phase

Grim Advances

“It’s out,” was all Alice said in her reply to Kaitou’s inquiry.

“Out?” Kaitou pushed further. “What do you mean?”

“As in checked out. What did you think I meant?”

She motioned for him to stop moving the tall stepladder she was on, re-shelving three books she’d been carrying before climbing back down carefully. She stretched, yawning a bit as he thought over her question.

“I don’t know. I thought you were joking, maybe.”

“Why would I joke about that?”

“Didn’t you put it on hold for me?”

She walked past him, the big sleeve of her sweater accidentally brushing that of his trench coat. “No. Why would I?”

He turned, frowning.”Because you said you’d pull it for me.”

“Yeah, I said that back then.” Alice sighed as she ran her finger along a bit of a shelf, studying the dust that came off before muttering, “I need to clean this sometime soon.”

It was Monday morning, two days after he’d first met the stubborn and blunt librarian, and now he was stuck in a bind. He’d been so excited to read the next book (not that he’d admit it to her), that he found his heart sinking a little when he realized that she’d never expected him to actually came back.

“You didn’t think I’d come back, did you?”

“No,” she answered as the feeling Kaitou had deepened more, making him feel disappointed. “People who think promises actually hold are fools.”

“I must be a fool then,” he said, sucking in his temporary depression. Oh, stop it. You’re no drama queen. “Because I believe promises hold.”

“It’s a comfort to know we’ll never be friends.”

“Whoever said that?” Kaitou smiled slyly as Alice threw him an incredibly distrusting look. “What, do you think I’m some escaped convict or something?”

“No, I think you’re an escaped mental hospital patient.”

Ouch. “And why’s that?” They were at the library’s front desk now, and he was surprised at the lack of people in the main study area.

Following his gaze as she traveled back behind the counter, Alice said, “Most people are in classes by now, you know. What’s your deal?”

“My deal is that I was expecting a certain librarian to be ready with a hold of mine,” he said, his brown eyes falling to the top of her head, where rays of morning sunlight formed an almost-halo, “and she wasn’t.”

“You weren’t skipping class, were you?”

“That’s a serious accusation there.”

Kaitou stuck his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans, the sleeves of his button-down under his light grey sweater brushing against the edges. Alice’s eyes were busy with the monochrome light of the computer screen as she retorted, “But a likely one, nonetheless. I’m sure you’ve skipped class at some point in time.”

“Why? Does everyone do that?”

“Sure, either accidentally or intentionally. They may realize it, they may not. At least, everyone at this godforsaken university has,” she looked somewhat angry. “Spoiled brats, the lot of them. That’s not to say you’re one, but that’s not to say you aren’t, either.”

“Who are you to call them spoiled brats?”

Alice looked up, her countenance betraying her surprise. “Huh?”

“Ah, sorry,” he ran a hand through his hair, and gave a weak attempt at a smile as he heard someone come into the library. “I just thought that what you said was rather harsh, that’s all.”

Her expression hardened at this statement, her hands ceasing the incessant typing that they’d been carrying on for the past few minutes. “Harsh? That’s what you said, right?”

“Right. Harsh. I think it’s harsh because you barely know any of them. You barely know what may be going on in their lives; you barely know their happinesses and their hardships. Who are you to judge?”

“And who are you to judge my statement—no, me?”

“You allowed me to judge you,” Kaitou said, even though she seemed incredibly indignant and on the brink of an explosion, “because you judged them. Once you do that, you open yourself up to judgement.”

She softened slightly upon realizing his reason behind his statement. “I have to agree, but you don’t even know my name…much less why I’m calling them spoiled.”

“Your name’s Alice,” Kaitou said, motioning to her name tag. “And I don’t know why you’re calling them that; but what I do know is that, no matter what the reason, it’s wrong.”

Alice looked at him carefully, looking him up and down, as if his motive for saying all of that was somehow hidden in the fibers of his clothes. Nonetheless, he turned slightly red in the time during which both parties were quiet, feeling quite embarrassed at how adamantly he’d been defending his stance as well as people he’d never met.

She kept on like this for a few minutes as he turned redder and redder. She thinks I’m an idiot and she’d probably right. “What is it?”

After a few more moments of intense observation, she finally said, “You’re a miracle, you know that?”

“How so?” By this point, she’d gone back to her almost obsessive way of typing in the system, a strand of her copper hair falling past her ear.

“Because most people would shirk from their responsibility of supporting their view of things,” she said. “And that’s not judgement; that’s the truth.”

The last statement felt very powerful in a number of ways, although Kaitou couldn’t put his finger on exactly one. There they rested, content with the comfortable silence that now fell between them, student librarian and student customer.