading, I am short on books and I wanted to add more books to my collection. DongMi ssi advised me not to buy any more books at the bookstore and instead, she brought me to the neighbourhood library to borrow the books. She said that it is a cheaper version, if not a completely free version of being able to read your books and plus you can come back and borrow the same book if you want to read it unless it has been borrowed by someone else.

I was never a fan of going to the library as I didn't have the chance to go out often when I am younger and my mother doesn't allow me to go to the library if we were to go outside, she told me that it is a waste of time taking a long time to choose the book that you want, the books that have been touched by multiple times. She thinks that the library is a very unhygienic place to go to and I should stay out of it to prevent illnesses to go to me.

Apparently, that is just a stupid excuse to keep me from getting too knowledgeable to the outside world that I start leaving the house more often and eventually not wanting to go home. This is yet another one of her tactics to keep me close to her and not let me know anything else other than to be a good daughter and obey everything that she says. Well, times have changed and I don't think that my mother is right anymore. She is also a weird one, she doesn't go out anywhere and claims that the outside world is dangerous and they would come after her.

Now I know why she is a mistress of my father and she is afraid that people might bash her for stealing someone's husband. She is so afraid herself that she wants me to be like her, stay in the shadows for as long as you can and not come out at all so that everyone would start to forget about you.

I bit my lips as I looked through the rows of books that failed to interest me, it is already 18 minutes of book searching and it is to no avail. I can't find a book that I would spend the entire night just reading and get me engrossed in the book world, never getting me out of it. I tilted my head to the side as I noticed a very unique book title that are totally different from all the others, I have never seen this book before, not even in the bookstores. I took the book out and my eyes lingered on the title, How not to fall in love.

I had read a lot of books in the romance genre and it is all about falling in love, having crushes unrequited or not, and getting betrayed by the one that you thought you had loved but it is a new thing. How not to fall in love? I looked over at the back of the book which showed the description, there is nothing written on the back except for the words 'Now you have taken interest in reading this book, don't stop reading this book.'

Now, this is the kind of a book that I would love to read... I smile a satisfied grin as I walked back to the table where DongMi ssi is reading her usual magazines and taking pictures on her phone.

She looked up from her magazine but never stopped a moment to take a snap of whatever she is reading right now, there is a huge picture of a bunch of boys and they all looked so handsome. "You found a book to read? That took surely a long time for you to choose your book."

'Sorry, none of it interest me except for this book.' I told her in sign language as I took a seat opposite her and looked over what she was trying to do. 'What are you doing?'

"Oh." She chuckled and I raised an eyebrow. "This is one skill that you should start to learn if you want to start going to the library." She pointed at her phone. "This. This is a gift from God which I cherished a lot, I use them to take pictures of the pages of the magazines. You know that a lot of people love to read magazines but they don't want to buy it at the convenience store because they don't want to spend any money, they do it in libraries so that they wouldn't miss it even if they didn't buy a copy of it."

I just nodded as she continues to snap. "What is the book about?" She stopped to look at the book that I have decided to read. "The title seems very interesting."

'My thoughts exactly.' I turned towards the back of the book. 'There is nothing much written at the back, only one sentence is written there to tell me to start reading since I have already laid eyes on it.'

"What are you reading that for? To find out if your feelings for SangHyuk is real or not?" She suggested and I turned beet red.

'I told you that I don't like him. I'm just reading this book because it is interesting.'

"I don't think so, does he know about that? About you having a crush on him? I saw you trying to approach him at the table during lunch break, you were hesitating a lot."

'I was...' She was right. I indeed took a very long time during lunch break, just to ask Sanghyuk if he has brought over his lunchbox. We planned to have our home-cooked lunches at the school garden instead of the caféteria for a change, I was getting a little bored always eating the same food and I wanted to have something personal.

I was doing well getting out of my seat until I laid my eyes on him who is sitting at his desk looking rather dazed yet focused at the same time. He seemed to be deep in his thoughts so I guess that he didn't get to witness my failed attempts to walk over to his table looking very flustered and being very weird in general. I sighed, not wanting to hide from the truth anymore. 'Yes, I got this book because I wanted to confirm something.'