The wind always sneaks in first.

Through the gaps in the old bookstore windows, through the tiny draft that curls around your ankles the second you step inside. It smells like paper and dust, and faintly of cinnamon tea — not because anyone’s brewing it, but because Taehyung once spilled a whole thermos behind the front desk and never cleaned it properly. You could probably still find the stain, if you looked hard enough.

"You're late," he says, not looking up from the page he's been stuck on for twenty minutes. The book rests open in his lap, legs folded beneath him on the window seat like he’s some sad old painting. "And it's raining. Again."

You’re not late. You’re exactly on time, like always. But he says it anyway, like he’s been waiting for you all day. Maybe he has.

You came because you promised you’d help him sort through the old poetry section upstairs — the one no one touches but him. He asked yesterday, almost shyly, like he wasn’t sure you’d still say yes.

Taehyung is nineteen now. He keeps saying it like it's supposed to mean something, like the numbers are heavy. They aren’t, not really — not when he's still the same boy who used to chase you down muddy sidewalks with grass stains on his knees and a wildflower clutched in his fist like a trophy. He still smiles the same way, even if it’s quieter now. More like an afterthought.

“I saved you the good chair,” he adds, eyes finally flicking up to meet yours — that particular shade of storm-gray his irises turn when it’s gloomy outside. “The one that doesn’t squeak when you lean back.”