the librarian ❆ kagehina

oh, to be young and stupid.

there's just something about not knowing that fuels tobio with a different type of fire.
     he knows nothing.
     all those books, all that studying, all that living, and he's learned absolutely nothing to prepare himself for this.

     it took only a moment to dwell on what he'd felt as he walked away from the rickety old library doors. he'd cried himself into a whopping headache, and he had only just recovered his lungs before he was left gasping for air again. see, he knew it- deep down he did. he'd admitted that... but he hasn't thought of it that way until now.
     the way that suggested maybe he was more than involved, more than upset, more than a friend to shōyō himself. maybe he was deeper in this than he knew, and maybe- just maybe- all this time, he's been living under a fucking rock.

     "jesus, tobio, 'course you're the last to know." he grumbled, smacking his forehead with a flat palm and slamming his laptop shut.

     the way shōyō looked when he showed up was so daunting. his eyes were hollow but still managed to capture that picturesque amber you only see in the movies, and tobio hadn't known he could stare so deep into something so surface-level. his skin was pale, but tobio knew it would've felt supple and soft beneath his fingertips, if only he'd reached out to touch it. there was a sweet smell to him, and his hair was perfectly disheveled, and tobio could not stop smacking himself and scolding himself, because god damnit! he'd gone after tooru when all he'd ever wanted, needed, and just barely deserved was sitting right in front of him, listening intently and looking happy and supporting him wholeheartedly despite wanting to just crumble up and die over words about a boy who meant nothing to tobio, who was only a distraction, who in every way fails to compare to everything that shōyō hinata is and is not.
     there was no other guy, tobio knows. there was only another waste of time, and he never wants to lose another second that isn't spent beside his favorite library employee.

     maybe it's cliche, tobio wonders, to be running back so breathlessly to confess only a day after he'd failed to do so; but then again, he's read so many fairytales that he wouldn't have it be done any other way.

     when he busted through the doors to the library, though, he should've known better than to think his tangerine boy would be waiting for him. shimizu was at the counter, beginning her afternoon shift, and shōyō was nowhere to be seen.