Hard To Read With One Eye, Huh? {Joel}

[Argent Valentine]

It had been a long while since Argent got his fix with books. He didn't bring any with him to the academy, and the boy was getting antsy. It was about time he headed to the library. Argent's favorite genre was of course, romance. If the one-eyed boy couldn't find love, at least he could get lost in a story about it. Books like this always make him cry, so he tends to read in private. The plan was to get a book and get out. Argent finally arrived, and was starstruck at the vast collection the school had to offer. Surely there was a book just waiting to be opened by him. He made a quickly paced walk towards the romance section. In a perfect world, Argent would be able to find books about two boys falling in love, but that wasn't exactly per the norm, so he would most likely have to settle for one of those "boy meets girl, girl meets boy" sort of deals. His quickly scanning to and fro with every column until something caught his eye. "'Tis Butter To Free The Heart'...?" The eye-patch lad mumbled the peculiar title of the lavender colored book. Argent picked the book out and read the inside cover. Supposedly the story follows a young trainer and his Butterfree. The Butterfree finds a shiny Butterfree and falls in love, but he can't just leave his trainer. The last sentence suggested that the trainer makes a difficult decision. Argent grinned. A Pokemon love story? Why not? It seemed to be a good read.

While making his way to the front of the library to make the check out, Argent started to read the book while walking. The book opened with the protaganist trainer and his Butterfree wandering through the woods. When suddenly...Argent's train of thought was cut short as he felt himself walk into some kind of obstacle. With a slight inward gasp, the boy fell backwards and the book dropped about two feet to the right of him. Argent attempted to grab at something, but instead grabbed some books that fell of their shelves. He fell with a light thud. The boy rubbed his head. "I'm so terribly sorry. I wasn't really paying attention." The boy muttered with more interest in the book he couldn't find. He started to search for it without looking up to whoever he bumped into.

[Joel Battles]

Joel perused the library's abundant selections almost every day, searching desperately for the book he hoped had simply been checked out while he was hot on its trail and that there'd be some trap door inside the shelf with a note that led him to a first-edition copy to take home for himself.. an eventuality he considered to be exciting and, more importantly, likely. However, his incessant nagging toward the librarian was met with the same unadulterated response, though Joel found it to grow more condescending by the day.

"No, Mr. Battles. There is not and has never been a publication written about training fingerless pokemon to play string instruments," the receptionist recited through tired eyes. At this point, Joel noticed that it became somewhat of a chant, probably because of the plethora of opportunities she's had to practice on the teenager in the week since he began mercilessly stalking the library. She seemed set in her ways, adamant in her mighty belief that Pokemon are not meant to play pianos. But he would have none of it.

"You keep saying that, and I know it's not true! Where do you keep it?!" Joel responded petulantly, refusing to give up the search. However, when he found his opponent in this stage staring tiredly at him, almost beckoning with her pupils for Joel to suck on a railroad spike, he gave a quick glare and sped back to the bookshelf where he thought it belonged. There was only an empty space, a gap which had been there all week, leading Joel to believe that somebody had checked out this divine book embodying irony and kept it for themselves; maybe they were sitting in one of the corners watching, laughing heartily like a viking. Maybe they took the book and burned it, never to be seen again! 

Joel jerked and shook off the growing tears he couldn't bear to restrain given the circumstance, before being violently struck by the body of another student. He fell to the tile floor with a contained thud, his eyes rolling around obnoxiously before settling on the perpetrator. Joel was too busy seeing stars and hearing Kabalevsky loop in his head to listen to what he figured was the vacant and dishonest apology of the ridiculously red-haired individual. His mouth opened, and the words rolled out.

"Hey Eyepatch, what was that about?"

((aforementioned song))

[Argent Valentine]

Argent was still fumbling around until he heard the comment about his eye patch. The sentence hit the boy like a wrecking ball. He is not neccessarily self conscious about himself, but the eye patch was something Argent was very embarrassed about. "Eye....patch...?" Argent looked up towards the person in question who said the comment. The boy was strikingly handsome to Argent, but his sorrow far outweighed his attraction. His left eye started to tear up.The poor boy takes criticism very seriously even if the statement wasn't meant to hurt him. He stammered, "I-I'm...s-s-sorry...*sniff*..." Argent was beating himself up on the inside. Did he really hit the other boy that hard? Was it necessary to be called eye patch by this stranger? Was his eye patch stupid? Argent lowered his head in shame. It's safe to say the boy is a drama queen. He slowly started to shuffle through the pile of books he made in search of the novel he was wanting to check out, sniffling as he did.

[Joel Battles]

The moment the music faded from his head and his sight began to return, Joel heard the boy's sniffs and stifled whimpers, and threw his head back to the floor, groaning.

Not one of THESE people.

It wasn't that Joel hated people like this. It's that they were one of his only soft spots; people like Argent were one of the only things that made the boy feel disgusted with himself, contemplating his own impulse control.

With an even more dramatic groan, Joel threw his body forward so that he was sitting up, and pushed at the ground to bring himself to his feet. Dusting off his decidedly dustless pants for effect, he watched Argent tear through the books, wondering why he'd check one out before searching for another.

I really need him to know how weird that is.. but I've already caused enough trouble.

With a sigh, he rested his hand on Argent's shoulder, inhaled deeply, and apologised. "Look, I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean anything by it. Just.. calm down."

He clicked his tongue embarrassingly before bending over the pile of books, examining them with significantly less laziness than usual, thanks entirely to his guilt for insulting the poor guy and a sudden desire to help.

"What are you looking for?"

[Argent Valentine]

It all happened so fast and it was all so embarrassing. Argent was merely just flustered by the whole ordeal. He flinched slightly when he felt the other boy's hand on his shoulder, but when he heard the apology, he relaxed a little. "O-...okay..." He looked up at the other boy and made a tiny smile. It seemed the eye patch comment was simply from the spur of the moment. Argent sighed in relief. How awful would it have been for some stranger to just call him names? The boy felt stupid since he jumped to conclusions about the situation. The other boy asked what he was looking for. Argent was embarrassed to admit it, but he didn't want to lie either. "It's a lavender looking book. I think it was called 'Tis Butter To Free The Heart." Argent's face reddened. "It's...a romance novel." He thought the other boy must think he's so lame for checking out THAT kind of book. Even so, Argent was thankful that at least the other boy wanted to help. His left eye stung a little on the count that when Argent focuses it to hard, it strains. This was mainly the reason why Argent could not detect the book. He may need a monocle or something.