Chapter Text
Jon pushes the book carefully to the side, making room on the already overfull shelf, before inserting the newest return back into the newly made gap.
He takes a step back, watching the shelf for a moment to be sure that it won’t collapse from the added weight, before he nods, and looks back down at the stack of books in his arms.
He flips open the cover of the one on top, finding the informational card on the inside.
Nonfiction, Autobiography, Author R. Smirke.
Jon shuts the cover once again, and begins to weave his way back through the dim walkways in between the towering shelves, the sound of his shoes hitting the old wood floors dampened by the millions of pages in the thousands of books.
Even after spending hundreds of hours in the library he still thinks of it as a maze. A labyrinth. One he’s charted and knows all the twists and turns of, but still one none the less.
He navigates his way to the nonfiction section quite easily, and finds the book’s spot without much more effort, before repeating the process over and over again, until every book in the pile he’s holding is returned to their proper place.
It’s inefficient, certainly, but his email about the last cart breaking was received with a ‘We’ll look into it’, and then was promptly ignored, so for the past two months he’s had to carry all the returns by hand.
Jon places the final book onto the lowest shelf, crouching to put it into it’s spot, before returning to his full height with a sigh and a stretch, his knees popping, relieving themselves from the tension.
“Hello!” A voice calls from behind him, the tone giving away the smile on the speaker's face before he even sees who’s talking.
“Yes?” He responds, turning to face whoever it is that requires his assistance.
“Could you point me towards the historical fiction?” The speaker, a student he doesn’t recognize, in a colorful outfit, with their hair tied back into a bun, asks, tilting her head to the side ever so slightly. “I’m looking for a copy of Les Misérables.”
“Historical fiction is in the back left corner, three rows away from the wall. We should still have a copy on the shelf.” Jon instructs, pointing in the vague direction the book should be.
“Thank you.” She responds, their smile still fixated on their face, before hurrying past him, her bright skirt swirling around her legs in the rush.
He doesn’t watch her much longer, and fully turns to walk back towards the desk once they’ve disappeared into the walls of books, grabbing one off the shelf on his way, not having to look to find the one he wants.
It’s been a quiet morning in the library, and Jon expects it to stay that way until most of the classes have finished for the day, although there will be the few stragglers that wander in before then, as there often are.
He slips back behind the desk, sitting, and cracking open the novel he grabbed without a second thought, letting himself get lost in the words until the student needs their book checked out.