Communication Error (Eremin)

Chapter One • Normal

The library was buzzing with people. Books were pulled off their respective shelves and left on tables, while others would be handed to one of the librarians at the front desk. The smells of coffee drifted through the air, and Armin guessed a lot of the library visitors were going to be here a while, and in need of something to boost their energy.
Days like these were the most exciting; days where he ran into all sorts of people. Some of which were friends of his from school, others were acquaintances he'd encounter on the streets, while others were strangers he had yet to meet. The murmurs of the visitors spread through various parts of the library as people requested for this book, that book, the seat over there, and as some of them ordered their children or friends to stay quiet. If this scene was going some years before, the excitement would've stressed Armin out. He'd grown accustomed to it, however, and was now eager to face the hushed crowds inside the library.
As he pulled a rolling cart down the History isle, he picked up a small stack of books—maybe four or five in total. His hand slipped off the cart handle, and he sorted through the books in his arms. He aligned them into an alphabetical order, the book starting with 'a' being on top, and began to put them where they belong.
A freckled, dark-haired young man stepped around the corner and greeted Armin in a hushed tone. He shuffled a couple hardcover books in his hands, and flipped one over. "I found these sitting on the floor by a chair," he explained softly. "Do you know where they go?"
Armin took a look at what the young man had brought to him, and read the covers thoughtfully. "That one . . . Goes on the other side of this shelf," he pointed subtly to the shelf he was adding to a moment ago. "And this one can stay with me. I'll be on the isle it goes in soon." He picked up the smaller of the two books and set it on top of his current stack.
    "Thank you." The freckled boy shot Armin a look of gratitude. He tapped the side of the book he was holding with his index finger as he walked away to put it up.
As he was walking off, Armin brought his focus back to the books he was putting away. The top book, the one that was brought to him, didn't belong in the History isle, so he picked it from his stack and leaned over, looking at the bottom shelf of the rolling cart, to find the other books of the same category. It was a book of Fiction. Armin had seen this book before and was surprised it was still around, since it was so popular. It was probably the most popular book in the library, and understandably so; the tale of a man grown frail with age, who owned a humble tea shop, remembering a past lover that he lost tragically . . . It was heart-wrenching, and it made Armin value his soul-mate, whoever they were, very, very much. He found the other Fiction books and put it on top of the others. After his fingers slipped off the book cover, and he pulled out another book from the few in his arm, he continued putting them away with set concentration. Every title had to be in order, from 'a' to 'z', in their proper genre isle. No exceptions there, ever.
    When he was done putting every book on the cart away, he rolled it to the back room of the library and left it with the other empty carts. "Everyone must be finishing that last bit of homework," he commented to a couple co-workers in the room.
    "The homework they were assigned over the summer, you mean?" complained a gray-haired woman. She sifted through some papers in her hand gently, and only glanced at Armin for a moment. She stood up straight and held the papers close to her chest. "It would be nice if they'd study at home, though. Honestly, all they need is a card. And it's free, for crying out loud."
    "Are they too loud for your liking, Rico?" the blonde man standing beside Rico asked. He was standing close to her and looking down at the papers. He seemed focus on the papers as well as Rico, but he looked at her when he spoke. "I don't blame you."
Armin couldn't help agreeing with them. After all, it was a library they were in, and it was no secret that you're supposed to keep silent in a library. Their music and mumbling all added up to a good bit lot of noise, no matter how quiet each individual was on their own. He strayed from the cart and over to Rico, standing only a few feet from her now. "They'll go in a few weeks," he pointed out. "School will start soon."
    Rico's eyes widened, and she puffed her cheeks in annoyance. "'A few weeks,'" she repeated. "Any longer than that and I'd start kicking them all out."
Armin raised one eyebrow and looked at her. "Sure you would." He pointed to the papers she was holding. "What's that all for?"
   She turned her attention back to the sheets and sorted through them with a few fingertips. Her deep breath made her shoulder rise, and they dropped when she exhaled. "New schedules," she replied. "Nothin' for you to worry about.
"What time is it?"
The blonde man, taking a peek at the clock behind him, squinted, then turned back around and faced Armin and Rico. "It's 5:12," he explained in a slightly shocked manner.
Armin looked up at the clock to confirm the time, and was somehow surprised that it was, in fact, 5:12. He swiped a couple fingers across his face to brush away some of his hair as he eased towards a wall of lockers. Grabbing the front of the round lock with his right hand, while letting it rest against his left palm, he turned it back and forth until it unlocked. He encouraged the door open, and let it fall open the rest of the way. It didn't stay completely open for long before Armin had finished grabbing his backpack and was grabbing the side to close it. It latched shut and locked immediately, so he turned away and headed out.
He ran his thumb up and down under the left strap of his backpack to adjust it comfortably against him. The walk home was almost over, in fact, he could see his house from where he was. A quick gait brought him to his doorstep even sooner, and he greeted the door with the jingling set of his keys. He pushed the house key into the lock and turned it. Though, when he pushed down the knob on the handle and pushed on the door to open it, it didn't open. With a grumbled complaint, he took his thumb off the knob, put it back down, and pushed his own weight against the door a few times before it opened up. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him with his heel. Hanging his set of keys on a hook near the door, beside another set of keys, he headed back to his room. He pulled his backpack off and set it on the floor near his bed, then began to change into some more comfortable clothes.

    Armin pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down, then scooted up. His eyes trailed from the plate before him, up to his grandfather's eyes. ". . . busy again today, too," he continued on, telling his grandfather about his day after having been inquired about it. "And Rico says they have new schedules."
    The elderly man raised an eyebrow. "New schedules for volunteers?" he asked, to which Armin shook his head.
    "No," he explained, while turning his fork around between his thumb and index finger. "Just for the actual staff, I'm pretty sure." Mr. Arlert nodded in acknowledgement.
    Armin went on: "Rico says she can't wait for school to start up again, so the library isn't so loud. It's not too loud, but I understand what she means.
"A lot of the students coming to study murmur and mumble, and they play music."
    "They don't have the earphones with them?"
    "Earbuds?" Armin corrected. "Yes, they do, but you can hear the music they play when they turn it up high. And when there's a lot of them listening to music with high volume, it gets louder and louder." He shrugged and took a casual bite of his warm dinner. He twisted the fork in his mouth and savored the heat of it for a moment, then tapped it back against his plate.
    "That makes sense," Mr. Arlert decided with a lift of his eyebrow. His expression relaxed again, and he squeezed his fingers into a napkin. "Nobody's all that considerate of the silence anymore, hm?"
    Armin's eyes widened in annoyed agreement. "Some of them are loud trying to silence the others."
   "Irony at work." Mr. Arlert smiled and laughed a little.
   "Yeah, exactly."
    The two sat together for a while longer, exchanging more small talk over the rest of dinner. Grandpa Arlert brought up an incident with the AC, describing how it shut off earlier that day and come back on a while later. He predicted it would shut off again at some point, and that it may need to be replaced. Despite disliking the idea of the AC shutting off, they both agreed it was fortunate to be shutting off closer to cool weather than summer heat.