Chapter Text
Every day has the same rhythm. Get up and drink coffee, lock up the apartment and open the store, and then wait. Wait so long and endlessly that time stretches infinitely and the dingy, musty shop starts to feel liminal. Wait until boredom rots you from the inside out and your brain leaks out of your ears. Wait until the clock strikes eleven, strikes five and escape.
Nirei tells him that he’s melodramatic and things would improve if he would just do something. Nirei also says things like you don’t have to work there or go work with Kotoha. So Haruka ignores him and his advice. Just because he hates reading, doesn’t mean he hates his job. Haruka can indulge in a little dramatic complaining if he wants. As a treat.
Besides, the job is fine. The shop is quaint and quiet. Tucked away on a side street and nestled between an antiques store and fabric shop. There’s a bakery, a coffee shop, and a florist across from them. All the minders know and support each other.
The shop is technically three stories tall. The top floor is rented out by the owner and the roof entirely off limits. The second floor is storage for the store. It also holds the break room that Haruka doesn’t use. The first floor is the entirety of the store.
The walls are lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves in dark wood and so old that Haruka swears some of the shelves sag. The back two thirds are filled with cases upon cases of free standing shelves in the same wood. All of them are packed to the point of being overstuffed with books of all kinds. Some are well-loved titles with worn spines and dog eared pages, while others are so new they still smell like a factory. Due to the shelves and the books, that part of the shop is dimly lit and shadowed.
The front third of the shop was Haruka’s preferred domain. The register and check out counter was there, of course. The floor is covered in a myriad of rugs of different colors and shapes. A low couch, a worn out and ugly yellow, sits against the wall across from the register with a short table in front of it and a little bistro set painted bright blue is placed in front of the big, paneled glass window. Every free spot that a mounted planter or a pot could be placed has a plant and one of the pothos is so old that the vines stretch across the walls. Soft music swells in the silence, floating out of the dusty speakers and down the cramped aisles.
Haruka doesn’t read. He hates dusting all the books and watering the plants. There’s hardly any customers and they have no regulars, despite being just a couple blocks from the nearest college. But he still wouldn’t change it. Even if he complains to Nirei constantly.
It’s a Thursday morning, bitterly cold and overcast the way Autumn tends to be. The weak, inconsistent sunlight shines in through the window and makes squares on the floor. Haruka kept the shop warm and absently scrolled through the stats of the most recent mobile game Nirei and his college friends had invited him to play. It was such an ordinary, mundane Thursday for everything in his life to reorient itself. Change didn't care for Haruka’s opinions on thematic and emotional entrances.
The bell above the door jingles, announcing the entry of a patron. The person entering Haruka’s shop is tall with fluffy auburn hair and an eye patch. His uncovered eye is a similarly red brown hue that reminds Haruka of when sunlight shines through a glass of black tea. The door swings shut behind him with a quiet shink and the boy looks around pleased, with himself or shop Haruka isn’t sure. The customer’s scarf is pulled up over his mouth, but Haruka can see his nose and cheeks are pink from the cold.
“Welcome,” Haruka drawls. They don’t get enough customers for him to need a whole greeting. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”
The boy loosens his scarf to pull it below his mouth. “Hello. No but thank you.” He smiles.
Cute.
He steps past the counter to meander through the shop. The normal musty, old book smell of the shop is disrupted by something sweetly floral and bitingly citrusy. Haruka takes a sip of coffee and goes back to his phone. There’s nothing to focus on with a customer in the store. He likely won’t buy anything and Haruka will never see him again after he leaves.
Except he does see him again after he leaves.
And again and again and again. The boy comes back once a week for a month. Haruka learns things about him in those four visits. He’s the one who smells like citrus and flowers. He studies at the local college. He’s got a friend who calls or texts him a lot out of worry. He has a very nice voice and he’s very pretty.
His name is Suo Hayato.