"They say the most beautiful smile hides the darkest secrets." he says ruefully.
Looking at her now, knowing the truth, his heart simmers with guilt. The hatred he had grown to home towards her, now withering away like the sand falling from one's f...
Devoid of any disturbance, devoid of humans, which potently could leave one questioning oneself in extreme circumstances. He didn't hate libraries or books, he never tried them to begin with and apparently didn't seem to like them a lot either. But there was this one thing that he liked about the place, the silence. And surprisingly, the uneasiness he had been carrying with him ever since he moved here, even though just a little, seemed to fade away.
In those book-clad walls, seeping nothing but silence, he found a weird solace. He felt drawn towards the unexpected. Solitude is a noble companion, he had always believed. And he knew a certain corner of this library would be his sanctuary for the coming years, for it provided him his solitude. Until it didn't.
"Um, excuse me?" A ragged voice caught his attention and he turned around just a little so that he could see the intruder. She stood there, breathing hard, her shoulders hunched a little where she leaned on the door-frame for support. It seemed as if she had run a marathon to reach there. His eyes fell onto the pile of books in her frail hands and his eyebrows furrow involuntarily in surprise.
Did she just run all the way up here with all those in her hands? He thought.
"You must be Suho." she exclaimed, once she had resumed breathing normally. Her voice was more stable than before and there was a way in which she pronounced every syllable. Detaching herself from the door frame, she walked up to him. A sweet smell of lavender and citrus hit his nostrils as she extended the heavy stack of books in her hands, just a little, towards him. The books still rested on her chest because there was no way she could simply hold them in her hands without support with such a frail body.
Up so close, he noticed her slight frame as he tilted his head down to see her face. He helped her with the books, not bothering to correct her about his name, and took them from her, simply because he feared she might pass out any moment. He grabbed a hold of the bottom book, careful not to touch her bare hands around the books, but that happened anyway. An instant relief flashed through her entire body as he took the pile from her. She sighed loudly as he turned around to reach the nearest table and what she said next left him dumbfounded.
"These are the books I issued last month. The due date is the day after tomorrow, but I'm done with them. The receipts are in the books themselves. Please clear out my due-records from the panel. I would have stayed and helped you to arrange them, but I'm already running late for the class."
What?
The word was at the tip of his tongue as he watched her turn on her heels and walk out of the library, not before flashing him a big, vibrant smile and uttering a "Thank you, have a nice day".
And just as surprisingly, she had come; she was now- gone. Only leaving the scent of lavender and citrus in her wake. He looked back at the books, his mind blank and confusion trickled into his bones. There lied a copy of Great Expectations by Charles Dickinson and a chortle escaped his lips at the irony of his condition. There he was, standing in a vacant library with nothing but a stack of the maximum number of books he'd ever lifted and expecting absolutely nothing great out of it.
"Did she just mistook me as the librarian?" Not only did he dread coming to school that morning, but also his day was already turning out to be fouler with a random girl assuming him to be a librarian.
A train of curses escaped his lips as he walked towards a desk and placed the books on the table when once again he had an intruder.
"Hello." A boy, not much older than him, entered the library and walked towards him, but this time there was no lavender or citrus encasing his thoughts and he snapped back at the boy rather abruptly.
"I'm not Suho." The rudeness in his voice made the newcomer halt in his steps and look at him dubiously. He gave him an awkward nod before introducing himself.
"Okay. But, I am Suho, the new librarian. And you might be here to submit those books?" said the boy, pointing at the stack of books that Jeongguk had just kept on the desk. Jeongguk's eyes widened just for a fraction of a second in realization and he looked back at the books with a grimace on his face and the face of the girl from before flashed back before his eyes. He could still smell the scent of lavender and citrus, though really faint, and it deepened his frown.
"Yes." He declared, still looking at the books, tracing his fingers along the corner of the cover of the Great Expectations. He had none.
~☆~
Thankyou so much for reading
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