Reality And Us

Chapter Seventeen

The unpleasant smell of sweaty teenagers mixed with a lot of deodorant filled Nick's noise as he walked into the room, there were too many boys of his team inside of there, after training, it was hard to breathe.

He had forgotten one of his shoes inside - don't even ask - and now he had to step into this room again, trying his best to hold his breath, but that didn't stop him from smelling it, he felt as if he could taste the air, the scent was that intense.

He had been training a lot more the past few weeks, and some of his teammates had started noticing, they complimented him on it.

This was his dream, and he'd work hard for it, but where's the limit? Maybe he should've asked himself that question.

Once he could finally leave the room, he felt as if he'd have stepped into an other country, a completely different atmosphere was suddenly surrounding him. His lungs could work freely again, it was an amazing feeling.

It was already quite late, but he still had time to go somewhere, a place he had wanted to go to for a while.

He left the school area quite quickly, got his bike and rode it home. After about ten minutes he was there, ran into his bathroom and took a wonderful, hot shower, to wash off all the sweat and the exhaustion. Once he was finished he ran downstairs, and told his parents he'd leave.

He was quick at putting on his shoes and getting out of the house, he didn't hear his father ask if he'd go running again. He didn't hear his parents' worry, he was too busy being there quick enough, because he didn't know when the place closed.

~~~

Nick was staring at the building in front of him, he hadn't been sure if he'd be able to find it, but yeah, he was indeed standing in front of a bookshop.

He had never been overly excited about books, he could read them, it was interesting, and especially non-fiction works about science were extremely neat for him to read, but he never really understood the deal behind works of fiction.

He could read them, but they never got him as emotionally invested as good series. He understood why a lot of movies adapted from books turned out to be a lot worse then the original, but he still preferred the visual image to a page full of letters forming words and sentences.

But still, he wanted to see this place his friend worked at and loved, so he walked forwards towards the entrance of the store. He didn't go there to meet Zane, he doubted that the older boy worked that late.

Once he entered the store the smell of books was lingering in the air, Nicklas neither liked nor disliked the scent, but he could imagine how some people might feel strongly about the atmosphere of the room.

He looked around himself, there were a lot of bookshelves with a lot more books, it wasn't too big nor too small. There were a few shelves dedicated to science and non-fiction works in general, and that sparked his interest a bit, he could definitely take a look at some of those.

The walls were of a pretty beige, there were several books in the middle of the room as well, lying on black squares.

As his gaze wandered through the room he noticed a familiar face talking to a stranger. Zane worked here on Wednesday evenings?

The stranger his friend was talking to was a little bit shorter than Zane, about the average height for young men, maybe a bit less. His hair was of a dark blonde, almost golden, and quite long - he had put it into what could be considered a 'man bun', so it didn't bother him. Nick was sure that in the right lighting, if the man let his hair loose it could almost look like the mane of a lion.