There are certain emotions that Lucien has decided look ugly on him, and anger is one of them, so he's replaced that with conviviality in the soles of his feet as he bounces across the sidewalk, in the swinging of his arms back and forth by his side, in the smile plastered upon his face to make it seem as though that anger isn't still present deep inside of him, except now it's not so much anger, rather a hollow confliction between the two opinions consuming his brain, one side knowing that I'm correct and the other side fighting that acceptance to instead live forever in its childish reverie.

I have chosen not to talk or think about that minor argument in the house right before we ventured outside of it towards the library, because I would prefer to save the arguments for later, when we're crumbling like I know we will be eventually. This is the state of a relationship where everything looks beautiful to the couple, where they've just met and are whirled into each other, into their magnificence, into their quirks, into their knowledge that they share with the opposite party to allure them, and each part of this state is what people would love to remain in, but unfortunately that is not how relationships operate. No one can afford to spend their honeymoon forever. However, that's where Lucien and I are as long as we can afford it, and that bliss shouldn't be squandered on worrying about what will happen when we are no longer in this state, so this trip to the library is both a refresher from the prior argument and a reminder that life is exceptionally beautiful just as the other person is.

Yes, this isn't a library trip born from the desire to take a break from life in the apartment, because Lucien actually has a job here, a job from which he'll probably be fired if he abstains from working to instead relish the metaphysical terrors of writing alongside me, and quite frankly we're in need of money, so to be fired from our only source of income (besides Lucien's dwindling fund left from skipping college) would not be so pleasant, and I'm not sure how we would survive after that, which means I shouldn't pressure Lucien into staying in that apartment even if we didn't have that argument earlier, and this library excursion is ostensibly essential to our survival.

It's not like he actually has to work diligently, though, because he can pretend like I'm a regular library patron and not his familiar roommate, and Lucien's manager won't give a shit as long as he doesn't find out about our relationship to one another, and even then we have an excuse of my urge to write an article, and I'm sure his manager will appreciate my intellectual merit, as I must have enough of it to visit the fucking library in order to expand on that intellectual merit through a dreary article that only impresses people who have no knowledge of their own and feed off of me, acting as though they've received it after reading my work when in reality they'll always be the same dimwitted fools that they have always been, because intelligence is derived by experiencing the world, not by reading about it through a lens of artificiality, and writers are to blame for this, I suppose, because they experience this world so vividly that they write about it vividly, yet it's not the same as the real life, but regular people assume it is, so that's all for which they settle, and they've therefore lured themselves into a painful existence of mediocrity that they aren't aware of and will continue to dwell in until they experience the world vividly through their own vision, but that's highly unlikely for people who have already delved into reading articles like it's the heroin that these self-titled scholars can all afford from the comfort of their sitting rooms as they have no idea that I'm suffering through hell, and that's okay, because they wouldn't really understand anyway, but Lucien does, and that's why I'm glad that if I'm to be snared in a flimsy relationship, it's with him.

And he looks so amazing in his trance upon the sidewalk, spritzed by splendor in the heavenly dew commonly found upon grass freshened in the morning air. I never wish to disturb him, but we're at the library now, and the slamming and the creaking of the doors will surely rattle him, as well as the subtle chattering of the library patrons who really don't want to be here but are forced into it by their parents who have concluded that perpetual studying is the way to go, and even through this sound, Lucien is as cherubic as always, a blessing to us all.

All of us except for his manager, who emerges from the back room with a malevolent expression already throttling his reddening face, but Lucien checks the clock suspended upon the wall above the desk and, before his manager can complain about his lateness, announces, "I am one minute early, sir, and your institutional punishments will not thrive amidst the barriers of my well deserved impunity!"

It never ceases to amaze me how Lucien is always able to coordinate his time (excluding that one anecdote where he was stricken by the sleep deprivation induced by his constant writing sessions), how he can just narrowly escape the glare of his manager for being late, because he had only one minute to spare. It's fantastic, and it's stunningly typical of him as well.

Lucien glides towards the counter after that, protected by the astonishment freezing his manager's body, and he ushers me to him with no protest from the now paralyzed man, because honestly Lucien has done much worse than invite a guest behind the desk.

It is only when a library patron approaches the manager that he unfreezes himself from his petrified state and therefore leaves us to do whatever we please as long as we don't disrupt anyone, because the manager will not be spying on us with his circular glasses and rampant spite, though that's never stopped Lucien any other time, as he's a free spirit, someone I wish that I could be, but I'm not that person, so I only admire those who are from the sidelines.

He's pragmatic, too, with that determined expression coating the entirety of his visage and shoving itself over for no other emotion, only set on achieving the goal of selecting the correct numbers out of his catalogue to sort through the books and the labels and the confusion of being a nascent librarian, and it's difficult work, work that Lucien despises doing, so I inform him of my plan so that he can pretend to be helping a regular library patron while he basically just hangs out with his friend.

"I'm looking for a book." Lucien says nothing, only carries on with his convoluted job of sorting things that won't matter by tomorrow, so I repeat myself, "I said I'm looking for a book."

Lucien finally glances up, groaning as if I'm a child who cannot grasp any concept that he's trying to teach me. "Yes, I know what you said, but you never specified the title of the book, and this is a place full of them, so how am I supposed to find it for you when all you've given me is a general description of what everything else is in this godforsaken library?"

"There's isn't a title," I confess, more damaged than I should be for this situation. "I'm out of ideas for an article, and I was hoping that the rows of books could help me find something about which to write. I thought you would enjoy a break from the monotony of...cataloguing books."

Lucien is adamant for a moment, but then he rises from his position by the counter to aid me in my search for a book to use to research topics for an article, his manager taking no note of this, as he's occupied by a library patron and by the misconception that Lucien is only doing his job earnestly, which is less than true, and even if the manager is cognizant of this, he has had enough of Lucien's antics or rather dealing with them, so it's better just to leave him to his scheming.

"I happen to thoroughly enjoy cataloguing books," he pouts.

Lucien's fingers tumble over the fluctuations in the spines of the books furnishing the grandiose shelves stacked one by one in meticulous intervals of seven feet, and he's almost like a child in the way that the motion never ceases except to recoil slightly when there's a wider book next to a smaller one, as if he's been harmed by it. He imbibes the fragrance of fresh books, of old books, of books mistreated in a short period of time, of books treated well in a prolonged period of time, of books and their majesties, of books and their holiness, of books. And he's happy in this place, in the familiar machinery of intellect, and it would be pleasant to see him here forever, but he's gone all of the sudden, hidden by the towers of knowledge without so much as a sound besides the elation brimming in his extraordinary brain.

"Lucien?" I call, a tad louder than I should be speaking in a library, and I receive some infuriated hushes from the other library patrons from locations that I can't even see from behind the shelf. Alas, no one unsheathes themselves from the aisles to greet me again, certainly not Lucien, and I begin to worry about where he has gone, if this is a sick prank or if he's abandoned me to return to his work because I was too damn annoying for him to get anything done, but I have no idea where I should stop, and I don't ever, so peeling from the current aisle, I move on to the next one to find it as empty as the last.

Whipping around in a frenzy that is turning to hopelessness, I once again recognize that the aisle is vacant, and with the spaces in the shelves all full with books, it seems as though I am trapped within its walls, suffocating in my own paranoia and exaggeration.

I'm just about to give up on scouring the aisles for Lucien to instead return to the desk where he'll be at some point, when I spin around to face the person for whom I've been scavenging rapidly, so close that our breath strains longingly for each other. His ocean blue eyes are tipped towards me, teasing every fiber of strength that I may have retained, his mouth cracked just enough to capture a straw within it, and he's staring intently at me. That's all he does — just stares, sometimes trailing down to my lips then flicking his attention back up to my eyes, where panic dashes around madly in an attempt to sort through what the hell is happening and why it's so alluring in this state of pandemonium.

Lucien nears me in a gradual track, seemingly with the intention of a kiss, but, perpetuating his stare, he instead procures a book from behind his back and slants it towards me. "I found something you might like."

And with that, he's strolling down the aisle again, the fucking tease that he is, and goddamn do I need to catch my breath.  

~~~~~

A/N: lmao I fooled you all

cynicism: reserving a life that centres only on one's personal goals

~Dakotease