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Shadow only knew a little bit about the library manager. He’d seen him around town a few times, usually accompanied by a tall man with red eyes. He heard people in his classes talk about how pretty and dreamlike the angel was, and he’d heard others say he was more of a nightmare.
Despite these opposite opinions however, when Shadow had first started volunteering to pay for that bookshelf, he’d expected Vio to actually, you know, act professional. That had to be a given, for a manager, rumors or no rumors.
He did not expect to have to walk around for five minutes trying to find Vio, the other employees answering his questioning of the other’s whereabouts with shrugs, only for the angel to be found asleep while laying on top of a bookshelf.
The witch barely suppressed a groan. “Hey! Excuse me!” He called up, trying to still be somewhat quiet while making sure his voice carried to the top of the ridiculously high shelf. Vio didn’t even twitch. How was this guy still employed if he did this?
“Vio, I’m here! You said you’d meet with… me…” Shadow trailed off with a huff, looking around the library for a second before looking back at Vio. He didn’t want to yell in the library. He thought for a moment, before waving his hand out, summoning a shadowy double of it that appeared on the side of the shelf Vio was asleep on. The shadow hand reached up to shove gently at the other’s shoulder, but didn’t meet its goal, as in a flash of light Vio was very awake and holding a glittering dagger that sliced right through the spell. He blinked at Shadow, who stared back in shock.
“I was wondering if you’d even summon one of those things!” Vio said cheerfully, hopping down from the shelf and landing gracefully on the floor. Shadow took a step back immediately, away from him and the dagger that couldn't possibly be allowed. Vio twirled his dagger for a moment before tossing it in the air and then making it disappear with another flash of light. “I was starting to get impatient. In which case, I would have come down anyway, of course. Just leaving you with no instruction is ridiculous.”
He talked way too fast for Shadow, or anyone else, to normally make out, but there was something about Vio’s voice itself that made it so he understood every word perfectly. He appreciated it.
“Impatient?” Shadow repeated with a glare. “That quickly. Don’t angels have the patience of saints?“
Vio leaned back a bit, putting his hands in his pockets with a small hum. “Yes. Some. But I get bored.” He turned around, heading towards the front desk. Being left with no other clear choice, Shadow quickly followed him as the other talked. “You won’t have to be doing tasks that are too complicated, and you won’t be left to your own devices. The only reason you’re volunteering instead of being fined and banned because of that stunt you pulled, is because you said you were unable to pay for the damages. But if you do something like that again, I will give you a price to pay.” He paused. “With rupees, of course. No decapitation required.”
Shadow flinched, not liking how Vio had to clarify that. The angel, possibly sensing his unease, turned around and flashed him a small smile, much too kind for someone like… well, like Vio. Shadow didn’t have others in mind to compare his behavior to.
“I learned recently that ‘a price to pay’ is a sort of threat, did you know that?” Vio asked, hopping over the desk with some assistance from his wings, instead of walking around like a normal person, and grabbing a clipboard with papers. He handed it to Shadow, along with a pen. Shadow just stared at him, unnerved. “Fill this out, please,” Vio prompted.
Shadow nodded, writing down his responses on the papers that questioned him, glancing at Vio more than once as he did. He just kept doing weird things, all of it seeming to beg for attention. He sat on the desk, yawned, and stretched his arms over his head. He glanced around the library while swinging his legs like a toddler, and at one point just started giggling for no reason. Then he yawned again.
“Tired, you maniacal lightbulb?” Shadow muttered after a few minutes, and Vio laughed. Shadow handed the clipboard to him, and he took it, flipping through the pages.
“Yes, I am. Once you’re settled here, I’ll be going right back home to sleep again. My shift is in the afternoons, I’m not at all used to being awake this early.”
Shadow leaned against the desk. “And is that why you were sleeping on a bookshelf?” Whether or not he was actually on the clock, that didn’t seem like something he would be allowed to do.
“Oh, I wasn’t asleep.” Vio set the clipboard down. “The other librarians will tell you what to do to help them, I informed them of this situation already. You’re done at ten, if you need to know something else from me then my number is in the back room on the board. And now, I’m—“ he paused when his phone buzzed in his pocket, and his polite expression quickly changed to one of very clear annoyance. He declined the call and pocketed his phone again. “…I’m going to go back to bed.”
Vio teleported away in a burst of light, and Shadow was surprised to see glass feathers be left in his wake. He balled his hands into fists.
The rumor mill was something Shadow only paid attention to when on the topic of people he couldn’t stand. Vio was one of those people. An obnoxious, stuck-up angel who clearly thought he could get away with being the way he was just because he was powerful. But, while with others Shadow would have a reasonably long list of potential blackmail material, with Vio he had…
Nothing.
He was blind in one eye. He dropped feathers everywhere. He showed off his weapons, muttered to himself, and made comments that caused people to tread carefully around him. But… that was it. All things people already knew. And nothing Shadow could really use against him, since none of it was anything that Vio seemed closed off about.
Other rumors he heard were either wildly outlandish, straight up contradictory, or positive. For someone that people had such split opinions of, when asked for reasoning, there was more to back up those who liked him than those who didn’t.
This guy was going to be the death of him. How was he so unlikeable, yet so loved at the same time?
Until one weekend, Shadow was at a store off-campus for a late night food run. He was exiting the building, grocery bags in hand, when he stopped in his tracks. Vio was across the street, hidden in an alley. Somehow, he was hard to spot, and every time Shadow blinked he had to focus again on him despite the glowing halos and wings being things that usually drew most people’s attention.
What made him stop wasn’t seeing the librarian out of the library, though. That was to be expected, he lived in this city too. What made Shadow stop, made even more obvious when the angel stepped out and stood under a street lamp, was how Vio’s hands were absolutely covered in blood.
He looked around, noticeably wide-eyed and somehow not spotting Shadow, his mouth moving at rapid speed as he muttered to himself. He teleported away, and the witch grinned, starting to walk back to Fields and desperately shoving down the terrified feeling clogging up his throat.
He finally had something on Vio.
…He didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.