Love and Libraries:
Summary: Mai develops and crush on a black haired stoic librarian and spends a majority of her time in the library to observe him. As it turns out, he is interested in her too.
Mai Taniyama peeked over the top of her book briefly before peering out from one side and then the other side. Her friend Keiko, who had accompanied her, had no problem tracing Mai's gaze to one of the librarians. Keiko rolled her eyes when she saw it was the crabby male librarian that was good looking but humourless and strict, making him the least popular member of staff at the university library.
Keiko much preferred his identical twin who always had a smile on his face and always knew where a book was and took you there. In the unlikely event that anyone asked the moodier twin, he would give the decimal number and retreat into a stony silence.
"Staring at Naru again?" she asked teasingly.
"No, I was just reading this book," Mai answered innocently and rather unconvincingly so as the book in question was upside down.
"I don't think reading a book upside down will impress Naru," Keiko told her.
The brunette twitched guiltily and put the book down. She should have spotted the writing was upside down, but whenever she saw Naru's face she tended to forgot small details like that. His clear blue eyes and raven black hair were very distracting. As testament to his distractibility she had spent most of the term here and had only finished half of her assignments here. She finished her assignments back in her room as there was no Naru to distract her there.
Keiko nudged her when Naru's twin approached their table and Mai didn't even bother to look up. Gene dressed in much lighter clothes than Naru which was generally the only way to tell them apart physically and he was much pleasanter than his twin. Mai preferred Naru though.
"Keiko-chan, Mai-chan do you need any help finding any books you need?" Gene enquired politely.
Mai used her arm to hide the book that she had randomly picked out yet Gene managed to spot it.
"Do you have an assignment related to tomatoes, Mai-chan?" he questioned curiously.
"No! It just looked interesting so I picked it up," Mai answered hastily.
Gene looked puzzled and then chose to accept her answer. "I read this one on a whim too, it's nowhere as interesting as the cover though."
"I found that too."
"You two are so alike and have the same tastes," Keiko commented causing Mai to glare at her.
Gene had an unexpected answer. "Keiko-chan, she likes Naru much more than me. Don't try to match us up."
Immediately a blush spread up Mai's face. Was she really that obvious? She made sure to only come to the library when she had an assignment or revision to do. She felt Gene gently pat her head.
"Don't worry, Naru hasn't noticed yet. You might want to check that your book is the right way up though. You get it wrong fairly often."
Whilst Mai was berating herself for being so obvious about her staring her best friend continued to ask Gene about Naru.
"Does he really hate everyone that uses the library?"
Gene frowned. "He is simply intolerant of people he thinks of us being below him in intelligence. He doesn't hate anyone really."
"We are at one of the top universities in Japan," Keiko retorted. "How intelligent is he?"
The more popular twin scratched his chin thoughtfully. "He is very intelligent. He got a PhD at 15 after all."
Keiko was momentarily stunned into silence before she returned to the attack.
"He should be kinder to people. I still can't work out what Mai sees in him."
She and Gene both turned to look at Mai for an answer.
"He smiled at me," Mai said and had a faraway look in her eyes.
"When!?" Gene questioned in shock, extremely curious to hear her story.
"It was a few months ago. I was working here late and Naru came by to tell me to leave. I was about to leave when I noticed the book he was reading and we had a discussion about it. He likes the supernatural too," she explained. "He walked me out of the campus and when I said good bye, he smiled at me."
The memory of it made her smile again and Gene and Keiko exchanged looks.
"Are you sure you weren't impersonating your brother?" she asked. "It sounds more like something you would do."
Gene thought back to several months ago when Noll had returned unusually late to their shared apartment after work. In addition to being late, he had looked strangely happy. At the time he had attributed it to being because of one of Noll's long awaited supernatural books had finally arrived. Now he knew the actual cause.
"No. I'm not particularly interested in the supernatural- it was definitely Naru."
Gene froze when he saw his twin looking their way and then he noticed that Noll wasn't looking at him, he was looking at Mai instead. He decided to test a few things.
"Naru!" he called him over as discreetly as he could considering they were in a library.
"What is it?" Naru asked brusquely. "I have a stack of books to put back."
Gene pointed a blushing Mai who was trying to avoid meeting eyes with Naru.
"Mai-chan needs a book on the freeze drying of tomato matrices," he lied.
His twin's eyes swept to the book Mai had been reading and he gave a rare helpful answer.
"There is one on the top shelf of the second bookshelf on the right, it's the one with the red spine. Gene can use the ladder to get it for you."
He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving a trio of shocked people in his wake.
"I have never seen him give that many details about a book," Gene said in amazement and glanced at Mai,
He would have a talk with Noll later. It seemed that he liked Mai more than most people and that was not an usual occurrence.
He didn't get a chance to talk to Noll in private until the evening at their apartment. He ordered Noll's favourite takeaway to soften him up. Once he had been able to persuade Naru to help him with one his assignments under the influence of yakisoba.
"Thanks for your help at the library earlier," he began as if it was a typical conversation and not an interrogation.
Naru simply nodded which was not what Gene was looking for.
"How did you know where that exact book would be? It's Yasuhara-san's section not yours. You usually have to look up those books on the computer system."
He watched as his brother, who normally ate with perfect manners and poise, lost his grip on his yakisoba. He knew he had touched a nerve there.
"Did you see the book she was reading earlier and look up related books?" he asked.
Noll took an unprecedented long time to answer the question. "...No."
Gene knew his brother well enough to detect a lie and ruffled his hair affectionately.
"You do like her."
The sulkier twin put his chopsticks down and folded his arms. "I may do. However she has someone else that she likes. She comes to the library for him and not me."
Gene was completely confused. Mai had definitely said that she liked Naru and he had witnessed her checking out Noll. Surely Noll had got something wrong.
"Who?"
"You," Naru looked away from him. "She was blushing when she was talking to you earlier."
Gene pulled him in for a hug. "You idiot scientist, she was blushing because she was talking about you."
"Oh," was all Naru said.
"She likes you romantically and not me. You should try to talk to her properly tomorrow now that you know that."
The following day Mai was working on an assignment at the library and was currently involved in finding all the relevant books on the subject. She had a decent stack of books in her hands when someone took half the books from her.
"You should carry less, it's too dangerous to walk around carrying lots of books like that," he said. "For the books I mean."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw his brother cringe and he realised that he had said something slightly insulting and he tried to rectify it. He bent down and picked out another book.
"This one should help you the most."
Mai stared at him blankly before accepting the book suggestion. Naru looked extra dazzling today for some reason and he was being extra helpful. She looked at him closely to make sure that he wasn't Gene pranking her.
"Thank you."
She walked towards a free table and dumped the books there. Naru deposited the remainder neatly on the top. Naru stood awkwardly next to her for a moment and attempted to think of a way to extend their conversation.
"Do you need any help going through any of the books? You are going to be here all day and evening if you do it by yourself."
"I'll be fine," Mai waved away his concern. An overly friendly Naru was beginning to become slightly disconcerting. "I don't have anything planned for tonight anyway."
"I have plans for tonight," the words were out of Naru's mouth before he realised it. "I brought some new supernatural books that I thought you might like to read."
He had actually bought the books as an excuse to talk to her, but had failed to find an opportunity.
"That sounds fun," Mai smiled, having decided that new books were the reason why Naru was being strangely talkative. "It's a date."
She blushed when she became aware of what she had just said. "Actually it's a-"
"It's a date, Mai-chan," Gene said from behind her. "Naru is just too awkward and inexperienced to ask you out normally."
Gene had overheard the whole conversation and had come to the conclusion that Noll was never going to ask her out properly. He should have expected that. Now it was up to him as his twin to help him.
"Gene!" Naru hissed annoyedly. "Stop interfering."
Having said what he needed to, he left them alone. Once he provided them with the catalyst, they should be able to work it out between themselves.
"You want to go on a date with me?" the brunette asked disbelievingly. "You don't like anyone apart from Gene. He also told me that you like yourself more than anyone."
Naru cursed his brother in his mind. Gene had caught him checking his hair out in the mirror one morning. Naturally he had been making sure that he looked decent before seeing Mai so he was not a narcissist like his brother had claimed.
"I like you the most," he murmured awkwardly and Mai had to strain her ears to hear him.
"I like you too," she replied and smiled widely at him. "I would like to go on a date with you even if it's here at the library."
Naru flashed her a dazzling smile that reached his eyes. "It's a date."
The End
A N: I had to do an assignment related to freeze drying of tomato matrices so that's where that part comes from