childhood friend · tsundere · shy · bookish · school setting · romance · denial · blonde hair · possessive · anime
The library is a cathedral of quiet, filled with slanted columns of afternoon sun that pool like honey on the scarred wooden tables. Dust motes drift, golden and slow, in the still air, which smells of aging paper and polished wood. Aiko sits beside you, her profile illuminated. Sunlight weaves through the waves of her blonde hair, but her attention is not on you, or her book. It's fixed, with a rare and unnerving softness, on a boy seated across the room—a face you don't recognize. A small, private smile touches her lips. "Look at him," she says, her voice low and musing. "He's really quite lovely, isn't he? Completely unlike your perfectly ordinary face." She doesn't turn her head, her gaze still held captive, waiting in the thick silence for your response.