Oneshots by worldoftom [t.h. x female]

By The Book [uni au]

Summary: You're trying to relax and forget about uni when a boy comes sit next to you.

Words: 1.7k

Warnings: Just fluff, sort of a 'choose your own ending' kind of story

*

University was not what you had expected. While you didn't have particularly long days, there were two-hour lectures and three-hour lectures, assignments after assignments, stupid long hours at the library reading up on mandatory references, and it's been too much to handle in only the first couple of months. There's no way you're ever going to get used to this, not with how hard you've been struggling since day one.

The weather has been nice and a little warm and, at the end of another crazy Thursday, you decide to go to the park and get some fresh air. Since you're not meeting up with any of your friends today, and your society meeting was canceled this week, this seems to be the wisest choice. You may as well get some relaxing now rather than not taking this chance and regretting it later on, when the consequential days and lectures and essays get the best of you.

You sit down in one of the few benches available, trying not to think about coursework and that extra long chapter you have to read for Monday. Instead, you focus on the small pleasure you will get from diving into a few more pages of the book you bought before the end of the summer. You've been trying to read it since then, but things got too much after school started, so you're not as far along as you wished.

Thinking this short reading session will be good for you, you want your brain to rest after several intense weeks of commuting and trying not to die from the idea that the school year will be nothing but intense work. With one last look around the park, you sit back and relax. You can't help but admire the sweetness of the kids in the playground, despite their incessant high-pitched yelling, as well as the courage of the early evening joggers. The idea of jogging after a tiring day is not for you, and not even the possibility of doing it with an adorable dog at your feet can convince you otherwise.

With one final inhale, you set the book on your lap and look down at it.

"Excuse me, do you mind?" a voice asks to your right.

You look up, trying not to roll your eyes at the interruption, and a boy is pointing at the empty spot beside you. His face looks familiar, the squared shape of his glasses a half blurred image in the back of your memory, creating that sort of feeling you get from perhaps having seen someone on campus as you walked around lost in your own head.

"Sure," you say, with a minor shrug of your shoulder. There's a few other available benches, so it's odd why he would choose this one since you're sitting on it. That's definitely something you'd never do, given the choice between an empty bench and sharing one with a stranger.

You focus back on your book, index finger slipping between the pages where your marker is. His loud shuffling beside you as he sits down and gets comfortable seems excessive but inevitable, so you try to ignore it altogether. As soon as you realize that he puts a backpack down between his feet and retrieves a book from it, though, you take a swift, curious look at it.

Which is when you notice that you're reading the exact same book.

A small laugh escapes you before you can stop it.

"Something funny?" he asks.

"We're reading the same book," you explain, tilting the cover towards him with your finger still marking the page. It's not the same edition, his a hardback first edition you remember seeing in the store while yours is the latest paperback print that was slightly more on budget for you, but it's still the same book.