Chapter Text
Art commissioned from the amazing @RuwuChan
Kaoru stalked the stacks.
He’d seen a giggly couple tiptoeing down this way, and he just knew-
Ah ha!
“Ahem,” Kaoru spoke icily, barely above a whisper and yet the onomatopoeia instantly had its desired effect. The girls sprung apart, one hand guiltily retreating from the other’s skirt.
One of them, obviously the bolder of the two, drew her shoulders back defiantly. “Yeah?”
“This is a library, not a love hotel. Unless you need something from the-” Kaoru’s eyes flicked to the nearby shelves, though likely his memory would have supplied the section had he given himself a moment to think. “The zoology texts, please go back to your table and to your studies.”
The taller one, who’d been crouching behind her girlfriend in a poor attempt to hide, murmured a quick apology before darting past, cheeks deep red with shame. The other, the one who’d spoken, followed at a slower, deliberate pace, doing her best to cut Kaoru down with a scathing glare as she went.
Kaoru was unmoved. She’d need to work on that look for a good ten years before it came even close to the side glance, half raised brow, and curled lip combination that Kaoru himself felt he’d perfected.
Triumphant, Kaoru walked back to the reference desk, collecting the odd errant book as he went.
“Where were you?” Higa-san grunted. His eyes were fixed to the computer screen before him.
“Oh, nothing much. Just preserving the sanctity of this hallowed institution,” Kaoru sniffed. He tipped the books onto the clean-up cart beside the desk so their usage stats could be captured later on.
“Students fucking in the non-fic again?”
Kaoru sighed at the other man’s crude, albeit accurate, bluntness. “Zoology section.”
“Ha! That’s appropriate.”
“Shut up. We have patrons,” Kaoru hissed urgently. But his panic at his colleague’s generally foul mouth was quelled the moment he caught a good look at the man who Kaoru had noticed approaching out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh. You.”
“Hey, is that any way to speak to such a loyal customer?”
God, this man. It was as though he existed simply to give Kaoru a headache. He could already feel one building in his temples as Kaoru looked up to meet his gaze, resigned.
“What can I do for you today, Nanjo-san?”
“Joe’s just fine, haven’t I told ya that? Or you can call me Kojiro if you really want to.” Nonjo-san winked. Incorrigible flirt. Or as the teens who so often frequented the library might have called him, a “fuck boi.”
Kaoru worked at a library because he loved books, loved learning. He couldn’t help it if some of the things he learned were entirely unintentional.
“Nanjo-san suffices. Now, do you need anything, or are you just here to keep me from getting any actual work done?”
“Aw, don’t be like that. Miya’ll kill me if I come home without this new book.”
“Oh?” That actually piqued Kaoru’s interest. Miya, a precocious and rather gifted eleven year old, had been rereading the Percy Jackson series for the last year at least, remaining resistant to any of Kaoru’s excellent suggestions for new material. Had something finally pulled the boy from his Greek mythology obsession?
“Yeah, he wants something called…” Nanjo-san frowned as he tried to remember, then scrounged around in his jean pockets. “There it is!” Nanjo smiled as he pulled a crumpled piece of paper free, a yellow sticky note. The man was clearly relieved. He passed the paper to Kaoru, who unfolded it with no small amount of distaste, noting the bits of lint still stuck on.
“Oh, yes, ‘The Screaming Staircase’ . This has been quite popular lately, with the new television series in production... I can put you on the waitlist for it.”
Nanjo pouted, actually pouted. A grown man Kaoru’s own age. Did he have no dignity whatsoever?
“Really, there’s no copies available now? He was so excited…”
“Well, now that he’s open to actually reading something not written by the esteemed Mr. Riordan, I’ll send you home with a few things for him to try while he waits.”
“Looks like I owe ya one.” Nanjo winked again. Kaoru resisted the urge to smack him in the face with the heaviest biography within reach.
Kaoru hustled off to collect the books, hoping Nanjo would take the hint and wait at the desk, like a good library patron and not the total bane of his existence.
He did not.
“So, what are you doing after this?” Nanjo asked, easily keeping pace beside him.
“I don’t see how that’s relevant to me finding books for your son.”
“Because, it’s pasta night at our place.”
“When is it not?” Kaoru replied thoughtlessly. He immediately regretted the implied intimacy of the words. How was it Kaoru already knew so much about this man’s life?
But then, it had already been two years, hadn’t it.
It was a rainy day. At first, Kaoru had assumed that was the reason for the sour look on the bedrenched redhead who’d slumped into the library along with a similarly soaked younger boy in a cat-eared hoodie. They were accompanied by a man who was clearly far too young to be their father and besides, there was no common resemblance in their features. A babysitter, Kaoru had surmised. But when the man steered the youths to Kaoru’s desk, he introduced them as his sons, said they were here to get library cards.
The redhead huffed and looked away, scowling. The younger one looked… Apathetic. A bit guarded, perhaps? Such an old look for such a small child.
Well, Kaoru wasn’t getting paid to psychoanalyze them. He set up their memberships, pointed them in the direction of the children’s section, and got back to ordering books.
Although, there was a little stack of graphic novels sitting just there, at his elbow. And Kaoru had been waiting for a quiet moment to put them out on display. A display that just happened to be right next to where the youngest, Miya, was hesitantly browsing.
Unusually, he didn’t think it through.
Kaoru just walked over.
“Finding everything okay?” The child jumped, Kaoru noticed regretfully. He hadn’t meant to startle him.
“Y-yeah.” Miya’s voice was scarcely above a whisper. He was so pale, so thin. The hoodie looked new, but the rest of the boy’s clothes were rather ragged in contrast. Like Miya was not the second, but maybe the third or even fourth owner of the worn-thin pants and dirtied sneakers.
Something didn’t feel right. Kaoru glanced around, finding the two of them alone.
“Where’s your father gone?” Kaoru asked, trying to keep his face light, his expression neutral.
The boy mumbled something, too quick and quiet for Kaoru to catch.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“Miya said, “he’s not my dad.’”
Kaoru very nearly expired of acute cardiac arrest right then and there on the ugly grey-brown carpet.
Heart beating in his throat, he slowly turned.
Had the man - Nanjo-san, Kaoru’s frantic mind supplied - always been quite so tall? He towered over Kaoru like… like a tower. The empire state building. King fucking Kong.
He certainly had the musculature of a gorilla.
“Um.” Wow, well done Kaoru. That’ll really dispel this rapidly building tension. ‘Um.’ No wonder you graduated with distinct honors, that literature degree is really serving you well.
“Miya, did you find anything?” Nanjo-san’s burning red eyes lifted from Kaoru to look at the boy still standing behind him, and Kaoru felt a massive weight lift with them. He barely refrained from gasping at the relief of it.
“No? That’s okay. Reki found some movies, do you wanna have a look?”
Nanjo-san reached out a hand, and as Kaoru turned his head, he saw Miya very nearly grasp it. But at the last moment, the boy seemed to change his mind. Instead Miya walked past Nanjo to where a familiar puff of red hair was protruding from behind a display case in the film section.
And all those little alarm bells ringing within Kaoru silenced as he saw the look on Nanjo’s face. Indescribable, but if Kaoru had to try…
Crestfallen.
Determined.
Hopeful.
And…
Loving.
The vulnerable warmth of the expression was too much and Kaoru looked away, embarrassed. He felt he’d unintentionally witnessed a very private moment. Kaoru stepped away, intending to retreat behind his desk and hopefully stay there until it was time to clock out. But that deep voice spoke out again, stopping Kaoru dead in his tracks.
“Wait.”
“Ah. Yes?” Kaoru nudged up his glasses and straightened his shoulders. He would not be intimidated, damn it.
“I feel like I gotta explain some stuff before you call the cops on me.”
“Uh.” Oh, big improvement Kaoru. ‘Uh.’ You sound like one of the drooling neandrethals you catch stealing the sex education books for masturbation material. Get it together!
“If your… boys will be alright for a moment, I have an office where we can talk?”
Nanjo spoke with the pair briefly before following Kaoru there.
It was a humble office. Public library, after all. Not a workplace for one seeking a lot of glamor. But it was Kaoru’s, and he was terribly proud of it. A marble queen pothos he’d privately, fondly, and rather uncreatively named “Queenie” sat atop a mounted shelf, carefully placed by Kaoru himself once he'd calculated which bit of wall got the most of the sunlight that filtered through the office’s interior window. His original rolling desk chair had been skillfully swapped out with a colleague’s who’d retired, leaving her own plushier model behind. And one of his most prized possessions sat in a place of pride on his desk. It was a small but beautiful work of calligraphy done by his grandfather, a somewhat famous artist in his day. Kaoru’s family had hoped he’d follow in those footsteps, and at first Kaoru had planned to. But something had happened in high school, and…
Anyways.
That wasn’t important now.
“What was it you wanted to tell me?” Kaoru asked. He realized belatedly that there wasn’t a second chair to offer Nanjo-san and so they both remained standing. It was terribly awkward, and in the small space, Kaoru was reminded all over again of the sheer size of the man. A full head taller and nearly twice his breadth, at least in the shoulders. Nanjo’s waist was quite trim, as showcased by the snug fit of his colorfully printed t-shirt, and-
And that wasn’t important now!
“They’re still warming up to me, we’re all getting to know each other. I’m fostering them, uh. That’s why we all have different last names. But I’ve applied for adoption, and I think it’ll go through? It’s tough for kids their age to find a permanent home, so I’m hopeful, and… Yeah.” Nanjo-san chuckled. “Just didn’t want ya to think I snatched them up off a school yard or something.”
Kaoru scoffed. “To take them to get library memberships? Of course I wouldn’t make such an assumption.”
Kaoru had definitely been making that assumption. An inconvenient detail, which he tried valiantly to ignore.
To his relief, Nanjo-san laughed. A real laugh, nothing like the stilted breaths of air before. To his horror, Kaoru felt his cheeks warm. He was not going to blush like a schoolgirl. He wouldn’t.
“Hey, are you blushing? Cute.”
Damn it.
“So,” Kaoru persisted, ignoring Nanjo-san’s humiliating observation, “why adopt? You seem…”
Nanjo-san laughed again. “Young? Yeah, well. Everyone deserves a good home, right? A family who loves them?”
“So you wanted to give them one? That’s very noble of you.” Kaoru meant it, quite sincerely. He couldn’t imagine taking on such a daunting challenge on his own. Or, was Nanjo-san alone? No, he must have a partner at home. A pretty little wife, probably. Before he could stop himself, Kaoru shot a look down at Nanjo-san’s left hand, trying to spot a ring.
“I’m single, actually.”
Fuck! How perceptive was this man? Kaoru felt his face heat further, and wished desperately to sink into the ground, no matter how distasteful the library’s carpeting was.
“Well. That’s. Uh. You plan to raise them on your own?”
Nanjo shrugged. “Didn’t want to leave them any longer, just so I could find someone and get married first.”
“Joe! Can we go yet?”
The two men turned to the doorway of Kaoru’s office, where the sulky redhead was glaring up at Nanjo-san. “Sorry to keep you waiting, kiddo.”
“I’m not a kid! I’m twelve!”
“Uh-huh. What do you want for dinner tonight? Pasta?”
Reki groaned. “Again?”
Kaoru stood staring out the glass doors of the library’s entrance long after the new family had departed. The rain was coming down, still. He’d seen Nanjo-san take off his jacket, instructing the kids to share it like an umbrella. Foolish man. He intended to raise them, and couldn’t even afford a conbini umbrella on an unexpectedly rainy day?
How very foolish indeed.
Kaoru pressed a hand to his chest. It hurt, for some reason. A deep ache Kaoru could not reach to alleviate.
Two years later, Kaoru shoved a pile of several promising novels into Nanjo’s arms. “There. Now, can you use the self check-out, or are you so hopelessly imbecilic that you need me to do it for you?”
“Let’s pretend I’m that imbecilic. I like to watch you work, Princess.”
“I’m going to ban you if you don’t stop calling me that.”
“Sure you will.”