Chapter Text
It’s the flash of red that first catches Ignis’s eye, a vivid streak bright against the grey of the rain-streaked concrete. When he looks again, he realizes it’s an ice cream scooper, more gaudy than functional, held by a youth with the most startling blue eyes Ignis has ever seen, laughing as he hands an overfull cone to a child. Ignis doesn’t particularly like ice cream, and really, it’s not the right kind of weather for it, but he finds his feet moving of their own accord and wonders, briefly, if there is such a thing as fate, before losing himself to an irresistible smile.
Noctis doesn’t want to be there, not really. Libraries are places for teacher, and nerds, and stuffy boring people, and people who aren’t him. He’d rather be out on the field, running, jumping, kicking, doing anything else, but, well, detention is detention, and sitting in a library beats being stuck in a classroom, at least. At least there are things to see, things to read – like the red book sitting on the table, as if someone put it there for him to see. (Maybe someone did.) He’s about to pretend he hasn’t noticed it when the door opens, but his breath catches in his throat as the librarian walks towards him, all elegant poise and intense green eyes. And maybe, Noctis thinks, libraries can be places for him. At least, this library can.
It’s a minor irritation at first, the little red thing moving in the corner of his eye, and slowly becomes a distraction until Ignis can’t focus on the play any longer. He tells himself he can’t simply confront other patrons for happening to be in his field of view, but that doesn’t lessen his irritation; by the end of the second act, he no longer has any idea what the story is about, and has managed to figure out, without looking at it directly, that the red distraction is, in fact, a small piece of fabric flapping in the air. When the show is over, he storms – no, strides purposefully – over to the owner of the red thing, and finds himself at a loss for words, drowning in a gaze bluer than the summer sky.
In a world of murky bluegreygreen where every direction is down and his breath is running out, the red comes like a lifeline, even before the strong arms find him and pull him up. Every second is an eternity until his face breaks through the surface and he takes sputtering gulps of air and salt, and Noctis finds his breath lost for an entirely different reason as he gazes into eyes the green of life and hope and a face that looks, somehow, exactly as he has imagined.