Chapter Text
Chapter 2: Late
Friday - 1:50 PM
You're sitting on your comfortable couch at home, reading 'The Secret History'. You're not even halfway, but you can't seem to put it down. With your hot tea, soft rain ticking on the window, and the calm aesthetic of your home, you enjoy this moment to the fullest.
The book is so capitating, that you lose track of time and realize that you're almost late for your shift at the library. At the realization, you nearly spit out your tea and hastily make yourself decent and put on some more formal clothes than your pyjamas.
You find some flared jeans hanging around in your room and a white, oversized knit sweater. You change and rush to the bathroom to brush your teeth and comb your hair.
By the time you're finished dressing up, it's 2 pm. Shit . You should've been at the library right now, if not 5 minutes earlier. You put on your shoes and take your raincoat and you rush out, but still make sure you've got everything stashed in your tote bag.
"Keys, phone, book, comb, lip balm, already had my keys, water bottle, mints, snack... about everything."
You leave your house, locking the door twice, just to be sure, and make your way to the library. You put your hood over your hair since it gets frizzy so easily if it gets wet. It's only a 5-minute walk, but still, you're late, which your co-workers will not appreciate.
When you almost arrive at your workplace, you can already see the silhouette of one of your colleagues staring out the window, waiting to confront you with your so-called 'laziness'. As you quickly come closer, you can see clearly who's waiting for you.
Karen.
You let out a visible sigh and already annoyed, you push the door to get inside. Instrumental classic music greets you. You put your coat on the coathanger and before you can even turn around to face the devil herself, she already speaks to you.
"Well well well. Look who finally decided to show up. Care to explain yourself y/n?"
"Yes, first off, I'm so sorry I'm late, I was reading and I completely forgot the time and-"
You take a hand through your hair while looking at your tote bag. You hang it next to your coat and leave it to dry. Your hair feels a little damp, but it could've been a lot worse.
"I can make this way easier. Instead of boring me with your fake apology and bogus story, you can add a streak to your late arrivals yourself. You know where to find the paper, don't you? "
You look down and nod. Making eye contact with her makes her even more angry, you learned that from your previous encounters with her. Handover with her is the worst. She's supposed to tell you what she's done in the morning and show you what is yet to be finished, but she never does. All she wants is to make fun of something about you and then quickly leave.
But yes, you know where to find the paper. This isn't the first time you've been late, but this time it was sincere. Other times you may or may not have decided to take a nap at home and wake up when your shift originally ended.
She smirks at you with an almost evil smile and hands you a pen to mark the paper with. You slowly make your way to the paper and add a bar to the chart.
"Oh, would you look at that... Only 3 lines left and then you're dismissed!"
She looks at the paper with a weirdly cheerful expression on her face. She makes it clear enough that she doesn't like you in the slightest.
"I have eyes myself, Karen."
You turn around and meet her eyes out of spite, but she clearly wants none of it.
"Drop the attitude and get to work y/l/n. I don't know why you're still standing there."
She aggressively flicks her jacket over her cardigan and takes her umbrella with her. Before she leaves, she puts a card in her tiny purse and makes sure you aren't looking, for whatever reason. With one last look over her shoulders, she's gone. Not without leaving you a nasty look first.
You sigh and walk around the library paths to see what she's done all morning- or rather, what she hasn't done. Books in piles next to their destined shelves, alphabetically ordered books not so ordered anymore and messy ladders meet your eyes. It's clear that she's just been gossiping and drinking tea with the villagers, who, for some odd reason, like her.
When walking down to the last path in this small, book-filled maze, you realize you aren't alone. Sitting down at one of the tables is none other than Simon. And he's been here for some time. At least long enough to just have heard the conversation between you and Karen.
The sight of his back surprises you. Why is he sitting here? He never does...
You stand silently and he turns around to face you. You stand there, wide-eyed and shocked that he's been sitting here so quietly. His facial expression doesn't tell you anything.
"Hello y/n."
"...Hi."
"I overheard your conversation with your co-worker."
He turns his body more towards yours on the chair he's sitting in. The chair now looks awfully small with him in it. There's a distance of roughly 3 meters between you two.
"What's her name?"
"Who's nam- Ohh, that woman's... It's Karen. Ironic, isn't it?"
You chuckle a little to yourself and you can see his eyes squinting a little bit.
"Does she always act and talk to you like that?"
You hesitate to answer, but you decide to be honest and just give him the truth.
"Well... Yeah. She doesn't really like me if you didn't notice already."
You avoid eye contact and then realize that this is the most you've talked with Simon, ever. He's listening and nods along.
"Hm. Why do you let her do that?"
"I need the money. And also, I enjoy it here. I love this library, I just don't like the people that work here. But luckily we work shifts independently. I wouldn't survive a day while working with Karen, hahaha!"
You laugh at your own joke, and Simon chuckles along. He seems to enjoy listening to you.
He's still turned around in his chair while holding his book. Is it a tiny reader, or does it just look tiny in his big hands?
"Anyways, I'll start cleaning up after her now. If you need me, I will be roaming around here somewhere."
You give him a big smile and he nods back.
"Will do. Thanks y/n."
You turn around and feel your cheeks slightly shifting in color. The way he says your name is so... sweet and caring. Nothing like how Karen says it. Like it's some kind of slur she can use to hurt your feelings.
You haven't heard someone say your name like that in a while.
~~~
After cleaning after your favorite co-worker, you offered the only guest something to drink and decided to have a little chit-chat with him.
He was kind and didn't mind the company. You two small-talked for a bit about the weather, fellow residents, and also about pets.
"I actually have a cat. It's a boy called Dog."
"Seriously? Hahahaha!"
There weren't many customers coming in, but when one came, they looked around for not so long and when they bought something, you were at the counter instantly.
You two were having fun and you being you, forgot about the time. Again.
It was an hour before you needed to close, so it wasn't as dramatic as earlier today, but if you didn't close properly, your popularity wouldn't exactly grow.
You excused yourself and he decided that it was late enough for him and that it was time for him to go home. He bought the book he was reading and you said your goodbyes.
"Bye Simon, see you soon!"
"Goodbye y/n."
He nodded in your direction again and you waved joyfully at him.
You connect your phone to the boxes that are still playing classical music throughout the tiny library. You put your own playlist on shuffle and listen to the first song that comes up.
Friday I'm In Love
The Cure ♥︎
⇄ ◁◁ 𝚰𝚰 ▷▷ ↻
0:55 ━━●━━────3:35
~~~