untitled // phan

vellichor

vellichor // chapter two

Dan stood behind the counter, carelessly leaning against it. He had started reading the new book by one of his favourite authors, so he didn't notice immediately that a new costumer had just walked in. Which was weird, considering the little bell above the door always made a loud sound as soon as someone entered the shop. Maybe he ignored it on purpose.

"Uh, excuse me?"

Not bothering to close the book in front of him, Dan looked up at the sound of a young man's voice, and his eyes met almost immediately with bright blue ones. "Yeah?" he said, and the man came closer to the counter.

Dan found himself staring at the guy's face. This was weird; if Dan were to make a movie out of the novel he was currently working on, this guy would have been the perfect actor to play the main character, Michael. The resemblance to the guy he had always pictured in his mind was impressive.

"Uh... I'm looking for this book. I don't know if you have it, though."

Dan, still fascinated, furrowed his eyebrows slightly in an attempt to focus on his work again. "What book exactly?" he asked, and the guy smiled lightly.

"The Anatomy of Being," he then said, and Dan nodded. That book happened to be one of his favourites. "Let me check," he said as he typed the title into the computer. "Yeah, we still have it. Good choice, by the way," Dan noted.

"You read it?"

"Yeah, you have a good taste choosing it."

The man chuckled. "Thanks, but unfortunately, I'm not buying it for myself." Dan looked at him before he left his place behind the counter to look for the book the guy had asked for.

"Oh, let me guess," Dan said and grinned, and the stranger nodded. "Your aunt."

"No."

The brunet smiled. "Your sister."

"Don't have one."

"Dammit. Your girlfriend, then?" he asked, mainly because he just couldn't help himself - he wanted to know if there were any more similarities between this guy and his own made-up character, which just so happened to be gay.

"Not really my area," the stranger stated with a chuckle, "But I'm buying it for my mother."

"Sorry," Dan said and looked at him curiously. "So, you're not into poetry, hm?"

"Depends," the guy said.

Dan had found the book and pulled it out of the shelf. "On what?" he asked and handed it to him.

"Most poetry always comes with so many... depressing feelings, I'm not really about that."

"But don't you think that's beautiful? The way some people manage to convey their own emotions just with words?"

"It can be." The guy smiled.

"Can?"

"Not everyone can do it, I guess. I can't, for example, though I sometimes wish I could. But I'm bad with words in general."