Work Text:
Several chapters in your textbook, with dates and figures and diagrams and names of people and body parts swimming in your brain, a noise roused you from your deep focus. Looking around, it was still just you in your corner of the library. The counter by the entrance of the library still remained unmanned; there was usually someone, but it was a Sunday after all. Nobody should be out on a Sunday.
That applied to you too, but studying outside - anywhere outside but at home - was just better for your focus overall. And what better place to study at than the university library?
Free space, absolute quiet and—craning your neck to make sure absolutely no one was there, you pulled out the tupperware from your bag. The snap of locks opening rang like gunshots in the silence of the library, which you refused to let bother you. It was just you anyway and it wasn’t like you were going to potentially soil any library books - just yours and your pristine white blouse.
But fuck it, you thought as the sweet scent of baked sushi wafted towards you. Your stomach growled then, as if finally being aware that it had been empty for hours. “Sweet Jesus you look beautiful,” you muttered as you picked up a slice (chopsticks be so damned), the delectable delight on its way to your mouth when the library doors opened.
You dropped your sushi immediately with a yelp when it hit the edge of the tupperware, nearly falling onto your blouse.
You probably looked stupid, with palms held open, slapping air as you fought for the sushi to stay in the air, until finally, finally you managed to wrangle the piece back into its container. With a huff, you went to turn around, an excuse hovering on the tip of your tongue when you were crushed in a strong embrace.
He tucked his face in the crook of your neck and you fought the urge to shiver as his warm breaths blew against your skin. He towered over you, his grip so tight that your shoulders ached.
And yet, oddly, there was no fear. No urge to scream. In fact, against the better part of your brain, you wanted to hug back. To wrap your arms just as tightly around him and bury your face in his shoulder and get a better whiff of that—that clean smell that reminded you of newly washed laundry and baby soap and warm afternoons.
All you had to do was sink into his touch.
This was pathetic. But maybe it was because you hadn’t been hugged in so long. Or if you were, you couldn’t recall the last time you were hugged like this - full body-to-body contact, squished and suffocating almost, as if holding each other like this was the only thing keeping you together, or keeping him together. Warm. Safe. Held.
If you were pathetic, then he was even more pathetic for hugging a stranger. It would be a win-win if you hugged back. Human contact and all that.
But before you could act on that thought, he was already pulling away to cup your cheeks, and for the first time, you got a good look at him.
And he was gorgeous. Delicate, fine-boned features, silver-haired and eyes as blue as galaxies and midnight and darkening skies. His thumb caressed your cheekbone, the tenderness of the gesture pulling at something in your chest as your gaze locked with his, unable to look away from the longing that seemed to pulse in those blue depths.
“My love,” he said, voice deep like music and somehow—
Somehow what?
You snapped out of it then. Your body finally moving like it should, jerking away from him as if burned. Your back thumped against a bookshelf, and it teetered dangerously before you put a steadying hand on it.
Ignoring the pained look in his eyes, you said, “I’m sorry. There must be a misunderstanding. Who are you?”
Here was a stranger, looking for his lover. Maybe a long-lost lover. Maybe they’d fought and agreed to meet here, but she’d ditched him. And maybe, hoping against hope, he’d expected to find her here.
But instead he’d found you.
And something about it—whether it was the yearning in his eyes, in his touch, or maybe the fact that you were held and loved again, even if for a moment—didn’t sit right with you. It shouldn’t sit right with you.
He wasn’t yours. The moment wasn’t yours. You were a thief, and disgust bloomed in your gut because you liked it anyway.
The man tilted his head, a cat-like gesture. He opened his mouth, determination set in his face, but then you saw realization dawn over him. As if the pieces had finally clicked.
He backed away then, head bowed that you could see the back of his ears tinged with pink.
When he finally spoke, it wasn’t the explanation you expected.
“Sorry,” he said. “Wrong timeline.”