A/N:
Ay! Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays, or whatever. Tbh, I'd finished this chapter yesterday morning, but wanted to wait til today to publish cause I consider it my present to you readers. Remember, these side chapters are going to be of varying length, more so than the main story, cause these are technically all one-shots, just in a collection together. Read, relax, and most importantly, enjoy!
Steven never spent much time in town. For, it was hard for him to connect with the humans who lived there. But this had to be his favorite location of all. As soon as he opened those doors, the wondrous scent of paper assailed his senses. A smile crept onto the boy's face. It was the smell he associated with knowledge. As Steven made his way to his favorite section of the building, he waved a greeting to the librarian, who smiled and returned the gesture to the regular.
Once he'd trod his way to non-fiction, the boy started browsing through the collection, hoping to find something he'd not yet read, which was proving to be more difficult than he initially thought. Well, thankfully for him, it seemed they did have some new additions. The boy eagerly took the texts with him, hurrying to a place where he could set these down and read.
Steven made himself comfortable before picking the first book off the pile beside him, soon losing himself in its content. Minutes passed, then hours, the young boy passing page after page, ever expanding his knowledge-base.
A familiar noise caused the boy's head to perk up. There she was, that girl who frequented this library almost as much as he did. But, he couldn't bring himself to speak to her. He gulped, setting down the biography in his hands and following her to the fiction aisles.
She stopped, and so did he, peering around the corner of a bookshelf. Her long, dark hair bounced against the seafoam dress she war, causing Steven to sweat nervously as he fiddled with the bead bracelet in his jean pocket. He noticed her tense, turning to allow her deep brown eyes to meet his golden ones.
"Hello?"
She noticed him. The boy's face flushed a deep scarlet. He looked around, hoping deep in his heart that there was another person there she might have been addressing instead. But no, they were the only ones.
"Am… I in the way?" She asked, pushing up those raspberry glasses of hers.
It took him a moment to process what she had meant as they stood there in awkward silence. "Oh! Uh… not really." He said, closing the gap between them. He'd stopped next to the girl and looked at the shelf of fantasy books. He grimaced; he always had preferred fact to fiction, but glancing beside him, he realized that girl enjoyed it very much. "So… what do you recommend?" He spoke up, trying to make small talk. Something his dad said he was just as bad at as his mother.
The girl looked at him, clearly as uncomfortable with the situation as he was. She clutched a book close to her chest, addressing this strange boy. "Well… that really depends on what genres you prefer. So…"
Steven cleared his throat. Just pick something, he told himself. As his eyes scanned the shelf, his hand followed, eventually landing on what he assumed was the first addition of a random series.
The shy girl's face lit up when she saw what he had just pulled out. "Oh, that's such a great series!" She beamed. "There's demigods living together and all going on crazy adventures each year to save the world and their friends, and…" She paused, turning to hide her face.
The boy chuckled. "So I should read the rest of them then?"
"Oh, totally." She began to pick out each installment of the series and stack them in the boy's arms. "Now that should be all of them." She said, her eyes scanning over the books in Steven's grasp.
"Thanks, um…"
"Connie." She replied, brushing a stray lock out of her face.
"Steven." He responded with a grin. "Oh, I almost forgot!" The boy set the stack on the ground, then searched his pocket for the reason he even followed her over here. He pulled it out, a bead bracelet, holding it out for her to take. "I saw you drop this awhile back, and well…" He rubbed the back of his head with a nervous chuckle. "I mean, there was no guarantee you'd check the lost and found, so I figured I should return it myself, and I saw you head over this way, so I followed you, but I don't really like fiction, and this got awkward and I'm making it more awkward and…"
Connie picked the bracelet out of Steven's hand, placing it on her wrist as a smile grew on her face. "Thank you."
A/N:
That run-on in Steven's final dialogue killed me inside. But it's a good example of people running on themselves. I always format dialogue weird to fit the way people speak.
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As always, this is your lovely Squish wishing you all a fantastic day! :D