they come runnin' just as fast as they can
'cause [phoenix is] crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man

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Phoenix had planned to visit the bookstore of his choice regularly. That was always meant to be the plan. But before, regularly had meant as often as once a week. Instead he found himself going there on a near-daily basis.

After the first couple of trips he had realized he couldn't afford to fill his basket every time— not unless he wanted to go broke, anyway (selling paintings provided a bit of cash, but not enough to go crazy with). Now he was only buying a book or two per trip, and he always found an excuse to sit down and read for a while. It had been years since he'd read for recreational purposes, and he could feel his vocabulary expanding. Maybe with a few years' worth of reading he'd be intelligent enough to talk to—

...To talk to Miles.

That was it, really. The entire reason for his new habit.

Phoenix knew that it was ridiculous. He didn't even know the man. For all he knew, Miles was a total jerk behind closed doors. But, try as he might, he couldn't convince himself to believe that, or anything of the sort. He always had been too quick to believe in people. He truly believed that Miles was a wonderful and incredibly smart person with a tender and loving heart hiding beneath his layers of indifference. And it would take an awful lot to change that.

It had been about eight days now, and Phoenix had still barely managed to pull a word out of Miles outside of the necessary exchange of formalities. Miles was tight-lipped about himself, it seemed, and he always tried too hard to seem professional. All he'd managed to get from him, verbally, were small hints that implied he was Phoenix's age and that he, too, was a college student. Even these were never outright admissions.

Since words weren't doing the job for him, Phoenix started learning to read his expressions.

Miles was stoic for the most part. Emotion never showed clearly on his face like it did on other faces. He had a tendency to avoid holding eye contact for any longer than a moment or two, and he often hid his eyes behind his hair. Even so, Phoenix was learning (or so he chose to believe— it was entirely possible he was imagining it).

It was never something obvious. To read Miles, one had to look for the little things— his worrying of his lower lip between his teeth, flashes of recognition or discomfort in his eyes, a slight tilt of his brow or twitch of his fingers. All fleeting and hardly noticeable to the untrained eye, but there nonetheless. Miles also had a lot of nervous tics and characteristic gestures, all of which somehow made him all the more endearing to Phoenix.

This particular day, he had someplace to be, and so he had stopped by earlier than usual. To his surprise, Miles commented on this. His response was delayed by his shock and nervousness.

"U-Uh, yeah, I've gotta go meet up with some friends! It's an important event. A concert, actually."

Miles hummed in response, but didn't inquire any further. Phoenix studied him closely, as he always did. As Miles was bagging his books, he paused for a brief moment on a book containing illustrations of different breeds of dogs and looked it over. Phoenix felt a smirk tug at his lips at the noticeable affection in Miles' eyes.

Dogs. You like dogs. That's cute. That's really cute.

The clerk finished his task of bagging and ringing Phoenix up, and Phoenix paid and rushed out more quickly than he usually did. He checked his watch. He'd barely make it on time. It seemed he always ran a little late no matter how hard he tried.

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Phoenix barged into the open auditorium as gracefully as he could manage. He'd tried to look mildly presentable, but his hair spikes were messy and his suit ill-fitting. Larry caught his eye, and he felt instant relief— Larry made him look like a GQ model by comparison.

Maya, to his surprise, was dolled up rather nicely, her hair loosened from its normal topknot (she so disliked people referring to it as a topknot) in favor of an elegant braided bun. She wore a short purple dress, and even some subtle makeup. Phoenix smiled at her.

"Maya! You look really pretty."

She made an exaggerated gesture of embarrassment at that, fanning herself with one hand and resting the back of the other one against her forehead.

"Oh, stop, you'll make me blush!"

Phoenix turned back to Larry, who seemed to be looking through the event brochure.

"Do we have time to say hi to the girls beforehand?"

"Nope, sorry, dude! There'll be time afterwards, but the concert starts in, like... Forty seconds."

"Why didn't you say something earlier?!" Phoenix yelled as the trio sprung into action, clambering through the aisles in an effort to find their seats. Phoenix collapsed into his chair the moment the room went dark, and he breathed a long sigh of relief as the curtains drew back, revealing the entire orchestra.

Maya, who had never cared much about other people's opinions of her, whistled and waved her arms in the air, drawing the attention of a dark-haired violinist. The girl smiled shyly before being shot a warning glare by the redhead beside her. The other girl Maya had waved to ignored her entirely, keeping her steely eyes focused somewhere in front of her, though she seemed not to be looking at the crowd and instead looking through them. She always made it look so easy to balance her cello, an instrument that would normally look a bit awkward next to someone her size. The conductor, a familiar man dark in both skin and hair, stood at the front with his back to the crowd, poised to direct, and Phoenix knew the grin on his face without being able to see it.

The room darkened further, so that the only lights were the ones illuminating the stage, and Phoenix held his breath as he always did. The twin violinists played the first few notes, and were slowly joined by the rest of the string instruments. The song progressed slowly for a short while, with no other instruments but strings, and slowed further for a moment as the violinists played alone again.

Then, a moment of silence, and all at once the entire orchestra sprang to life, and the strings were joined by brass and woodwind and percussion in a crescendo of sound, and Phoenix grinned. He didn't know much about music, but he had always loved dramatic openings like this one, and it was nice to see his friends in the spotlight.

The rest of the concert was made up of songs he was already familiar with, interspersed by occasional solos from the piano, from the flute, from the oboe, and at last from the violin and immediately after from the cello. He glanced over at Maya, and, as usual, she was teary-eyed and had her hands cupped over her mouth, while Larry, as usual, looked to be fighting to stay awake.

The concert drew to a close, and the musicians stood and bowed, and Maya and Larry paid no heed to the way everyone else was politely clapping while remaining seated and sprang to their feet to scream and holler and whistle. Phoenix saw the dark-haired violinist laugh nervously while her sister scoffed, and winced when he saw the cellist fix him, only him, with a glare. Almost as if she expected him to keep the other two reined in.

The audience began to disperse, some staying behind to meet up with friends and to discuss the standouts from the group, and Phoenix cut his way through the crowd with his elbows and a mantra of "Sorry, excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me". Larry and Maya all but clung to his back. Finally he made it to the stage, and the trio rushed up the stairs and behind the red curtains to find the majority of the musicians still gathered there.

"Oh my gosh, you guys were awesome!" Maya shouted, announcing their arrival, and she ran to the violin duo. The redhead's glare didn't change, but the raven-haired girl smiled at her and allowed Maya to clasp her hands and giggle.

"I saw that you didn't even have any sheet music, Iris. Did something happen to it or did you not need it?" Phoenix asked. Iris blushed when she saw him, and she fidgeted in her seat.

"A-ah. I'm afraid I lost it, and I was too embarrassed to say anything. Dahlia was nice enough to allow me to peek at hers if I needed it—"

"It's not a matter of being nice. I didn't want you embarrassing the rest of us because of your own stupid mistake."

As always, Dahlia's voice was harsh, and her words even harsher, and Iris' face fell. Everyone around them felt their faces drop, and Phoenix heard Larry cough awkwardly.

Iris was as as sweet as could be, but dealing with her sister was an entirely different issue, and unfortunately, Iris was so rarely without her sister. Phoenix no longer hid his dislike of her, and the two glared at each other. Dahlia didn't seem to have any other expressions but disgust, disinterest, and disdain.

Don't you have somewhere else to be? Circles of hell to rule over, children to possess?

Maya, however, was tenacious, and was mostly unfazed by Dahlia's criticism. Her grin quickly found its way back to her face.

"Nah, don't listen to her. It's amazing that you managed to play something so complicated without sheet music— Dahlia is just jealous that she can't do that!"

Dahlia recoiled like she'd been stabbed through the heart and her lips twisted into an ugly snarl as almost everyone in the room burst into laughter. Apparently no one was especially fond of her. Not that the hatred was undeserved.

Iris, however, looked at her sister with concern and warned the others to quiet down with her eyes. It was all Phoenix could do not to groan, not to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and explain to her that her sister didn't give a damn about her and just used her as a slave, but he couldn't have that same conversation again.

"Who allowed these fools backstage?!"

A thick German accent cut through the air like a knife, and at last the cellist showed herself. Phoenix giggled. She took herself awfully seriously for someone who always wore so many ruffles.

"Franzy, baby!" Larry called, running towards her with open arms and a cheeky grin, and she shot him a glare that froze him in place. Larry had always enjoyed teasing Franziska, but one of these days it was going to get him killed.

"Don't mind him. He's clearly trying to push your buttons," another voice assured, and a beautiful young lady with blonde hair pulled into a tight up-do and thin-framed glasses perched on her nose walked up beside the angry German girl. She pushed the glasses up with two fingers and smiled at Franziska, whose brow furrowed only slightly before she looked away.

"Oh, and there's Adrian. You know I wouldn't forget about you," Larry said in a strange low voice accompanied by a wink, and Adrian only chuckled before ignoring him in favor of Franziska.

"You know, Fran, I think that was the best I've ever heard you play," she giggled, and Franziska did something Phoenix had never seen her do— she blushed.

"Th-Thank you. It means a great deal coming from you," Franziska replied. She did her characteristic bow, extending her arms out by her sides with the hands turned down. It would have looked absurd if anyone else did it.

Maya, as always, imitated the pose. Franziska always pretended not to see it. Or at least, she had started doing so after the fifth time.

At last, "the girls" were assembled.

Phoenix had known Franziska since she had enrolled in Ivy University the previous year, and Iris, Dahlia, and Adrian from the year before that. Iris and Dahlia had had the dorm next to Maya and Ema's, so they had become friends rather quickly— with Iris, anyway. Dahlia was another story, but they were unfortunately more or less a package deal.

What bothered Phoenix most was that so many people fell for Dahlia's act. Both of the Hawthorne twins were gorgeous, but Dahlia's bright red hair and lacy flowing clothes and parasol apparently made her the more appealing package. Men flocked behind her, desperate to earn her attention. She was somehow able to convince people that she was horribly shy, that she was elegance and class in human form, and Iris often lived in her shadow.

The real Dahlia was a monster. Manipulative, backstabbing, condescending, sadistic— there was no word harsh enough to describe her complete lack of character and integrity. She would use anyone. Almost every word out of her mouth was a lie. And worst of all, she knew how to twist people around her finger, how to make people need her, and she had spent her entire life doing so to Iris.

Franziska von Karma was... A special sort of person. To be completely honest, she wasn't always pleasant to be around either. She was opinionated, and she was pretty scary. She had a characteristic and distinctly German brutality about her. She'd improved her temper somewhat— she no longer carried a whip everywhere she went, as she'd gotten in trouble for it more than a few times.

Some would probably question Phoenix and his crew's reason for considering the cellist something of a friend, but the truth was that she was fiercely loyal. She was far from affectionate, but if you had earned her respect, she would destroy anyone who harmed you. And, when Adrian was around, she could be nice. The older girl kept her calm, and didn't respond to her intimidation tactics. It was a good balance.

Adrian was great. She was smart, sophisticated, beautiful. She could be surprisingly anxious from time to time, and apparently had been rather dependent on others in the past, but she'd gotten help to treat the issue and was now quite independent. She came across as a bit cold from time to time, but she was generally a delight to be around. Maya had befriended Adrian and Franziska through Iris and Dahlia, and the rest was history.

Looking at them all, Phoenix had to ask the question that was on his mind.

"So... Why are you guys still performing concerts over summer break?"

Apparently, he had asked something offensive. All of the musical girls looked horrified, and he swore Franziska was going to hit him. Before any of them could say anything, he heard a darker, richer voice interrupt from somewhere behind him.

"Music doesn't take breaks! It requires constant practice. I expect my students to perform as well on break as they do during the school year."

Mr. Armando finally showed himself, having finished checking up on all of his other students. He grinned, flashing white teeth at them. Phoenix would never admit it, but he always felt a pang of angry jealousy when he saw the man. What right did one person have to be so dashing? Could he have not left any of it for him or Larry?

"Ah, that makes sense! I still make pottery even on break, and I know Phoenix still paints. We just don't have anything like an orchestra to show off in," Maya replied. Phoenix nodded. It did make sense, he supposed.

"I sculpt all day every day! You don't reach my level of talent without constant practice," Larry bragged, and no one paid him any mind.

Mr. Armando handed each of the girls a small bouquet, and Franziska bowed at him while Iris blushed, Adrian smiled, and Dahlia rolled her eyes. Maya giggled, and Armando grinned at her.

"Miss Fey. A pleasant surprise."

"Mr. Armando, why the bouquets? You've done more than enough," Iris asked, too overwhelmed to allow Maya time to respond. Maya waved a hand to indicate that she didn't mind it. Armando shook his head and clicked his tongue like it was a silly question.

"It's because you girls were so spectacular today. Particularly you, Miss Von Karma. You made this cellist quite proud."

At that, even Franziska couldn't pretend to be unaffected, and she blushed. Everyone laughed, and Phoenix smiled as he watched everyone interact while people bustled around them with their instruments in cases. He felt that he'd found himself a nice little group, certain demonic women aside, and he couldn't wait for the school year to begin so that they could all live on the same campus again.

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The next day, Phoenix wandered into the bookstore at his usual time and was immediately greeted by a troubling sight.

"Whoah, whoah, let me help you with that!"

He rushed forward and threw his arms underneath the enormous cardboard box he saw, unable to see the person attempting to carry it behind its sheer bulk. All he could tell at a glance was that whoever was lifting it had nearly fallen over under the weight.

Phoenix pulled upwards and managed to straighten out the box to a point where it could be more easily managed. He winced at the weight of it— he certainly couldn't have carried it alone, so why was this other person attempting to do so?

"Okay, you're straightened out now— where do you need to put it?"

As he waited for an answer, Phoenix looked down and noticed the other person's hands, and he recognized them instantly. When he did, he gulped and felt his face go red. He'd rushed in to help without thinking.

"...Mr. Wright? Is that you?"

Miles tried to peek his head around the box, and Phoenix could only see the edge of one of his angular bangs.

"U-Uh, yeah. I'm sorry— I didn't even realize that was you, Miles."

"Then you'd help a complete stranger. You don't have to apologize for that."

Well, that's true.

"If you don't mind my asking, where do we put this? It's really heavy—"

"Oh my goodness, I apologize— it most certainly is. Just into the backroom. The one behind the counter. It's a shipment."

"Don't they have anybody to help you with these things?!"

"Not normally, no, but they aren't usually this heavy."

It took quite a bit of awkward shuffling and lifting and pivoting of the box, but the two of them managed to squeeze the box in through the door and place it on the table inside. Miles immediately almost collapsed on the box, and as he stood to catch his breath Phoenix snuck a look at him in his entirety. Since he was almost always confined behind the counter, it was rare that Phoenix got a glimpse of his lower half.

He was somewhat broad at the shoulders, but he had a very narrow waist and relatively small hips. It was almost feminine, the curve he could see there. To his pleasant surprise, Miles also had a very nice—

Miles regained his energy and turned around, and Phoenix shook his head wildly as he was jarred from his little trance.

Knock it off, Phoenix!

"Thank you, Mr. Wright. I shouldn't have tried to lift it myself," Miles said, still breathing a bit heavily. Phoenix laughed sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck.

"Hey, you just wait until my scheduled arrival to try and lift anything like that. I'll always help you out, okay?"

At that, Miles cracked a little smile. He was no longer looking at Phoenix. He had grabbed a boxcutter and started cutting into the tape at the top of the box.

"I imagine you're curious about just what was so heavy," he mumbled, and Phoenix took this as invitation to lean in and peek at the lid.

The moment he had the box open, Miles groaned, and Phoenix winced.

The box was stuffed full of what looked to be thick antique books bound in cloth and leather, but whoever had packed it had paid no mind to their value. From where he was standing, Phoenix could see covers being stretched and pages being crumpled and folded.

Miles was clearly distressed to see this, and he bit his lip and muttered to himself.

"I have to get all of these out of here, I have to straighten out all of these pages, I—"

"Let's put it on the ground. I'll help you out," Phoenix offered, and Miles reflexively shook his head.

"No, you're a customer. I can't allow you to do that."

"Well, right now I'm a volunteer, and I can't just sit here and watch these beautiful books get ruined! What if I wanted to buy some of those?!"

Miles blinked at him for a moment, and then he sort of snickered under his breath.

"You do buy an awful lot of product. Fine, help me get this thing on the floor."

Phoenix did just that, and then the two of them quickly got to work pulling the books from the box and straightening out the damaged pages. Phoenix closely inspected each of his books to make sure the covers were unharmed. He looked around the room, and realized this was more or less the inventory area.

The room was surprisingly large. There was a table and a mini fridge near the door, and Phoenix decided that must be where everyone ate lunch. The door to this room was usually kept ajar so one could hear the ringing of the little bell on the counter. The rest of the room contained more bookshelves and lots of floorspace to sort through items.

As he studied the shelves, Phoenix noticed a few near the bottom that were labeled with names, and each had a few books on it that had yet to be priced. Kay. Ray. Miles.

"What's with the labeled shelves near the bottom?"

Miles paused for a moment to glance at them.

"...The owner allows us to stash away books for ourselves if we'd like to read them before someone else buys them, and if we want to keep them we can buy them from him at a discount. Everyone who works here loves books."

"Wow. That's really nice of him."

"It is."

They resumed working in silence, and Phoenix discreetly studied the shelf as best he could. For the most part, it contained many of the classics, or highly-regarded books. Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, The Grapes of Wrath and some others he recognized. Something else that caught his eye was one specific book— it was the only non-fiction book on display there. It was an anthology of history's most famous composers, and apparently discussed the impact each one had on the shape of classical music.

You do seem like a Mozart kind of guy, Phoenix thought, smiling to himself.

"You've got a lot of classics there," he said aloud, and Miles looked at the shelf again like he needed a reminder of what exactly was on it.

"Yes, well. My school offers extra credit over the summer break to people who read and write reports on them. I get through as many as possible. Of course, I'd read most of these growing up, but I need to refresh my memory to write a proper paper."

Phoenix, his current stack of books now fixed and neatly piled, perked up.

"So you're a college student." It wasn't really a question, but Miles responded like it was.

"...Yes. I thought you would have assumed so, since we are about the same age. As best I can tell, anyway."

"Y-Yeah, but you never really say anything about yourself, so I didn't want to assume."

Miles looked mildly amused by that remark.

"Should I be spilling my life story to everyone who buys something?"

Phoenix could only manage an awkward laugh at that, and he stood with his stack of books in hand.

"Where do these go?"

"On the top shelf. You'll need to use the stepladder."

Phoenix took one step forward and froze. He looked at Miles with wide eyes full of wonder. The other man looked somewhat exasperated.

"What is it?"

"You called it a stepladder."

"Is that not what it's called?"

"That is what it's called, but everybody gets it wrong!"

This is it. It's fate. We were meant to be, you and I.

"...Oh, that? I suppose people do get it wrong. I hadn't really noticed it, since it's not like it comes up in conversation a lot."

"There's a lot of talk about stepladders in an art department, trust me," Phoenix scoffed. Miles didn't seem to understand his passion on the subject, but he got it right. That's what mattered.

With everything organized and put away, Phoenix was unable to keep the conversation going. Miles was fixated on his work, and would have left Phoenix standing there by himself without giving it a second thought. So Phoenix bid the clerk farewell, and he couldn't help but practically skip away.

Miles would look really great in front of a piano, he thought.

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Maya waited on the sidewalk. The breeze was chilly, and her long black hair clung to her face from the force of it. She shivered, and then decided to duck inside the store. It struck her after she had gone inside how insistent Phoenix had been that it wouldn't take long, and that he'd be right back, and that she didn't need to go inside with him.

Phoenix visited this bookstore just about every day, and usually around the same time. He never talked much about it, which had always struck her as odd considering how much time he spent there. He'd gotten to a point where he'd return home with exactly one book after each trip, and his shelf had gotten quite full. She'd seen him giving books to other students in the area just to clear more space.

All of this made Maya assume the store visits were something of a chore, a mindless routine, and so she'd paid no mind to the thought of going inside with him. Instead, he'd practically shooed her away.

It was like he hadn't wanted her to see something, and when she realized this, her face split apart into a devious grin. She hid behind a display shelf as soon as she dove in through the frosted glass door and looked around for a mess of spiky hair. Phoenix was easy to pick out in a crowd, but she couldn't find him right away.

When she spotted him, she realized she'd missed him at first because it seemed like he was hiding, too. He stood partially blocked by a shelf, and he flipped through the pages of a book that he wasn't actually looking at. His gaze was directed elsewhere.

"What's he looking at?" The voice nearly made Maya jump, and she pulled the newcomer down with her.

"Lower your voice, Larry! I'm trying to figure that out." She wasn't sure where Larry had come from. She guessed he'd been in the area to hit on that same barista for the thirtieth time, the one that worked in the coffee place on the corner.

Maya scanned the room and realized that Phoenix was looking at the cashier's desk. He didn't seem to be interested in the employee, the young woman with a voluminous black ponytail and an unusual hairpiece— it seemed more like he was focused on the door behind her, and on the clock above it. Maya and Larry exchanged a confused glance.

The clock's hand moved, and the female employee left. She exchanged places with a young man, and he took her place behind the counter. Phoenix counted on his fingers, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the shadows, smiling at the cashier.

Said clerk looked up, and recognition made his expression change ever so slightly.

"Ah, Mr. Wright. Back so soon?" He said. His voice was low, cool, and quiet. It was almost soothing to the ear.

Maya moved her head up to get a look at the cashier's face, and immediately she knew. She knew. She had to drop to the floor to stifle her laughter.

"What, what?!" Larry whisper-shouted as he followed her. Maya nearly choked on her giggles and hid her face in her robes. When she had calmed down, she grinned at Larry.

"Larry... It's the cashier."

"...I'm sorry?"

Maya groaned and flapped her arms.

"Phoenix visits this bookstore so he can ogle the guy behind the counter," she screeched. She was annoyed with herself for not guessing it sooner. Phoenix had always been a hopeless romantic, and he'd literally asked her about love at first sight.

It was a bit unusual that the object of his affections was a boy this time around. Phoenix had only ever gone for girls. That being said, Maya had always detected a certain... curiosity in him, and she had always suspected that his romantic inclinations could easily overlook something as insignificant as gender.

Maya watched the two young men converse and noted the bright sparkle in Phoenix's eyes. She memorized the clerk's face, made up her mind to be meddlesome, and then grabbed Larry's jacket sleeve and pulled him out of the store.

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A/N: adrian plays the viola, by the way. in case i never mention it later or fail to work it into the story: she's only minoring in music because of her practical nature and has some sort of business major. and dahlia is so blatantly hellspawnish in front of phoenix and crew because she knows they can already see through her, so she sees no point in keeping up her act, especially if it gives her a way to manipulate iris.