Chapter Text
It’s a quiet day in the bookshop. Raining outside, so there’s not too much foot traffic. Pentecost would kill him if he heard him say it, but he loved the days with practically no customers. In his mind, there’s less stupid questions to answer; less frazzled students to explain that they don’t carry obscure textbooks; less loiterers to glare at accusatorily. While the rain doesn’t exactly do wonders for his leg, it’s still nice to only have a few stragglers here and there in the shop.
The bells ding and Hermann doesn’t even bother looking up. Probably just another tourist trying to get out of the rain.
He only tears his eyes away from the book in his hands when he sees a drop land on his counter. He looks up and takes the highlighter from between his teeth and strikes his best bookselling pose.
The man in front of him is grinning at him lopsidedly with his dark hair slicked back from the rain and his glasses covered in raindrops. He’s wearing an expensive-looking leather jacket, a drenched tee shirt that clings to his skin, and almost impossibly skinny jeans. He runs a hand through his hair and looks at Hermann expectantly, as if he’s the one being approached in this situation.
“May I help you?” Hermann says pointedly.
Skinny Jeans blinks at him, almost taken aback at the plainness of Hermann’s greeting. “Uh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, you can.”
Hermann catches one of the students behind the man’s back fiddling hurriedly with his phone, glancing up every now and then as if he can’t believe his eyes. Hermann swears he sees him snap a picture and thinks about worrying about that before Skinny Jeans interrupts his thought process.
“I was actually looking for this book on the theoretical anatomy of extraterrestrial beings?” Skinny Jeans asks. His voice is squeaky and perpetually excited about nothing in particular. Hermann fights the urge to roll his eyes. God, how he despises biology majors. Skinny Jeans takes a slip of paper out of his jeans and slides it across the table. Hermann can barely make out the title in the indecipherable chicken scratch scrawled across the crinkled paper. “I’ve looked everywhere for it, man, like, you wouldn’t believe how hard this shit is to fine. Guess I’m not the only nerd in town, huh?” Skinny Jeans smirks in a way that Hermann refuses to admit is only just this side of adorable.
“Yes, I do believe we have that. We’ve just gotten a new order. I’ll check in the back. Wait one minute.”
Hermann can feel Skinny Jean’s eyes on his back, as if he’s carefully examining him for something in particular. When he returns he’s giving him that same look and it’s really starting to get a bit irritating, if he’s being honest.
“Here you are,” he says coldly, dropping the book in front of him.
“Ah, awesome, dude!” Skinny Jeans cries excitedly. He digs in his pocket for his wallet and glances quickly at the ridiculous name tag Pentecost makes Hermann wear. “What’s the damage, guy?”
“Sixteen dollars and ninety-three cents.”
He hands Hermann a crisp twenty dollar bill and says, “Keep the change, Hermann” before winking and making a ridiculous clicking noise with his tongue as he strides out of the store confidently.
Hermann waits for the door to close before allowing himself the much-needed release of rolling his eyes and scoffing loudly. God, does he hate biology majors.