6

Joseph

Joseph lit up the tip of the cigarette as he stood in front of the glass window of his room, looking at the empty and quiet street of the Westwood neighborhood at night. He exhaled and smoke came out from his mouth.

"This town is pretty quiet I must say..." He muttered, taking another puff of smoke.

Suddenly, the corner of his eyes caught movements behind the bushes at the opposite side of the road, where the park is located. He squinted his eyes, sharpening his view of what he saw earlier.

Behind one of the bushes, the leaves rustled, as if someone was purposefully shaking it, but the probability that it was some street cats that were out playing that night was also there. After a few moments of shaking, the bush stopped. Then his eyes widened.

Coming out from the bushes, a few tiny lights flew and head towards an unknown direction. Rather than heading straight, the pattern of the lights were uneven as if they're dancing as they twirled with each other.

Joseph's eyes glinted out of excitement.

"Fairies....?"

Immediately, he took out his notebook from his suitcase on the bed before writing the phenomenon of what he just saw.

"Flying light, sparks bigger than a firefly, abnormal pattern as if dancing together...."

Joseph stopped at the word 'together' when he was struck with a sense of nostalgia. He stared at the word for a while before stroking the word gently with the tip of his fingers. Then, he sighed.

"Serah, you're still there, aren't you?"

He went back to the window and gazed at the starless night sky.

"Please come back..."

***

Noel

Noel focused intently on the book that he read titled 'Journey of A Thousand Cat Soul'. Apparently the book tells about a single once blind black cat that brings the will of other deceased cats to explore the mundane world while seeking for her owner that healed her eyes.

As he immersed himself at the finale where the cat finally unravelled the truth about her owner's past, the bell to the main door chimed a cheerful tune. His eyes  perked up.

Entering from the main door was a small twinkling orange yellowish light the size of a medium sized book. As it got nearer, the twinkling light began to take form of a miniature humanoid. The humanoid smiled and Noel's face brightened.

"It's been a short while. How's the condition over there? Getting better?"

The humanoid landed on the table.

"Yes! Apparently Mr. Human likes my food, that's why he eat it unquestionably."

The pixie saluted in front of Noel. When the douche were drunk and fell unconscious, Noel entrusted a pixie named Irya' to take care of his daily needs. Unsurprisingly, that douche is not the type to do domestic chores so his house was an utter chaos. Fortunately, Irya' likes doing house chores so that kind of works suits her.

After chatting for a while, Irya'excused herself. As he followed her glimmering  trails of pixie dust with the corner of his eyes, Noel leaned against the wooden chair behind the reception table and glanced at the clock. 2 o'clock in the morning. It might be because the library just opened, but for now there’s not much visitors visiting the library. He's hoping to get any visitor even if it means animals or spirits.

Suddenly, the main door bell chimed and a silhouette came in. A man with a tall figure appeared behind the door. As he monitored his surroundings, he adjusted his semi circle pair of glasses.

"Welcome to the library. How may I help you?"

Noel greeted him. The glasses guy looked surprised, probably wondering whether Noel is a legit human or not. Even so, his smile was wide, full of calmness as he made his way towards him.

"Excuse me? Is this place is by any chance, a library?" He asked the obvious.

“Yes it is.” Noel answered, playing along. "May I help you with something?"

Noel diverted the glasses guy’s focus—which he kept to him for the longest of times—to stop looking at him. The reason why he did that was because his ability to read through one’s mind, and he almost dangerously entered the glasses guy’s subconscious mind, reading his thoughts without his permission. The man fell silent for a while, baited by his question. Then, he approached a stool that was located in front of the reception desk.

"May I sit here?"

He gestured towards the stool.

"Yes, of course. Make yourself comfortable." Noel replied.

The man sat, and after awhile, he heaved a low, tired sigh. Noel raised an eyebrow.

"Did something concerns you, mister?"

The man rose his head, displaying his dark emerald eyes—which was more apparent upon closer look—to meet the lunar grey eyes of Noel's.

"...You have a very beautiful eyes, almost like the moon. I bet there are many people who were enchanted by those beautiful eyes of yours."

The man blurted out, baring his emerald irises at Noel. Noel professionally bloomed a smile.

"Thank you for the compliment. I do admit being asked for my contact number by many people when I rested in a cafe and such."

He replied the most general answer. Meanwhile, he secretly gestured the gremlins who were hiding behind the bookshelves to make some drinks for the man in front of him and they quickly followed.

The man briefly chuckled. Before soon enogh, a grim expression clouded his face.

"What's the matter, mister?" Noel studied his face.

The man put up a half smile and replied.

"Call me Joseph. Noel, isn't it?"

Joseph glanced at the name tag attached to Noel's right chest. Noel nodded a yes as a reply.

"Noel, do you like, believe in fairies and stuffs?"

Noel fluttered his eyes. He tried his best to hide his surprised expression.

"I do know a bit. I've read it somewhere before."

He said, hoping that Joseph didn't sense his discomfort in the topic. He didn't lie when he said that he had read about fairies—his own kin, but how can he tell people that he's one of them? These days, there were fairy hunters that hunt fairies for profit, because of that, it was Noel’s responsibility as a guardian of all fairies to seal most of the passageway from the human world to the fairy world and left some of them open for important matters so that those destructive things didn’t happen inside his world or in any other world.

Judging from his demeanor, Joseph didn't seem like a fairy hunter. Noel didn't sense any hostility when he said the word 'fairies', just a little bit of, sadness?

Joseph fell silent again. At the same time, the drinks prepared by the gremlins arrived and Noel fetched it before Joseph realized that the tray with drinks was floating behind him.

"Hm?"

Joseph lifted his head to see Noel holding the tray high above his head.

Noel cleared his throat and quickly served the drinks in front of Joseph.

"Wow, I never know a library that served drinks to their visitors."

Joseph paced his eyes between the mug of hot chocolate with some marshmallows on top and the lining of warm chocolate chip cookies on a plate.

"Well, now you know one. Besides, our library didn't have many visitors, I didn't allow it."

Noel took a sip of his hot chocolate and sighed. Joseph stared at him. He felt like something was off with the way he spoke earlier but he brushed it off his mind.

"You see, I have a friend called Serah, she is 10 years older than me. When we were little, we would always play together with my big sister in the woods behind our house. But suddenly..."

Joseph stroked the handle of the mug. His expression darkened.