Dmitri gets a late night visitor at the library, but it isn’t Vanya.
Characters: Dmitri, Mishka, Vanya
Warnings: None
Wordcount: 1,178
Vibe: imagine dealing with a kpop stan in real life
AN:
hi im super manic and running on. no hours of sleep! so if this is less comprehensible than normal. uh. sorry.
takes place 2029, after lune’s retirement was announced. mishka is an annoying lune stan.
for week1 of the writing prompt thread. prompt was ‘write about a time when your character felt embarrassed!’
— When’s your shift over btw?
–6am
–Ouchh lol. Guess that gives me time to take a nap 😛
–I’ll try n meet you when you get off work 👍
It was 3am, and the library was expectedly very quiet.
Dmitri just sighed and slumped back in his chair. Nights were always slow, but someone had to be around to keep the library open.
Currently, Dmitri was the only person on staff – not including the resident pokemon of the library, though they mostly keep to themselves.
As far as Dmitri knew, nobody was in the building except for him and those pokemon. Usually, it was only Vanya who ever came in as late as she did. But even though Vanya had promised to meet him later, she was busy. Which meant Dmitri had absolutely nothing to do for the next 3 hours.
Thankfully, his employers were pretty relaxed about him browsing the internet if he had no work to do – and Dmitri finished the last of the sorting he needed to do an hour ago. So, he went ahead and clicked into a his blog feed’s tab and started scrolling. The blog feed was also pretty dead around this time, but thankfully he was following a number of Unovan people who were awake at this time. And it would seem they were being pretty vocal – because while everyone on Dmitri’s side of the world was asleep, it appeared some celebrity in Unova had just retired. Dmitri was never a huge fan of her, but admittedly collected some of her merchandise because the plushie style was cute.
Suddenly, the bell on the front door jingled.
Looking away from his computer screen, Dmitri saw a rather interestingly dressed man looking around – he looked a bit lost. But Dmitri wasn’t one to initiate, only to assist. The young man’s eyes landed on Dmitri, and he approached the desk.
“Hi! Wow, I didn’t know they had places open this late, humans are so funny! Can you help me find someone?” he asked, his voice inflection very unusual.
Dmitri was a bit confused by the phrasing and question.
“Sorry I… did you mean you need help finding something? I’m… a librarian, I can help you find a book if you need to.”
“No, no! My nose told me she was here! Is Vanya here?”
Oh. Of course.
Dmitri wasn’t supposed to mention when regulars were around, but…
“No, she’s not. Sorry.”
“Mmm, that’s weeeeeeird. I guess the city messes my nose up.” the strange young man said.
His attention shifted to behind Dmitri, to his computer screen – where he had left the screen on a flashy video that was autoplaying on loop. And despite it being at an angle and a couple feet away, the man’s eyes lit up when he saw it.
“OH EM GEE. Hold on, you’re a fan of her too?!”
“…What?”
“Lookie! On your computer! That’s Lune, right?” he said, partially jumping onto the desk and pointing at the monitor.
Dmitri wanted to tell this strange visitor to leave some personal space, but something just seemed… off about him. Still, the thought of anyone peering into his personal interests was embarrassing – even if they weren’t even things he was into.
“Oh… it’s just a post I was scrolling past. People have been going wild about her, apparently she’s retiring or something.”
All of a sudden, the man’s demeanor changed. He was no longer smiling, and almost gave off… a sinister, spiteful energy.
“What?“
His voice almost sounded like a growl.
Dmitri had gone from feeling awkwardly embarrassed to feeling awkwardly terrified. Sure, he’d had his fair share of nutjobs come in late at night, but this person was the worst he’d seem.
The young man, without warning, skittered over Dmitri’s desk, and Dmitri was powerless to stop him.
He lunged into the desk chair and glued his eyes to the screen, frantically reading over the post that contained the video.
And, after a moment of silence, with the sinister feeling in the air weighing heavy – the man broke the silence.
“NOOOOOOOoooo… this is the WORST THING EVER!!” the man said, his tone back to ‘normal’ – if not a bit whimpery. The heavy feeling in the air was gone.
“Not before I could see her live-!! Vanya promised…!”
Vanya…
Dmitri just stood there, kind of in awe.
“I’m, uh… sorry to hear about that.” he said, unsure of how to segue to ‘please get out of my deskspace‘.
In a way, it kind of reminded Dmitri of himself when he was younger and his favorite mascot brand was discontinued. It felt like the end of the world because it was the one thing he had been clinging onto… it was embarrassing in retrospect, but he did feel sympathy.
Though, that was Dmitri when he was 16, and this person was presumably a grown adult.
The bell on the front door chimed again.
“Hey! Thought I’d pop in earl-” Vanya said, though her eyes grew wide on seeing the strange man.
“MISHKA, WHAT THE FUCK.”
Dmitri stepped aside, allowing Vanya to fully see the man on the computer – who he assumed must be named Mishka.
“Vanya!! I was looking for you!! I followed your scent here but you weren’t here…” he said.
“B-but!! You’ll never guess – the worst thing ever just happened!”
“I told you not to leave the apartment! You’re lucky I know this guy!” Vanya replied, pointing to Dmitri – who seemed very, very confused.
“I knooooow… but I was worried!” Mishka said apologetically.
“You know him?”
Vanya rubbed her temples. She was wearing her performance outfit, so she took off her mask.
“Yea, god, just… ugh.”
“Vanya…” Dmitri started.
“He’s… only been minimally troubling.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Why isn’t he supposed to be here, anyways?”
“It’s something you wouldn’t understand, Dmitri.” Vanya sighed.
“Look, it’s 4am, your shift is supposed to end in 2 hours, yea? I’ll keep Mishka distracted, bet he’ll like the Hisuian stuff upstairs. Just text me when the morning shift person comes in.”
“Alright…”
Vanya motioned over to Mishka to follow her.
“Mishka! C’mon! There’s some stuff upstairs I think you should check out. You can tell me about this worst thing ever, too.”
Mishka stared at the looping video for a few more seconds, then turned to Vanya and jumped the desk.
“Okiii! Let’s go!”
With that Vanya and Mishka went upstairs – though Dmitri noticed Mishka’s gait was a bit odd, and he went up the stairs on all fours.
Ever since he met Vanya… things just seemed to get weirder. And just when he thought he’d seen it all, a strange idol fanatic had to come in at the dead of night. But at the same time, it was… nice. After isolating himself for so long, Dmitri had someone he could call a friend, even if she was technically under his curse of eternal nightmares.
And even though he was incredibly odd and gave Dmitri some secondhand embarrassment… perhaps Mishka could be a friend too?
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