Chapter Text
You knew that the reindeer headband would come in handy someday.
Rewinding time to roughly 3 hours ago, you were tiredly walking down the streets of New York city from a christmas party that your workplace held annually. It was a mandatory event thrown by the heads of the company in hopes of bringing everyone closer together. It was good in theory, but in practice it was an event that you dreaded every year. The awkward hovering by the food table to avoid conversation, the people greeting you by your name when you didn’t know theirs, and the chairman up on stage addressing everyone as “partners” as if he thought of his employees as people instead of a number in their ever growing data.
“...was wondering if you wanted to go to my birthday party?”
You blinked and tuned back into the conversation with…what was his name….uhh Nick?
“Oh uh…” You took a drink of the watery fruit punch in an attempt to form a response. “Who else is going?”
“Oh no, it will be just the two of us!” Nick quickly explained. “Just you and me, y’know?”
You stared at him in disbelief and nervously laughed, taking a big gulp of your drink once again and quickly dismissed yourself to go to the bathroom.
Yeah, fuck no, you would rather read a 5,000 page encyclopedia on geology than painfully sit through another conversation with another coworker…and no one likes geology.
The reindeer headband you wore to the party to show a semblance of the holiday spirit was shoved into the depths of your backpack and you were trudging through the busy sidewalk, ready to go into the one place that you only really hung out at outside of your apartment.
The lion statues on the sides of the entrance to the public library loomed over you, but you have never felt more welcomed. Feeling recharged just by the sight, you happily walked up the stairs and under the archway through the front doors. You waved enthusiastically at the front desk person who you see daily, and they didn’t even move a muscle, too absorbed in scrolling their phone and munching on their bagel…and you couldn't be happier.
The library was dark and there were cobwebs hidden around every corner. The air was musty, probably from the dead rat caught in the mousetrap that you’ve seen in that one corner that has never once been thrown out. You don’t think you’ve actually seen another soul in the library during your visits 5 months in. But hey, you weren't complaining, you liked being by yourself and having no one around to bother you or distract you was a plus in your book…heh.
It was dank and basically abandoned, but it was your haven.
Immediately, you zoomed through the shelves and into the little corner that you claimed as yours. It was simple, with just a small table with a vase atop holding a couple of flowers and a couch shoved against the wall. But to the left was the section that really secured the spot for you. Shelves upon shelves of romance books lined the whole section of this library and you could spot the book that you had left last time on the shelf.
“Oh Valentino, you know how to keep a person waiting.” You swooned against the bookshelf, a hand to your heart and the other against your forehead, closing your eyes and imagining yourself instead leaning against a person. Raising the hand that was against your forehead above your head, you plucked the black book into your awaiting hands and skipped to your couch, the imprint of your butt etched into the seat from many days of reading.
You rubbed your eyes and yawned, checking the time on your phone. You squinted against the bright light of your phone screen and realized how late it had gotten. Quickly scrambling up, you hurriedly put back “Stolen Love” in its correct place (you had spent weeks reorganizing the romance section, having had to learn the libraries classification system for christ sake). Rushing out towards the entrance, you heard a thud behind you and turned around. Oops, you had knocked down a book in your haste. Quickly walking back, you picked up the book and you were about to put it back on the shelf when it suddenly flew out of your hands.
“What the…?”
It grew in size and was opened to show off what looked to be a pair of sharp paper teeth and a red book marked tongue…?
Catching a glimpse at the title, you groaned.
“Ugh, geology? Seriously??” Before you were suddenly swallowed up by the book.
You felt pressure from all around your body, as if you were between the pages of a book, and felt yourself getting dizzy from the constant spinning that you felt. Before you could figure out whatever the hell was happening, you were suddenly kissing the floor and quickly pulled yourself up with a gasp.
Whipping your head back and forth, you surveyed your surroundings.
There were walls upon walls of books all around you, most vertically but some horizontal, diagonal, and some were straight up just floating through the air. There were stairs upon every direction you could see and areas dedicated to studying were on the walls, as if gravity didn't exist. Where the hell were you?
Taking another closer look, you could tell you were probably in the lobby of the library, with the giant pillar of a desk looming ominously across the room full of tables and quiet patrons of the library.
Wait a minute, why are there only yokai’s in this library?
You tensed up as a snake yokai slithered past you, a couple of library books clutched in their hands. They side-eyed you and gave you a wide berth. You gulped.
“Excuse me, but where am I?” You whispered. If they weren't already cautious of you before, they most likely are now with the weird look they gave you.
“Uh, the mystic library?”
“Ah uhm, where specifically?”
“...in the Hidden City…?”
Sensing that you were going into shock, they quickly slithered away, leaving you standing in the middle of the room looking like a slack jawed idiot.
The news of an entirely hidden city underneath New York filled with monsters had only broken just shy of 4 years ago, with the invasion of the Kraang outing the yokai’s place through, what people now call them, the heroes of New York. Everyone was holding their breath that day, you faintly remembered. The footage that you had seen was shot in a helicopter, as everyone in New York that fateful day had just disappeared without a trace, except for 4 yokai turtles who were responsible for defeating the Kraang and bringing everyone in New York back. Honestly, you had seen enough movies to not be surprised that there was an entire civilization underneath New York and that it was attacked by weird slime monsters, the city is always getting absolutely decimated when it comes to alien invasions in America in fictional stories. Thankfully you were living in San Francisco when the Kraang invasion had been happening, all the way across the country, but god only knows why you had decided to move to New York.
You turned around mechanically towards the tall desk that seated an old looking bat…lady…? With a yellow robe on her shoulders, her pair of reading glasses resting on her bat nose and a long pair of ears pointing upwards, her intimidating figure made itself known to you. Even though everyone and their mothers now knew about the yokai’s existence, you don’t see them much often on the streets of New York, but it's understandable for a species that had wanted to keep themselves unknown to the human race being outed out of nowhere one day. Still though, this was the first time that you have ever seen a yokai in front of your own eyes, so no one can blame you for being rooted in place right?
Besides, based on the stares aimed your way, the yokai don't exactly take in your presence too kindly and you don’t exactly welcome the attention either.
A lightbulb appears in your head and you quickly go behind a bookshelf, hiding you from view from everyone else. Hurriedly, you pull out the damned reindeer headband from your backpack and shoved it onto your head. There, you’re a reindeer yokai now, nobody will stare at you then right?
Despite the very strong urge to find the romance section in this place, you knew you had to get back home.
Taking a deep breath, you slowly walked to the desk seating the bat lady and looked up. Why the hell would she sit on top of what was basically a pillar? How were you supposed to get up and stay up there? Huffing, you threw yourself against the pillar, with your arms and legs wrapping around the tall desk and slowly started to climb up. By the time you reached the top, you were out of breath and hanging onto the top of the desk with your arms for dear life.
“Excuse m-”
“Ah ah ah, use your library voice.” The bat lady shushed you and aimed a glare your way through her pointy reading glasses. “Or else my hush bats will happily take you to the kiddie room.” By the way she ominously said the “kiddie room” you shuddered and listened to her instructions, making your voice even more quiet.
“Do you know how to get back to the…uh..to New York?” Your voice was barely a squeak.
The bat lady raised her brow at the question. “Why would you want to go to New York? Yokai are not exactly welcomed up there.”
“Uhhhh…..” Trying to find an answer, your eyes suddenly caught onto the cover of a familiar black book. “Hey, is that ‘Stolen Love’?”
The bat lady’s eyes bulged out of her head and she quickly hid the book from your view. Your eyes lit up and suddenly you were whisper shouting at a rapid pace.
“Oh my gosh, who is your favorite? Personally I prefer Valentino, he really shines as a character as you read the book, you could see his character arc from the emotionally constipated bad boy to a slightly more emotionally available bad boy. Did you know canonically he likes rocky road ice cream? I LOVE the contrast between his emotionless personality but you know deep down he loves the main character with all his heart, it's just hard to show it-” You suddenly cut yourself off with a blush as you finally noticed the bat lady looking at you with wide eyes.
“Uhhh,” You stammered. “...so who's your favorite?”
“...Hector.” The bat lady answered. A moment passes between you two before the lady spoke up again. “Do you read often?”
You blink. “Oh yeah, daily. My collection ranges from astronomy to cell division, though I strongly prefer, uh, romance novels. I read books mainly from the public library in New York. Did you know the romance section was a mess? There were books like behavioral economics and quantum computing in there. It was foul, though luckily I had organized everything in about a few weeks…though I do feel bad the rest of the library is probably a mess as well…”
The bat lady continued to stare at you with her yellow scaleras and black pupils. “Would you like a job here at the Mystic Library?”
You blinked and tilted your head, your fingers tapping on the table as you ran that question through your head. Hm, your current job does kinda suck…besides, now that you have your reindeer headband, maybe you could walk around without drawing attention to yourself? Eh, it was worth a shot.
You shrugged. “Sure, I gotta put in a 2 weeks notice for my current job though.”
“Thanks little guy.” You said to the small hush bat that flapped its wings in front of you. After saying yes to what you now know as Agatha, the bat lady, she ordered one of her hush bats to fly you out of the hidden city. Somehow, despite having a mass 10 times smaller than yours, it was able to dig its claws into the neck of your jacket and fly you up into a door in the library that had you coming out of a small garage of a storage unit. You both now stood in front of the small orange garage door in a hallway lined with other small garage units.
You scratched your neck and stared into its glowing orange eyes. “Sooo, I’ll see you next time?”
It chirped back at you and out of instinct, you reached a hand up and pet its head. It let out one more chirp of appreciation before flapping its wings and going towards the small opening at the bottom of the garage door, you assumed to go back to the library.
You waved nervously at the person behind the front desk of the lobby of the public storage unit as you walked out of the place. They raised a brow at you, probably questioning how you had gotten in before shrugging and going back to reading their newspaper.
You sighed and ran a hand through your hair, stopping as it caught onto the headband that you forgot about. Right, you need to wear that when going to your new job. You smiled as you exited the public storage unit. Thank god, no more annual Christmas parties.
Now how the hell are you going to get home?