nagi gets through a whole sentence and a half on the page he's reading before he realises that someone is speaking to him. and even then, it takes him another beat more to put it all together. yunoshin? what's a— oh. oooh.

"oooh," nagi breathes aloud — until his cerebrum finally catches up with him, and clamps his mouth shut before he can go on blurting out anything else.

he rests a finger in the book to mark where he stopped, and glances up at where the voice came from. just a short distance down the shelf, a young man — well-built, nagi notes, despite his stature and choice of sugary snack. an athlete, maybe? — glowers in a way that gives nagi the unmistakable impression that he's offended him somehow, in their scant few seconds of interaction. that couldn't be the case, unless... over shinn? no way.

"you're going to get sugar all over those pages." — is all that nagi offers in response to the question.

@frey

☉

as a purely hypothetical situation, meeting a reader of tales in the sordid flesh had been an entertaining, funny thought. nagi had pondered it on occasion. all idle fantasies: maybe he would be eavesdropping on someone else's conversation as it turned, inexplicably, to his writing; or, catch sight of someone thumbing through a chapter on public transport from over their shoulder.

now, though, nagi is faintly aware of the sensation of nervous sweat gathering along the back of his neck. he reads tales? he likes shinn? this guy?

soft-spoken and unassuming shinn, with big hands and a big heart; who nagi had revealed at the end of the arc to be the prophesied hero, until time-loop after failed time-loop had carved away at his faith and broken his heart. shinn, who sorely deserved more depth than nagi, as an immature author, had been able to give.

shinn had been well-liked, even up to the reveal. but, with his blink-and-you'll-miss-it role in the developments of the arc, he had never been popular. and after the reveal — the arc ended, and nagi left shinn behind. shinn certainly hadn’t been popular enough to acquire an ardent public defense — and certainly not from someone who looks as @frey  does.

nagi’s eyes skitter to the side, looking askance. in his musings, he had let the pause after frey’s questions grow too long, staring blankly at frey as his brain looped over shinn? this guy? really? shinn? the silence hangs between them, awkward and stale, broken at last by an irresolute um.

if i say too much again, i’ll blow it, nagi thinks, and dives for what he hopes is a safe answer.

“i… don’t know what you’re talking about.”

@frey

☉

nagi bites his tongue before he can blurt out a thank you.

his only acknowledgement of frey’s statement — the only acknowledgement he allows himself — is a single, upwards jerk of his eyebrows, before his face rearranges itself back into an expression of deliberate neutrality. the conversation tapers to a halt as anticlimactically as it had begun.

people read his writing: he is aware of this as a distant, detached fact. as numbers on a page view counter; comments in his email; search engine rankings and adsense money trickling into his pog bank account. but —

it’s good.

— it’s the first time he’s heard it, in person. someone who reads his work; someone who thinks it good enough to recommend. even the early arcs, where shinn had been, when nagi was winging it, flying by the seat of his pants with no notion of theme or continuity or characterisation.

it makes him pay more attention to frey than he typically might to a stranger in a bookstore in any other circumstance.

so he notices, watching out of the corner of his eyes when frey tenses, curses, then ducks behind the cover of the shelf. his sideways stare meets frey’s eyes. caught in the act.

his first instinct is to look away — pretend like he hadn’t noticed anything; hadn’t been watching in the first place. it’s a nasty thought. one that rankles more, when he thinks of the muted desperation evident across frey’s expression.

he reads tales. he literally pays your bills.

nagi chews on his lower lip, flicking his glance up at the head bobbing innocuously between the shelves, then back down to frey. slowly — wrestling internally with the instinctive push to simply not get involved — he slides the book back into its place on the shelf, and glides deeper into the aisle, tipping his head to indicate a path between the taller shelves winding deeper into the bookstore.

@frey

☉