all the laws of the universe

If procrastinating was a deadly sin, Evan Rosier would be burning in hell until the day it reached its end. But even hell sounded better than the fate he now had to face, a cruel night filled with ten pages written about a topic he couldn't even pronounce properly, perhaps due to his limited knowledge of northern and germanic accents.

It was well past midnight, the library empty apart from him and the librarian, who was taking a nap. His lamp was the last to shine and not a human being in sight, not a sound to be heard. Just the rhythmical monotone claps of his typewriter filled the long halls framed with books and the sound might hunt him in his worst nightmares.

His eyes hurt. Basically every muscle of his body hurt but eyes were letting him know in the most violent way of them all. His glasses were dirty but his shirt was not suitable to clean them and no other option was in sight, so he had to bear with aggravated conditions. Everything he wanted to do was go get sleep.

There was no such thing as rest now though, he had to suffer the consequences of his previous laziness and the firm belief that he's capable of just about anything, if under the right amount of pressure. He was not wrong, of course, but his body was relentlessly protesting against the imprudent choices of his mind.

There was not a time, when he hated atoms more than at quarter past one in the morning, when he had to deal with the mathematical solution of their movement, moreover obnoxiously describe it in ten pages or more. He was seven in, three or four still to go and although Evan was one to talk, if you got him in the right mood, he was at an utter loss of words and had been for a few minutes.

He was carefully considering if using the lax "phenomenal" for the fifth time in two paragraphs was too awful or if it was just not awful enough for him to care at these ungodly hours of the night.

There were soft sounds sending jolts of electricity through the dead silence. At first, he didn´t even notice them and once he did, Evan was pretty sure the librarian woke up and got to work. However, when he, after writing a few words, immediately showered with passionate hatred of his, raised his head, he found the elderly woman exactly at the place he had seen her many times through the last few hours. Deep in sleep and not capable of making sound at all. Nothing seemed to move for a bit and Evan pretty much assumed it was just his sleep deprived brain playing tricks, when there was another sound, dangerously similar to a human step, in the aisle with thick organic chemistry textbooks. He could hear it clearly now, mostly because it was closer to him and he had a decent view of the chemistry section of the library.

He froze in place. The library was open twenty-four hours a day and anyone could walk in or out, it was only natural that someone would appear. That was not what set him off. Instead, there was a feeling that the stranger was purposefully hiding from Evan and that made him all the more curious.

He hesitated. There was an urge to seek the intruder, or only to find the imagination playing tricks in him. A fear of sort also sat in the back of his mind, although irrationally trying to save his life from someone with unclear intentions. The curiosity in him was however heavier than the fear. It always was, may his choice of faculty be the proof of that.
He got up and stretched his long legs after a few painful hours of just sitting in place. For some irrational reason he cowered a bit, as if to play a cat-mouse game or perform a pretentious shakespearean comedy. It reminded him of the time he was about nine and watched a theatre kid perform Puck from Midsummer Night's Dream. He didn't hold the memory long, however, there was a much bigger adventure waiting for him at the other side of the aisle. Evan was now sure of that, because in the dim light of his lamp he noticed two dark eyes watching him through the shelves.

"No need to hide, stranger, for your eyes divulge your presence," he whispered. It was very unnecessary for him to say it in such a dramatic manner, but then again, Evan was brain-dead and it seemed absolutely necessary in that exact moment.

"Let me observe for a little while more," the other whispered in an answer. His voice was probably croaky when he didn't whisper, from what Evan noticed.

"You can observe in a dialogue, when both our faces are revealed," Evan said as he stepped closer to where the stranger's eyes shone.

"May you accompany me in the safe shadow of this aisle?" was a soft request Evan was absolutely ready to fulfil. It only took about three steps with his long legs and the stranger's face was not unknown to him anymore.

There was something divine about the way the dim light softened his high set cheekbones and cast a shadow to his sharp nose. His eyes, hemmed with long eyelashes, shone like a light of a thousand suns was reflected in them, not only a cheap light of one desk lamp. His long limbs seemed to belong rather to a celestial being than to a human. The boy´s attire, consisting of a red t-shirt and jeans, made him seem small, although Evan was barely two inches taller.

"Hello, stranger," the boy started, putting a knowing side smirk on. His dark eyes lit up a bit more at the change of angle towards light.

"Hello to you too," Evan answered, for a split second completely smitten by the way a simple smirk made made the stranger´s face light up.

"You found me," the boy continued and looked Evan up and down.

"That I did. Do you not find it rude watching people when they don't know about you? Some might even call it illegal," Evan tried sounding terrifying in a whisper. He failed miserably, but the stranger didn't seem to mind.

"I knew you would eventually notice I was watching you. And if you didn't, I would reveal myself," the boy shrugged.

"How noble of you," Evan remarked, "could I have a name for your face? I don't like calling you the stranger in my head."

The boy laughed quietly.

"I guarantee you, 'the stranger' is much prettier than my actual name," he looked up to Evan.

"Shall I introduce myself first?" Evan asked.

"Better not," the boy said pragmatically and looked to the side for a few seconds, "it would be rather rude to know you and not let you know me. And I don't want you to know me yet," he finished with a practicality close to brutal.

Evan blinked a few times in response.

"Okay," he opened, "if not to know you, at least to know what brings you here would be a delight to me."

The boy laughed again, this time with a conspiratorial tint to it.

"What brought us all here, darling. Hunger for knowledge." He raised a book he seemed to hold the entire time to his face as he said the last sentence with a glint of something dangerous in his eyes. Evan tried hard to catch the name, but only ended up with a rather misspelled last name of the author. He knew better than to ask the boy about it.
Every attempt at getting some more information about the boy was maliciously crashed by the weakness his appearance, and the rather laxly pronounced pet name, brought to Evan's knees. He almost forgot to answer.

"I do have hunger for knowledge,” he whispered anxiously, almost as if he didn´t believe himself.

“Of course you do. You would still be writing, if you did not,” the stranger glanced his eyes towards the abandoned typewriter, illuminated in a celestial manner.
Evan was taken aback by the way even the plainest of objects seemed oddly extraordinary in the atmosphere of a late night and an incredible adventure of the night.

“But may your hunger stay unfulfilled for tonight. I should get going,” the boy said after a minute of blissful silence and since the last sentence died out, everything seemed to be put to movement. The dust fell as before, the stranger started moving clearly with intentions to leave and Evan couldn´t help himself.

“Where could I find you next time?” Evan asked quickly and the other boy just laughed as he did many times in the few minutes.

“Ask the stars, perhaps.” the boy shrugged and tilted his head in a manner a renaissance painter would ask his model to.

Silence occurred and Evan would swear, there was something so precious and too big to even see hanging in the air. Like a wire, like the lines connecting constellations on the maps, but not in the sky. He might actually ask the stars, connect them on the sky, until they tell him all the secrets of the universe, so he could tell this boy everything in a soft whisper, just like they did now.

“Well, goodnight sweet prince,” the boy interrupted the precious silence and cast a little bow. There was something in his eyes, assumedly waiting for the much required response.

“May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,” Evan answered with little expectations.

The boy just smiled softly and stepped closer to the point, where their bodies were almost touching. He rose to his tip-toes and treated Evan with a quick kiss on the right cheek. Only a brush of lips, soft as flower petals, a stroke of warm breath and the stranger was gone carrying all his secrets away.

Evan didn´t even try to stop him from leaving and stayed alone in the dark aisle, as if chained to the ground.