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There is a boy at the library.
A tall boy with strawberry blonde hair and a small braid on the side. He’s muscular. The tight shirts he wears only elevate that fact.
Every time Phainon enters the library, he’s there. Skimming through bookshelves. Typing on one of the computers. Printing papers out. He would have assumed he worked there had it not been for the fact that half his time, at least for the half Phainon sees him for, he is curled up in the corner with a stack of books half his height piled next to him.
This is Phainon’s usual library for everything. It’s close to a couple bus stops, and walking distance from all three of his most frequented places. Home. School. Work. On the second floor is a small café that sells him the best coffee in the city. On the third, many conference rooms and cubicles for studying.
Needless to say, as a broke college student who really likes cheap coffee that doesn’t taste like mud and quiet spots to review notes, he is here often. Alone. With friends. With family, on the odd days Cyrene comes to visit.
They pass by each other often, Phainon and that boy. They never speak. Both appear too busy to approach. But that doesn’t stop Phainon’s eyes from wandering.
He clearly works out, yet Phainon has never seen him at the gym. He’s never seen him anywhere else, when he thinks about it. He’s certain he’d never miss a face like that.
Whether he means to or not, Phainon thinks a lot about Library Boy.
Is he in school? Does he have any hobbies? What exactly does he do that allows him to sit in a library all day? Is he single?
As the weeks pass by into months, Phainon sneaks more stares at Library Boy. On days that the place is busier, he welcomes the lack of available seating to make his way to the back of the non-fiction section, where he knows he will find Library Boy hidden among the tales of ancient war heroes. He always picks a table not too close to be suspicious, just near enough to admire him. “See,” his patterns seem to say, “I’m here when it’s crowded, that’s all. No other reason.” He isn’t sure if he’s trying to fool Library Boy or himself, since the man never spares him a single glance.
Phainon notices that he never seems to be smiling.
This leads to at least three hours in total of further wondering.
Does Library Boy have anywhere else to go? Does he have any friends? What is his life like?
Maybe they could be friends, and Phainon could invite him over, keep him company, make him feel better when he’s down. Maybe Library Boy would tell him about the books he reads. If he didn’t want to be alone, he’d never have to be. Phainon would see to that.
Phainon then begins to feel a little guilty for daydreaming about Library Boy having a sad life and him becoming the savior. For all he knows, Library Boy likes to be alone. And besides, the fantasies make him feel like he’s the lonely one. He decides to imagine other things, like saving his school from an atomic bomb with his amazing diffusing skills that he does not have.
. . .
For someone who spends so much time at the library, Phainon does not know how to look for books. If he can’t find what he’s looking for, he either asks the person behind the counter or puts it on hold and waits for someone else to find it for him. Why are some shelves alphabetized while others are numbered?! Phainon will never know.
Grumbling to himself, he shoves another thick encyclopedia back onto the shelf after flipping through it to no avail. “What the heck does it take to find anything of use in this place…” He reaches for the next encyclopedia.
“What are you looking for?”
The shriek that comes out of Phainon’s mouth is inhuman-like, and frankly, humiliating. He jumps in the direction of the voice, grasping at his chest.
He is met with a pair of narrowed, unimpressed eyes that watch him sternly. Eyes, he realizes with a leap of his heart, that belong to none other than Library Boy himself, who is standing no more than a foot away from him.
“This is a library, not a cheer meet. Have some decorum.”
Phainon notices the other heads in the room are now turned in his direction as well. He lets out a squeak in response.
Library Boy’s eyebrows upturn in confusion. “That’s… better?” There is a brief stint of silence. “What are you looking for?” he repeats.
“Ah… I was- I’m looking for a book.”
Library Boy waits for Phainon to go on. When he doesn’t, he sighs and prompts him. “What book?”
Phainon is really fumbling. “Oh- oh! On um- Amphoreus. Ancient Amphoreus. You know, before they had cable television and drive-thru fast food.”
“…I feel as though these inventions are not the best way to measure time.”
“It- it was a joke.”
“Come with me,” he sighs again. “You’re not even in the right aisle.” He does not wait for Phainon as he zigzags between tall bookshelves. “What’s the topic?”
Library Boy’s voice is deep, but softspoken. Phainon isn’t sure what he was expecting, all he knows it that it wasn’t the gentle, quiet tone that came out. The latter he can assume is because of the library, but it is still a surprise. In Phainon’s eyes, it makes him even more attractive.
“War heroes. I need to pick one to do a report on.” As he speaks, Phainon realizes that he couldn’t have found himself with a better person to ask if he’d tried. “Come to think of it, I’ve seen you reading a lot of them.”
Library Boy does not respond right away, running his fingers down each spine until eventually, he stops. The two are completely alone. He doesn’t take any book from the shelf. Instead, he reaches into his bag, and without so much as looking at the over, he hands it over. “This is the one you want.”
It’s a deep, navy blue colour. Like the sea, or perhaps the sky, as the golden accents and dotted constellations seem to suggest. It looks more like a journal than a book, and the pages, yellowed with age, emphasize this with handwritten paragraphs and carefully drawn pictures. Phainon flips through it, admiring the handiwork put into each new piece of art. Every single accessory on every single intricate article of clothing is accounted for.
Phainon isn’t sure how long he’s spent looking through the book. All that he knows is that when he looks up, Library Boy’s eyes are trained intensely on his face, as though he has been waiting for Phainon to say something. When he doesn’t, he averts his gaze.
“Is it good for what you need?”
“Y-yeah! Perfect! Thank you so much.”
Library Boy nods.
Desperate to keep the conversation going, Phainon tries to say, “I didn’t know you worked here,” and, “do you enjoy reading?” Instead, he blurts out, “I didn’t know you could read.”
Library Boy stares at him, mouth slightly agape. He looks more bewildered than offended. “…Do you ever think before you speak?”
“N-no, sorry…”
The agreement instead of denial seems to catch Library Boy off guard, and he relaxes a little, watching Phainon sheepishly scratch his neck and look down at his shoes. “Oh. So you’re not rude, you’re just stupid.”
“Yup,” Phainon once again agrees wholeheartedly.
Library Boy’s eyes do not leave Phainon for a while. Then, he nods. “Good luck on your essay, Stupid Boy. Heavens know you’ll need it.”
. . .
Stupid Boy.
The name rings true and Phainon cannot help but skip a little as he makes his way to campus with the book. An insult it is not, but rather an acknowledgement. For the first time since Phainon first saw him, Library Boy has acknowledged him, and on his own, at that! Even if it was an insult, which he’ll be honest, it probably was, it didn’t feel like it. Library Boy’s soft, deep voice instead makes him flutter with delight.
When Phainon walks into class, he is forty minutes late. His professor, clearly unimpressed, does not let him skim over this fact lightly with a simple sneak in. Instead, he turns, sweeping his low ponytail off his shoulder as he stops writing on the board.
“Ah, hello, Phainon. To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence?”
“Professor, I’m stupid!”
The professor gives him a long look. Surely he is wondering if his student has ingested anything he shouldn’t have. “…Congratulations. I’m glad you’ve come to terms with that. You may take your seat.”
And so, a beaming Phainon bounds up to the back bench.
-/-/-
There is a boy at the library.
A boy with snow white hair and bright, blue eyes. He’s clumsy and far too loud for what should be permitted in a space like this.
Mydei does not know how long he has been coming here, only that he’s only noticed him now. Grumbling as he wanders aimlessly through the reference section, he looks pathetic. It is only natural that Mydei steps up to the plate and help him out. Mainly out of pity, he tells himself.
Shutting his book and slinging his bag over his shoulder, Mydei follows him. For a bit, he simply watches, waiting to see if the boy would ever actually notice him trailing behind. He’s either got no situational awareness, or he’s truly stressed out about whatever he’s trying to accomplish, because he doesn’t.
“What are you looking for?”
The boy screams. Mydei decides that it’s the first option.
He’s looking for a book, apparently. He does not specify which one. Mydei feels the start of a headache coming on.
“You’re not even in the right aisle,” he finds himself saying. The boy is. He leads him away anyway. Off to the other side, where there is nobody. He edges off to where he knows there is a blind spot from the cameras. And he reaches into his bag. Grasps onto the familiar leather cover. Shoves it into the boy’s hands before he can feel any semblance of common-sense scold him for it. “This is the one you want.”
The boy opens it without any hesitation. Mydei waits for his reaction. His hands find each other and clasp together tightly. He doesn’t know why he’s so anxious.
The boy looks up. He doesn’t say anything. Mydei isn’t surprised, considering he’s only skimmed the first few pages. But still, he doesn’t know what he had even been expecting.
“Is it good for what you need?”
“Y-Yeah! Perfect! Thank you so much.”
Mydei nods.
“I didn’t know you could read.”
Mydei stops nodding.
He stares into the boy’s bright blue eyes, which are empty of any thought whatsoever.
There is a long beat of silence.
“…Do you ever think before you speak?”
“N-no, sorry…”
Mydei doesn’t doubt it. “Oh. So you’re not rude, you’re just stupid.”
“Yup.”
. . .
When Mydei walks into the kitchen, his mother is already inside. She must have gotten off work early today. He approaches her, watching her gut a few salmon. She’s (somehow) still taller than him, even after all these years, but at the very least it makes him easy to let his head fall forward onto her back.
“Hello, Mydeimos.”
“Hello, Mama.”
“How was your day?”
“Good. Yours?”
“Good.”
The two stand in silence. Mydei raises his head to watch her slice another fish in half.
His mother rinses her hand under the tap, shaking it dry before raising it to run her fingers through Mydei’s hair. “Are you going to find a way to busy yourself, little shadow, or do you want me to do it for you?”
“I’ll go fold the clothes.”
. . .
It’s evening now. Mydei lays on the floor of his bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. He glances to his bag. It rests next to his desk, missing one key item.
Mydei is worried.
The book he lent to the boy is not one from the library, but his own personal collection. An item from an archive his mother gifted to him when he was little. He was obvious when he was small, and his mother insists that he still is. It was clear he had an attachment to the book, mesmerized by the shimmer of the stars, the smell of the paper. After school he’d skip not back home, but to the museum, where he’d wander around the ancient spears, through the shields and artifacts and shining jewels, before always going to the archives where he’d be found admiring the book. But one day, the book had not been present at the archives. He found out the reason soon after when he arrived back home, and his mother had knelt down and placed it in his hands. It was this attachment to the archives and its works that led him to fund and build the library he so enjoyed sitting in.
The book tells of history, yes. Dates and events in places of time long since passed. But at its core, it is a storybook. Mydei’s mother found it a waste to keep a book, and a book in such good shape, behind a pane of glass where it could never fulfill its most important duty. The archivists seemed to agree, if they had so readily given it away. That, and the fact that it is difficult to deny the one and only Gorgo.
Mydei is not worried about the safety of his book in the hands of a stranger. Rather, he’s worried about the fact that he isn’t worried over that.
He drags the palm of his hand down his face. Who was Mydei to call the boy stupid, when it was he who’d so easily lent the book to him just because he looked like one of the characters?
A warrior with snow white hair and bright, blue eyes, reaching up towards the salvation of the heavens.
He’d stared at the picture over and over again. By now, it had been engraved in his memory.
There is a boy at the library.
A boy with snow white hair and bright, blue eyes. He’s clumsy and far too loud for what should be permitted in a space like this.
Mydei does not know how long he has been coming here, only that he has known him for far longer.
-/-/-
Phainon doesn’t think he’s written anything faster in his life. For the past decade of his schooling journey, procrastination had been the name of the game. He has no doubt that that it will continue to be outside of this one exception, unless Library Boy also happens to hold an enthusiasm in math, chemistry, and just about everything else.
It doesn’t take long to find him. He’s reading again, nestled in that familiar little nook while on a red bean bag chair. Perhaps it is bravery, the first interaction already made, or enthusiasm, or his newly embraced stupidity, that causes Phainon to make a beeline right for him.
“Finished it!”
“Finished- huh?” Library Boy, clearly caught off guard, looks up. When he sees it is only Phainon, he sighs and flips his book over. He grabs the papers from Phainon’s hands. “Is this your report?”
“Mhm!” He’s going to be forty minutes late again. He finds that he doesn’t care.
Library Boy looks over the contents carefully, noting the images added and the detail put into each and every statement. Both are silent until he finishes. He turns the booklet back over to the front, staring at the cover image.
A young man seated on his rightful throne. Skulls litter the ground, broken bodies reaching up towards him. He does not acknowledge them, tipping a goblet of wine and spilling it onto the people below.
Above the image reads, “Mydeimos”.
“My mother named me after him,” he finally speaks.
Phainon’s eyes widen. “Really?”
“Yes. …Are you going to be surprised I have a mother next?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I’d rather you not.”
Phainon edges closer to the picture. “I’m just surprised. I mean, if I had a kid, I sure wouldn’t name him after the guy whose mom got poisoned and speared in front of him before he was chucked off a cliff. Kinda feels like I’d be jinxing the both of us.”
Mydei snorts. “The strength he showed. That’s what she named me for. He went through hell and back. Hundreds of times. And yet he never faltered.”
Phainon smiles and nods in agreement. “That’s a good name to have. I hope your mother never gets poisoned and speared.”
Stupid, not rude, Mydei repeats in his head. A small laugh manages to escape. “Thanks. I hope so too.”
“I picked him because he looked like you,” Phainon confesses as he takes the paper back. “I didn’t look too far actually, I just saw him and it stuck.” He places the book back in Mydei’s hands, safe and sound. It’s in the exact same shape as before he had lent it. He really had no need to worry at all.
Mydei’s eyebrows raise. “Me? Really?”
“I mean, yeah! Same hair, same eyes… same little braid…” When Phainon gently bats at the braid in question, Mydei is surprised to find out that he lets him. Even when he rubs the elastic in between his fingers, he doesn’t move. “Do you have a six-pack too? Can I see it?”
“I’m not taking off my shirt in the middle of a public library.”
Phainon deflates a little. “Aw…”
“There there, we all must deal with disappointment in our lives.”
“But Mydeimos… couldn’t you at least just tell me?”
He looks so incredibly pathetic, and Mydei is sure that if Phainon had a tail, it would be wagging right now.
“Just Mydei is fine,” he corrects first. Then, with a surprisingly little amount of hesitation, “yes. Yes, I do.”
“Wooooow!”
Okay. Mydei was wrong. If Phainon had a tail, it would be wagging right now.
“That’s so cool! Do you work out often? Do you do any martial arts? Because I do, and sword fighting too, and if you do, we should totally spar sometime-” Before Phainon can get carried away, he pauses. Leans back for a moment. Has he recognized he’s being too loud, Mydei wonders? No. No he has not. “I forgot to introduce myself,” he instead blurts out.
…
Right.
Despite having only talked to this man for two days now, Mydei can already say that he’s not surprised.
Phainon holds his hand out and smiles. He’s practically oozing joy after finding out about the six-pack thing. “Nice to meet you, Mydei! I’m Phainon!”
…
Never mind.
Mydei is surprised.
Mydei is very surprised.
Actually, he feels like his head is going to explode any second now.
“Phainon?!”
“Shh, Mydei,” hushes Phainon (!!!), “this is a library, not a cheer meet.”
“Phainon?!” he repeats, still no quieter than the first time.
The warrior Phainon, of Aedes Elysiae, with snow white hair and bright, blue eyes, reaching up towards the salvation of the heavens Phainon? That Phainon?!
“Y…Yeees? Spelt P-H-A-I-N-O-N. It’s not that weird, is it?”
Yes, it is very clear that Phainon had not read past Mydei’s chapter.
Mydei buries his face in his hands, only to immediately raise his head and instead grab Phainon by the shoulders, keeping him still as he stares into his eyes. “Give me a moment.”
“Uh- okay.” Phainon swallows. He knows better than to waste an opportunity like this. Instead, he soaks in how lovely Mydei’s face is. A chiseled jawline, sharp eyes, a nice nose, wonderful cheeks… He wonders if they’re soft. Before he can stop himself, he decides to find out for himself.
Mydei is not impressed when Phainon starts poking and prodding at his cheeks. He lets him though, too focused on Phainon’s own features.
They are identical to the man in the book. The same stature. The same gaze. The same cowlick-ahoge-thing on the top of his head that makes him look like a vintage television set.
And of course, the same name.
Mydei picks up his book again, and while still holding onto one of Phainon’s shoulders, then skips ahead to the page he knows all too well. He shoves it in Phainon’s face. “Recognize this?”
Phainon blinks. Looks the picture up and down. And grins. “Hey, that’s one good looking guy!”
“Are you being confident or dense?”
“Huh?”
Mydei sighs. He taps on the name next to the picture. Phainon leans in and squints. A beat of silence passes between the two. Then, Phainon’s jaw drops.
“Oh my god.”
“Oh your god.”
Phainon takes the book from Mydei, staring at it with equal parts shock and confusion. “Why’s there a picture of me in here?!”
“The same reason why there’s a picture of me in there.”
Phainon waits expectantly for an explanation.
Mydei sighs (again) and shrugs. “Because they’re heroes of the ancient civilization, Phainon.”
He continues to stare at his page, mesmerized. Then, when he’s finally soaked it in enough to let some of the shock wear off, he flips back to Mydei’s chapter, lifting up the book next to Mydei’s face. He compares the two in silence, face scrunched up in concentration, before finally, he makes his verdict.
“I really need to see you with your shirt off one of these days.”
“I- …You’re really adamant about this.”
“Are you busy?”
“Phainon, I am not leaving the library with you just so you can see me without a shirt on.”
“Not for that! I mean- we could visit the café upstairs and have a coffee and some snacks… and then maybe we can people watch and see if we can find anyone else that looks like the people in the book!”
Mydei narrows his eyes. Phainon seems genuine.
“And then after that, we could spar! Or, if you don’t know how to, I can teach you how to fight! It’s a very useful skill… Or we could work out together too! Or both! And then once we’ve warmed up, we can take off our shirts…”
“Ah. I knew there was a catch.”
“I really wanna see the six-pack, Mydei. I’ve never seen one in person before.”
“Didn’t you just say you go to the gym all the time?”
“Yeah, but no one ever takes off their clothes. Except hoodies sometimes.”
Mydei shuts his eyes for a moment and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Well- alright. I don’t see why not.”
Phainon perks up. “So yes?”
Mydei smirks and tries to stifle a laugh. “It’s a date, Phainon.”
Phainon makes no effort whatsoever to hide the grin on his face. “Then meet me in my gym!”