Bibliophile Chapter 3, a loveless fanfic

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Bibliophile

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Chapter Three

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My dearest Ritsuka,

There isn't a time I am not thinking about you. If you were to ask my colleagues— they would assume that I was admiring some distant lover far off from here. In a way, you are like that to me. I do admire you, Ritsuka. For your strength. For your intelligence. For your beauty. For the memories I have of us together.

One day, I will come for you, Ritsuka. And then everything will be right again.

All my love,

Seimei

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On the park sidewalk across the street-walk he crossed on the way home, Ritsuka saw the creature's carcass.

Clearly... it had been stepped on by something much bigger (—and crueler, almost certainly a kid's sneaker) and the butterfly looked so miserable in death, one of its uniquely-colored wings stretched upwards as if still feebly protesting against the attack done onto it. He stared at it numbly for a moment longer, standing between the grass and the sidewalk. The butterfly itself was a mixture of metallic blue and purple hairs, echoing those colors in his buzzing vision against the afternoon hot sunlight.

It was just a butterfly…

But... somehow... guessing this so involuntarily made his stomach coil slowly into an awful, greasy knot… it was malicious judgment of this now deceased creature…

Ritsuka squeezed his eyes shut as the space between them prickled uncomfortably and his sinuses fogged. He clapped his hands over his face, clenching his teeth as his ears pressurized—

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A man with a red — and white jacket — sunglasses — Kio — the paramedics are stomping onto the lawn — but he HAD to finish before his aunt came outside— HAD to finish or she would become upset— and Kio holds his bloody arm with his hands tightened, his eyes glittering fiercely behind his lenses.

"This is your cousin Seimei." His smiling aunt points to the blocky, black picture frame over the fireplace— a fit, dark-haired man gazes at his audience confidently — "You'll be tall just like him, one day, Ritsuka."

Something silver — flashing — dazzlingly.

The ballooning pain ingrained in his body seems to lessen somewhat. But his internal temperature seems to sky-rocket as a soft, heedful hand massages the skin on his bare, cool stomach. The more sensitive skin much lower warms and hardens as his eyes roll back in arousal. He cannot identify the person attached to this hand but understands what is happening feels…good.

The small, silver butterfly earrings in pale-colored ears flash.

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Ritsuka crouched down on one knee and one hand flat to the park's grass. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck, soaking his goldenrod, jersey collar.

Sluggishly, the dazed teenager rose back on his feet, oblivious to a passing female jogger ogling. At the same moment, he heard someone call for him. Kio waved to him from the street-walk as he dodged a passing silver car that swerved him and honked aggravated, his eyes zoned in on both of Ritsuka's bandaged hands and the white sterile patch taped on his left cheek as he walked up. His mouth twitched but Kio said nothing about them as the older man smiled slightly at his friend.

"I was wondering where you ran off to without me..."

"I'm fine," Ritsuka said lowly, automatically. His ears had stopped ringing. That was a good sign.

"I didn't ask. What's with the letter?"

Ritsuka smoothed out the crumples— how his damp palms blurred some of the penciled words— and his trembling fingers did not help the situation. The younger cleared his throat, folding the slip of paper into his jean pocket. "Nothing special," he lied, hoping he could get home soon to fix the smeared, precious words.

Kio's smile widened as he slung an arm around the boy's neck, steering them both down the street and sing-songed, "Sooo… I got you a jooooob~."

"Excuse me?"

"A job, silly; something you'll be paid to do! You aren't involved in anything in your high school and it will look bad on you, you know…. and since you spend all your free time at the library anyway, it won't be a huge change from your routine…" Ritsuka paled as Kio added with a gleeful chuckle, "Don't look at me like that. You should be thanking me! You are damn lucky I have connections," he clapped the teen's shoulder, "Now you have a real excuse not to come over to my apartment…"

The dark-haired boy recovered, sneering disdainfully, "You just don't want me to stay home."

For the briefest moments, Kio's smile darkened with satisfaction. And as if never happened, the green-haired man said cheekily, continuing to steer them to the apartment complexes, "But don't think you are getting away with an excuse THIS week! Nuh-uh-uh, buddy! We are SO playing videogames until curfew hits!"

"Whatever."

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In fear of a tarnished repetition considering the library's records— flat out refusing the interview wasn't possible now that he was there in person— Ritsuka stood inside the front doors, fiddling with the fat wood buttons and the twine on his burgundy wool jacket… just hoping that the person to see him wasn't, wasn't…

"Aoyagi Ritsuka?" A wrinkled woman he had seen before working in one of the bigger offices behind the Circulation Desk— always with dress-suit on, gray-streaked braid to the middle of her back, and beaded glasses— smiled at him from the second floor staircase. Ritsuka's heart warmed just a little at the motherliness of it.

"You must be him," she admitted coming down those stairs, staring longer at his face carefully and blandly, "I was told by the other staff that you would be a boy with very lovely purple eyes."

He gave her a slight head tilt in acknowledgment—very much use to this compliment from older women. "Thank you for the opportunity to be interviewed on short notice for you."

"Oh goodness, you are so polite! That is most certainly refreshing to see in you younger kids," she said. The wrinkled woman chuckled, directing him to a quiet room with decorative sofas and armchairs. The white sign over the entrance read: Gammon Room. Please Keep Quiet. He vaguely remembered coming in to hide from his louder classmates. And the obvious stares he seemed to acquire. Her fern green eyes then examined him sternly when Ritsuka sat in a chair across from her. "Oh my… where did you get those injuries, Aoyagi-kun?"

Unconsciously, his fingers slipped over his face bandage. But Ritsuka smiled fakely, brightly at her. "Have a lot of people been asking for this job today, Librarian-san?"

"Not many, in fact." She adjusted the clipboard over her lap, raising a sculpted eyebrow at his evasive comment but did not press the matter. "And you may address me as Miura-san if you wish to. This will be a relatively informal interview."

"Let us get straight to business, shall we…. Tell me a little about yourself Aoyagi-kun…"

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When Ritsuka finally got home, he ignored all text messages and phone calls from Kio. He locked his bedroom door, ignoring his aunt's persistent questions from the bottom of the staircase landing and then the eventual high-pitched screams, and flinched curled up on his mattress when what sounded like dinner clattered banging on the kitchen floor. Ritsuka glared openly at the square plastic object on his desk, as if all the irritated and anxious feelings he were experiencing had been its purposeful doing.

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"A worker named Soubi?" His interviewer mused, tapping her fountain pen to the corner of her interview sheet and clipboard, "Agatsuma Soubi was recently hired. I got a call from him this afternoon that he wasn't feeling well enough to make his shift for the evening hours or for the next morning." She never noticed how the boy's eyes lit with triumph upon hearing this.

"Oh," said Ritsuka, "My best friend has classes with him and was wondering..."

"He did leave something at my desk for you."

The teenager's eyebrows shot up in alarm. The librarian got up for her office and returned a minute later with a sealed plastic ear piercer and two silver metal earrings the shape of butterflies. He swallowed hard, cupping them in his own hands, mortified as his face burned and as her green eyes studied him intently, embarrassed as well as politely confused.

"Agutsuma-san said you would know what to do with them."

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To hell he knew what to do with them! What was with this new guy?

He stretched over his mattress to toss the piercer into the trash bin by his computer. It landed at the bottom with a satisfying clunk. And then he reached for the earrings sitting patiently and gleaming on his homework, and hesitated.

Releasing a tensed breath, Ritsuka rolled over to flip off his lamp, burrowing under his blankets, stomach and libido complaining.

He hated the dreams that followed, dwindling with shards of an irrationally tender love involving the dizzy color of periwinkle.

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TBC...

Again, Yun Kouga owns all of Loveless. Blah-de-blah. GUESS WHO GOT SICK FOR A WHOLE WEEK? MEEEE! I think I have been through the full range of coughing/dry throat/sore throat/gunk in lungs/cold symptoms/head cold/headaches/sinus pressure/sinus headache/runny nose/fever/aches/chills/zero energy. Yes. All of those. I'm drowning my sorrows in Tylenol Cold nighttime. I don't think I have much to add for this author's note. Except bitching about being sick. xDD And no one wants to hear that. OH! I do want to thank my new favorite-rs and all my beautiful reviewers! You've been so patient for this update! Really! You deserve the (not contagious, hopefully) love from me! -luffluffluff- And the next update, my guess, will be late this month or early next. Keep an eye on my bio. Any questions about the structure of the story / characters in the story / in general... please feel free to ask me! And reviews are great ways to cheer me up in my ultra diseased state! T.T