Chapter Text
Tenzo pushes through the centuries-old Victorian doors of the library with vigor. He follows the library’s awkward curved entrance to the left, walks past the rows of new fiction shelves, strung up with little paper heart garlands. He swerves around the obnoxiously large display of the newest release from some romance-magic series that’s all the rage. Finally, his target is revealed: the front desk.
Warn leather gloves are shoved into his pockets and an old plaid scarf is unwound from his neck. His palms are sweaty, despite the near-freezing temperatures outside. The culprit: the librarian with a tangled mess of silver hair slouched in an old office chair behind the check-out counter. His face is covered by a bright orange book cover. A romance novel. Tenzo’s insides twist.
A pair of two charcoal eyes peek over the top of the book sliding briefly upwards to glance at the newcomer as he passes. The long, white scar dashed through the left eye seems to glimmer underneath the fluorescent light above the desk. Tenzo holds his breath, an anxious half-smile forming on his face as a way of greeting. The librarian gives a subtle nod of his head that only Tenzo could notice, eyes returning to the book no sooner than they were raised.
Tenzo rounds the corner of the welcome desk and files down the aisles between the public computers to a corner desk. His spot. The best spot in the library. The one with the perfect view.
He places his messenger bag on the back of the desk chair and slumps into his seat, finally letting a deep breath go. This is where Tenzo spends all his Saturdays, at the corner desk in the public library with the perfect view of the librarian’s shoulder, side profile, and computer screen.
He doesn’t know his name–he wears a different name tag every Saturday– and he’s okay with that. It makes the fantasies that swirl recklessly in Tenzo’s head about him, while he’s supposed to be studying modern metropolitan architecture, all the safer. Somehow, nothing and everything gets done on these Saturdays at the library.
Some days Mr. Librarian reads (usually a romance novel, Tenzo has discovered), some days he plays solitaire on the decades-old computer screen for hours on end. Sometimes he’s on Reddit.
At half past 10 in the morning, Mr. Librarian–Steve today, Tenzo noticed–screeches out of his chair and saunters to the breakroom, returning with a mug of, presumably, coffee. From this angle, Tenzo watches with anticipation as Steve briefly slides down his cloth mask and sips from the steaming mug, revealing a pair of pale pink lips. Tenzo doesn’t blink.
A small drop of drool drips onto the table.
At 11:15, Steve gets up from the welcome desk once more. He reaches into his own bag, grabbing a pair of tightly knotted headphones and connects them to his phone, placing it in his back pocket. With one more sip of coffee, he saddles up with the half-full returns cart and begins his drive around the library’s main floor. He flows out of view in the science-fiction section. Tenzo sighs. Now, at least, he can hope to get some work done. He skims through the chapter, taking diligent notes for nearly twenty minutes before his mind swallows him in a daydream.
Today, Steve is wearing an oversized maroon sweater with a black and white stripe across the chest and a pair of black jeans. Tenzo imagines the sweater’s hem rising up when he reaches for the top shelf of the romance section to return a book, revealing a patch of pale skin and toned abdominal muscles.
(He can assume with some certainty. Steve possesses a swimmer’s build, one can tell even buried in sweaters.)
In today’s nonsensical daydream, somehow the heater in the library breaks and the temperature quickly becomes sweltering enough for Steve to cross his arms and tug that sweater over his head, tossing it onto the cart with the rest of the misplaced books. He shakes out his shaggy locks eyes rising to meet Tenzo’s gaze in slow motion. He licks his lips and—
Tenzo startles from his dream to the sound of a prominent thud. He blinks three times to reacquaint himself with the actual scene in front of him to discover the source of the noise. A book.
A large insect anthology, which had fallen from the return cart that is now a mere six feet away from Tenzo. The return cart. With Steve. Whose back is turned to the cart.
He must have bumped into the cart and knocked the book off. His headphones are still locked in place and muffled sounds of music echo loudly in the quiet space. Tenzo wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t hear anything at all, despite the size of the book.
Trying not to stare too long at the perfect picture of Steve the librarian bent over in front of him, Tenzo’s body gets the better of him and rises a few steps to pick up the book.
“Uh, excuse me?” Tenzo half-whispers.
No response.
Tenzo realizes that he should just put the book back on the cart and go back to pretending to study. But the book feels glued to his fingertips. A beacon of hope.
“Excuse me?” he says a bit louder.
The librarian startles slightly, stands up and turns his gaze over his shoulder to Tenzo. He waves the book slightly in his direction, prompting Steve to remove an earbud.
They stare at each other for what feels like far too many moments for no one to say anything.
“This uh…” Tenzo stutters. “This fell off the cart.”
He reaches the book out to Steve, and his arms flex as it suddenly feels double its weight. Steve reaches to take it from him, gaze lingering on Tenzo’s bare forearms, before dropping it rather carelessly back on the cart.
“Thanks,” he says, eyes crinkling up into what Tenzo can only assume is a smirk.
“You’re welcome.”
But the glue that stuck the book to Tenzo’s hands seems to have migrated to the floor, for he cannot move his feet for the life of him. He cannot move his gaze from Steve the librarian. Sleeves of his sweater rolled up to his elbows, warm pink flush on his cheeks from maneuvering through the library, long, slender fingers wrapped tightly on a small stack of books. The removed headphone hangs loose over the collar of his sweater.
“Can I help you with something?” Steve asks, drawing out his words.
He’s still smirking. He has to be smirking. There’s no other way to describe how the lines crinkle underneath his piercing gray eyes, and how his eyebrows draw inward, creating a neat little line between them.
Tenzo can feel his blush as he’s startled from his frozen spot.
“No, thanks. Sorry.”
He drops his gaze and returns a few feet to his seat. Tenzo busies himself with pretending to read through his textbook, flipping through the past few pages of his notes. After what seems like an acceptable amount of time for Steve to have moved onto the next section, Tenzo dares lift his eyes to the shelves he was previously restacking in front of him.
His gaze locks with Steve, who has yet to move. His arms are crossed tight over his chest, revealing veiny forearms. Tenzo swallows harshly, snapping his head back down to the book in a hopeless attempt to cover the deep blush painting his cheeks.
But curiosity killed the cat, so he looks up again, eyes dancing across the librarian’s features.
“Ca-can I help you?” He nearly chokes out.
“Nope.”
Well, not one for conversation, Tenzo thinks. He supposes you would expect a librarian to be more prone to observation than conversation, but aren’t avid book readers supposed to like talking about books?
“What are you reading?” the librarian says, pulling him out of his inner conversation.
“Uh,” Tenzo says, propping his textbook up so he can read the title.
“Modern Architecture: 1930-1990,” he reads. Then he looks back up to Tenzo. “Riveting.”
Tenzo’s blush darkens a shade further but this time a frown downturns his lips.
“It is,” he whispers defensively.
But it’s a library, so Tenzo’s whispers are like a newspaper headline. A snicker escapes Steve.
“I’ll have to take your word for it.”
And just like that, the book sits on his table, the earbud is back in its proper place, and Tenzo’s once again staring at the librarian’s ass as he drives the cart away from him.