the librarian ❆ kagehina

small talk and big smiles.

     "ah, jeez," shōyō huffed, "i didn't bring an umbrella! god damnit!"

     every grunt was fractious as he stomped through the pouring rain, his khakis soaked with frigid water and his once perfectly styled hair springing back to its original frizz-lined puffs of candy-colored curls. his shoes squished as he picked up the pace to a jog, and then a run, trying not to smash his face in on the concrete as he dashed towards the library.
he whined softly as he shook his head in a dog-like frenzy, internally complaining about the thick droplets of water falling into his eyes as he came upon the doors to the library and unlocked them in a rush. shivering across the wooly carpet into the dingy break room in the back, a dark expression painting his face an exasperated shade of pink, he stripped the wet clothes from his goose-bumped body and dressed in the spare long sleeve and sweats he keeps in his little cubby in case of emergencies. he obviously considered this an emergency- he is very cold.
shoving his feet angrily into a clean pair of socks and leaving his soaking shoes to dry on the coat hook beside the door, he left the break room and shuffled into the library to start his work day. clutching another scalding hot cup of coffee in his hands, he suffered through it, because it was so cold that the dangerous heat was the only thing keeping him warm.

the skylight above his head let achromatic rays fall through the ceiling, barely lighting the surrounding volumes with a low luminesce that crept up on shōyō slowly but surely. he sipped on his steaming coffee and fell into the gentle comfort of the library, which was now warming up. he leaned on his palm as he sat in the desk chair, logging himself into the library database and clicking some music on, letting it hum low so he could still hear the rain pummeling above the sheltered spot he sat.
     he checked the log of things to do today, and he discovered that his only job for the day was to restock books from the dropbox and help any students with checkouts and check-ins. so much for a full saturday shift, he grimaced, today is going to drag on forever.

begrudgingly rising from his chair and taking down the last of his drink, he scooted out of the enclosed reference desk to get to the drop box that sat next to the front doors. he opened the back hinge and let the books fall out- there's never too many. not many people come to the library to begin with, let alone when it's not open.
     he had just started to pile the books in their respective genres when somebody rushed through the doors, letting the heavy winds shut them with a loud bang behind them, drawing a tiny "agh!" of surprise from shōyō's body behind the return box.

     "oh, sorry, uh-" the voice followed the noise, looking behind the box to see the short librarian and smiling just a little bit, "oh. hi. sorry."

     "it's okay," he giggled, noticing the face that's shown itself quite often lately, "what are you doing here? it's pouring out there!" he quizzed, standing up and smoothing out the crumpled up apron over his chest.

     tobio looked him up and down with his so very blue and confused eyes at shōyō's comfy appearance, suddenly making the shorter boy feel very underdressed- not that it was much of an occasion. they were only in an empty college library.

     "oh- i- i, uh," he stumbled over his own words, "the rain got me all wet, ahaha! i had to change... i was soaked all the way to my skin, unfortunately."

     "oh," the boy smirked suggestively, and shōyō's blush of frustration bled even darker with embarrassment. "well, i had to return my books. i don't have any classes today, so i thought i'd spend the day here. better than sitting in my dorm."

     "you can put 'em on the desk, i'll put them in later. how were they, anyway? any good?"

     shōyō closed the hinge behind the drop box and sat back down on the floor, continuing to sift through the small mess of returns. tobio walked over to the desk, setting down the three books, the one with the shiny blue cover neatly balanced on top.

     "they were good. i liked how to stop time the best. i read it in a few hours."

     "oh, jeez. that's fast! what was it about?" he asked. tobio scratched his neck, and shōyō noticed how weird it seemed for the librarian to be sitting on the floor in sweatpants and for him to just be standing in his raincoat in the middle of the library. he giggled quietly, then patted the carpet beside him. "you're gonna be here all day, might as well talk to me a little!"

     tobio cracked a smile, a bigger one this time. he smiled with his teeth, something he hasn't done yet; shōyō thought it was a handsome smile, one he'd see in a magazine. it was just perfect enough, but not so perfect it was off-putting.

     "well," tobio shrugged his jacket off and draped it over the back of one of the old, heavy-bottomed chairs and sat beside the worker on the floor, "it was about this man named tom who was born with a really long life span. he can live hundreds of years, and so can lots of other people, and he is under a sort of witness protection by an underground organization that helps these people hide their identities. it's about his life from when he was born until current times, and his troubles with being afraid to love. he falls in love, and he is scared because the first woman he ever loved died, and he doesn't want to hurt another person with his weird secret about his age. but the whole book is flashbacks of his past lives in different countries, and about how he overcomes those fears so he can love this new woman, and..."

shōyō couldn't help but admire the way his body moved as he explained the story. his eyes shone with a deeper sort of excitement, and they almost looked to grow lighter with every element of the plot he touched on; his hands swayed and shifted as he talked, mulling over his words like he was putting them into place; his shoulders would shrug when he introduced something suspenseful, and his smile would perk when he talked about something romantic. it was entrancing, the way he talked about the book. shōyō didn't want to read it nearly as much as he wanted to hear tobio tell it to him.

"that sounds like an amazing book. i'll have to read it." shōyō tore his gaze and refocused on the half-organized books, letting his hands get busy with work instead of sitting with innocent anticipation in his lap.

"i would recommend it. the other books were good, too, but not nearly as good as that one," tobio nodded, his eyes dulling just a little, "so, uh, what are you doing?"

"oh! i'm sorting the returns. not many people come to the library, but if they take out books they usually don't come inside to return them. they'll drop them in the box on their way to class or something, so they pile up in here. i'm ordering them into their genres, then i'll check them back into the system, and then i'll put them back on the shelves."

"sounds boring."

"it's not so bad. it's kinda like busy work, it lets you zone out into a routine and the time passes quick. before you know it you're done, and then you're free to feel bored again."

"oh. i guess that doesn't sound so bad."

    shōyō looked up for just a moment to catch tobio's eye, and he smiled warmly as tobio looked a little startled by the sudden eye contact. he chuckled and looked down again, a few springy orange curls tumbling onto his forehead. he grabbed the last few books and began to put them where they belonged, and then he said, "why don't you go find a book to read while i put these back on the shelves, and then we can talk some more in a bit?"

     tobio's skin flushed just enough to be noticeable, and he felt like quite the lucky boy when shōyō chose not to look at him while he shook off his awkward haze. he mumbled a gentle, "okay, i will," and got up off the floor.

     shōyō watched him out of the corner of his eye, his smile growing wider as tobio shoved his hands in his pockets and headed for the young adult section again, seemingly wandering this time, no book in mind, just looking, wasting time. shōyō collected the piles and grabbed the portable scanner from behind the desk and got to work, hurrying it along so he could talk to his new library-goer as soon as he finished up.