literature

Russia x Reader -- Kindness

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    “Seriously? All of these?”

    “All of these,” (Name’s) coworker, Amira, confirmed grimly. The metal fixtures of the jumbo bookcart creaked as she put her weight into it to inch it towards (Name). “Gotta be shelved today.”

    (Name) couldn’t stifle the exasperated groan that came out. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. It was her job, after all, a job which she enjoyed and wished to earn her wage. But they were alarmingly short-staffed today, near half of the crew at home with the new virus going around, which meant that there were a lot of tasks that could only be performed by certain employees left unfulfilled. Generally, if something just had to be completed, it would fall to the next most-qualified. Which in this case, was not qualified in the least.

    “Amira, doesn’t the Man know that I don’t know Russian?” the Man was their ever-affectionate nickname for their store manager. They also used Manny, but not within earshot.

    “He knows that you know Cyrillic,” Amira rolled her eyes, “and that’s enough for him.”

    “B-but,” (Name) sputtered, frantic, “can’t he wait for someone to come back? I can’t do this! Cory knows Russian, and he should be back tomorrow!” Hell, Cory could do Kyrgyzstani if the Emporium carried books in it. It seemed ridiculous that their fussy manager couldn’t wait one more day for their linguistic savant to return!

    Amira sighed pitiably at her coworker’s desperate expression. “I’m really sorry, (Name), but you’ll have to take it up with Manny. I’ve got Spanish storytime circle in five,” she keyed the storeroom door open and sent a reassuring smile over her shoulder, gesturing to her headset. “Just tap in if you need anything.”

    “Right,” (Name) muttered half-heartedly, and stared at the cartload before her. What was she going to do now? She really should confront the Manager and insist that the shelving for this shipment should wait another day. It was a reasonable request, but the Man wasn’t especially reasonable right now. The block next door was experiencing renovations which brought up heated conflicts over property boundaries and working contracts. Plus, he had to deal with the plans for the minor but over-hyped repairs on floor five. All that factored in with a sudden premature harshness in weather made for a very short-fused Manny.

    So which one: insisting that the job was done right, and facing the wrath of the man, or putting her shoulder to the wheel and doing her best with what she had? (Name) thought of Mr. Lukas and all that he had done for her. She groaned. She had to repay him somehow, so no use getting fired now. With a solid shove, she got the trolley rolling ahead of her and made her way to the service elevator.

     

     

    Before she had even reached the Russian floor, (Name) could tell that this was going to go poorly. She couldn’t use the storeroom elevator because it was out-of-order, and once she lugged the enormous cart over to a normal elevator, she remembered that this particular shaft only went up to floor three because of the repairs. So then she pushed the cart all-the-way-a-cross the store to another one, which brought her up to the completely wrong side of floor six. Halfway through Ukrainian and Bulgarian she was becoming confused as to what language she was even searching for!

    Finally, she slumped into an armchair near something she recognised: Толстой—Tolstoy. Only when she dared peek out between her fingers that covered her face did she notice the labels on the book cart. Slips of paper were often tucked between sections of books to notify the genre they were to be shelved it. However, these paperslips were in the language respective to the books they labeled, which meant that they were in Russian, and that (Name) couldn’t read them. Not only couldn’t she tell the titles from the authors, she didn’t even know which shelves to set them down at!

    Taking this special time to revel in her misfortune (bad weather seemed to encourage that), (Name) didn’t move from the armchair for many more minutes. Finally, she heaved a long, calming sigh. Okay, maybe she was exaggerating this. Even if this was just a bookstore, this was the Emporium, a powerful force in the printing and book mongering business that stored thousands upon thousands of books in dozens of languages in each shop. This meant that, as an Emporium employee, she was a very qualified translator. And you get to be a translator by being resourceful. (Name) could do this. Setting her jaw and brightening her resolve, she jumped up from the cushy armchair and looked around. The genres were labeled with plaques on the walls, after all, so she could easily match the plaques to the paperslips in the bookcart. And even if she only knew enough Russian to communicate that she didn’t know Russian, she could sound out Cyrillic just fine. Surely she could differentiate title from author and shelve them in alphabetical order by author’s last name, as they should be. In any light, it was worth a shot. She struggled to throw her weight against the immobile bookcart, and wheeled it over to the nearest genre.

    After locating the paperslip in her book cart that corresponded to the plaque on the wall (Name) snatched up a tome and attempted to decode its sleeve. She gulped. Oh, this was harder than she remembered. It really shouldn’t be, Cyrillic was a phonetic alphabet after all. However this attempt quickly degenerated into an exercise of the-bigger-words-are-probably-the-title-right-let’s-go-with-that. At least she could easily shelve any novels that already ad some of their siblings on display. Although it was really embarrassing to have to sing the Russian alphabet song under her breath to remember the letter order.  

    Another twenty minutes and (Name) was sure she had miss-shelved at least fifteen different novels, plus their duplicates. Needless to say, she soon retreated to her armchair to agonise over the next possible turn of events. Her shift ended in thirty minutes, she still had seven-eighths of the book trolley to shelve, and she wasn’t getting paid for overtime. This was hopeless. Maybe if all the books had magically disappeared within the five minutes she had spent in this chair she could go home on time.. She took a peek. Nope, no such luck. But before she could collapse again, something caught her eye: a man was standing near the shelves she was just working on, browsing. She nearly brushed it off, but then paused. The man was browsing. In the Russian wing of the store.

    He knew Russian.

    Within in a blink of an eye, (Name) found herself standing right beside this stranger. She hadn’t remembered getting up from the chair or approaching him, so needless to say she was quite surprised. Even greater was her surprise when she found the hem of the stranger’s coat sleeve clasped in her fingers. She naturally looked up to see this face of this man (and she had to look up) to find that he was just as startled as she was.

    “Ah-h,” (Name) stammered immediately. Clearing her throat, she put on an apologetic grin. “Izvinitye,” she enunciated carefully, slowly, “vwi gavaritye pa-russki, da?”

    “Ah-h,” his voice came out timid and soft, strange for such a large man. It made him seem fragile, as if the deepness of his voice could shatter his immense body. He seemed strong enough and right enough, but his lavender eyes served a curtain to the most intense loneliness (Name) had ever seen. Life hadn’t treated this man well, she could tell. Which made her feel all the worse for pestering him. One of his large, gloved hands went to the long, pink scarf about his neck, gripping it in a comforting sort of way. “Da, pochyemu?”

    (Name) licked her lips nervously, trying to summon up the vocabulary from a distant past. “V-vwi panimayu pa-angliski?”

    “Da. Ah, I mean, yes,” he responded positively. He hesitated. “I know english. But speak it, I do not do well.”

    (Name) inwardly sighed in relief. Her smile brightened, which seem to startle him even more. “What are you talking about? You sound great!”

    He blinked at her, blushing out of embarrassment, she thought. He averted his eyes and hitched up his scarf to hide it. “You are a kind girl.”

    “No, sir, I am honest,” she smiled brightly at him, and he jerked slightly in surprise. She faltered. Was it her kindness he flinched from? How could such a thing surprise someone? Before she could dwell upon this discovery, (Name) recalled her purpose in calling out to him. “I really am so sorry to bother you, sir,” she glanced up shyly, presenting the hardcover novel clutched in her other hand, wrapped in a bright, glossy jacket. “Could you please inform me which words are the author’s name?”

    His eyes slid to the book. “The silver letters. It’s Sergei Lukyaneko. Book in English is called, ah, night…Nightwatch.”

    Her whole face lit up. “Thank you! So that’s…that’s under ‘el’!” her eyes hurriedly scanned the shelves for the л-section, but to no avail. Ah, where was it in the alphabet?”

    “Right over there,” the man’s soft voice came. “It is after ‘ka’.”

    (Name)’s eyes rested upon a plaque marked ‘л’ a few feet away. “Oh! Thank you.” She moved to restore the book, but her movement was restrained. She looked back in surprise to find that her fingers were still clutching his sleeve. “Oh. Sorry.” They held awkward eye contact for a few painful moments before she released him and turned to the л-shelf to mask her embarrassment. He just stood there, unsure of what to think of that.

    “There!” (Name) hopped up, beaming. “And that means I can shelve its duplicates as well! Ah, where are they…” there were a dozen copies to be shelved, and (Name) traveled between the bookcart and the л-shelf several times, a cheery skip in her step now that she knew that at least one novel was properly put away. As she did this, the stranger stood off to the side still, awkward and feeling misplaced, for he did not know what to do, but his curiosity won out against his fear and he said something.

    “If you do not know Russian, then why is it that you do such a task?”

    “Oh, well, I’ve been meaning to take Russian classes,” she replied absently as she went about arranging the display. “But I do work many full shifts here, plus I’ve got another job with duties that need attending, and I’m still just been in this country for eight months, so I’m still pretty new and everything is different. Life is just a little busy right now.” She laughed. “I guess you could say that I’m incompetent!”

    “Nyet!” he shook his head vehemently. “You work here; you are bright, smart girl. Why did person above you give you this task?”

    (Name) turned in surprise. He stood with arms crossed, voice a little firmer now. Why was he so concerned over her? “It’s kind of complicated, actually, but we’re really short on staff which is the main reason, and I do know some Cyrillic, so…”

    The man was now frowning most intensely. “Person above you is a silly man. These books will be here always. He should be nice to his workers under him.”

    (Name) blushed. “Aw, it’s not like that,” she said nervously, glancing about to see if the Man was around. “Our manager has been under a lot of pressure right now. He’s has reason to work us hard.”

    “But if you do not do this, he will be angry, and if you do this and are wrong, he will be angry still. This is not nice thing to do to a good worker.” He huffed a little in a small steam, and (Name) suppressed a giggle. What a kind man to be upset for her. She shook her head kindly and looked forlornly to her book cart.

    “It’s my job, sir. Nothing I can do. I just have to buck up and--”

    “Strugatsky.”

    “Eh?” She turned back to him to find that in one of his glove hands outstretched was a book in a lemon-yellow jacket, black words printed across it boldly. “This will go under ‘ess’ for Strugatsky. There are three others like it right here.” He averted his eyes at her questioning gaze, and hitched up his scarf again. “Ah, I will tell you the name and you can put it in its home. That way you are doing job without doing wrong.”

    (Name)’s eyes went wide and she began stammering again. “B-but, sir, it is my job, I cannot inconvenience you--”

    “There is no inconvenience where there is will to do something. You are girl hardworking and kind to strangers, and I want to help you. If that is okay,” he added, his voice and posture regressing to its initial fragile state.

    (Name) paused, tilting her head as she studied him. In one second, he had gone to firm and strong, determined in himself, to becoming feeble and afraid. As he held the book for her, (Name) noticed something in the hesitation of his arm. He was not afraid of her touch; he was afraid to let her near him. He hid under his layers of coats and scarves to distance himself from everyone as much as possible. This was why he was so confused at her simple greetings and affirmations; he couldn’t understand why he deserved such kindness. (Name) didn’t really much wonder what made him think himself so undeserving. She just saw how much sorrow hid behind his eyes and decided that kindness was definitely what he needed, and that allowing him to perform this small gesture might be some sort of kindness to him.

    (Name) gently received the book from his hand. “…Strugatsky, you said?”

    In a moment of stunned silence, he seemed to fill with colour. His protective timidity melted away for the first time that (Name) saw, he smiled, an action that made his eyes sparkle. “D-da, Strugatsky, I say.”

    “Thank you,” she took up the extra copies and gave him the warmest smile she could, “very much.”

    His face filled with red and there was nothing he could do with his scarf to hide it this time. “Th-this next one is ‘geh’ for Glukhousky,” he said after a time.

    “Thanks,” she rose to take the next book he held. “And what next?”

    “ ‘Veh’ for Voinovich.”

    “Thanks, got it. Oh man, this one has, like, twenty copies…”

    Before (Name) could do anything, two large arms appeared to scoop up the volumes she needed in one move. Shocked, she looked up to see a round face peeking out from behind the tower of tomes. “This good?”

    “Y-yeah, right over here. Yeah, right there. Thanks. Wow. Uh, thank you.” She stepped out of the way and let the looming man set down and gently put away the load.

    He smiled again, a new warmth in his eyes. “Nye za chto.” (Name) wasn’t sure what to do. But she was glad that he was happy. He seemed happy, anyways. He was colourful and cheerful, and as they spent more and more time together trying to get all the books set in their rightful places, (Name) found that he was the friendliest, gentlest person that she had ever met. He was talkative, describing in vivid detail his home country, and he listened intently to her struggles with this new job, all the while instructing her in where the correct places to set books were and even transporting the too-heavy book trolley for her as they navigated between the different genres.

    “Ah! The last ones! We are done!” he straightened up from shelving, smiling like sunshine. He suddenly frowned. “Why is it that Pasternak is under ‘beh’?” he inquired, turning to her in confusion.

    (Name) looked up and recognised the book he was pointing at. “Oh! I, uh,” she grinned sheepishly. “I tried to shelve some on my own before I found you.”

    The man blinked once and then laughed. It was a gentle sound. “Oh! You are funny girl. But it is alright, we can fix it. Put in under ‘peh’.”

    (Name) received the novel with a thank you and went in pursuit of the п-shelf while he began sorting books into piles according to the letter they were to be stored under. It took her quite a while to find this shelf, and the man noticed this, for he turned to look for her. She was staring up. A low chuckle began in his chest as he rose to assist. “You cannot reach, yes?” He gently removed the tome from her small hands and easily set it upon the topmost shelf.

    (Name) laughed in spite of herself. “You know, normally I would have had to search half this place for a stool before I could do that.” Something nagged at the back of her mind, like something she had forgotten, but she couldn’t quite reach it. “Are those the last ones? Okay, there’s an elevator on the other side of this floor! We need to take the trolley there. Oh, uh, I guess that it’s light enough for me to take myself, now.”

    “No worries. I have got it.”

    “Really? You sure? Thank you!”

    Soon, they were side-by-side in the elevator. (Name) was humming to herself, absolutely elated that her job had been completed efficiently and correctly. The man just stood to the side staring at her, so, so happy that he had brought someone any sort of joy. (Name) sighed happily, unable to contain herself, and smiled up to him.

    “Man, you’re a real lifesaver. I would’ve spent hours trying to do that by myself--” she stopped suddenly, blinked and gasped. He jumped, looking a little frightened. “What is wrong?” he said nervously.

    She turned to him with wide eyes. “I have not introduced myself! Here you are, someone kind enough to help me out and I have not even learned your name! Oh my gosh, I am so rude, I am so sorry, oh my gosh!” she sputtered, her face flushing as she became more flustered. She performed a sort of awkward curtsy-bow in the cramped quarters. “I am (Name)(Surname)! Thank you so much for helping me!” As she tried to regain some sort of composure, she felt a large hand settle on her head. The touch calmed her immediately. She looked up and his smiling face greeted her.

    “I am Ivan Braginsky.” He said, patting her head a few times comfortingly. That name sounded familiar… “And I’m just glad that you allowed me to do such a thing for you. No one has spoken so kindly to me for a long, long time.”

    She couldn’t help it—her face flushed. “I, um, well,” at a loss for words, she just smiled and shrugged. “…I’m glad that you’re happy--” at that moment her eyes caught the digital clock installed in the elevator. “—I am so dead.”

    “Eh?” Ivan tilted his head in confusion and looked behind him. He understood. “Were you supposed to meet someone?” his voice saddened a bit, and (Name) was quick to reassure him.

    “Normally I take the train back home, but my friends that I live with had business in the city, so they suggested that we would all go home together, and, um,” she gulped. “Technically my shift ended an hour ago. Which I don’t really think that they’ll be angry about, they’ll just be mostly worried. They always worry, you know? Especially Mr. Lukas,” she continued to chatter nervously. “He’s the one who allowed me to move in with them, so I always do my best not to inconvenience him. Oh, and he said some of his friends might tag along. I hear about them so much, I’ve always wanted to meet them. We agreed to meet at the café down the street, but maybe they decided to come here--”

    “Hold on,” Ivan’s voice was shaky. “Did you say Lukas?”

            (Name) looked up at him in surprise. All of the joy had drained from his face, leaving his visage ashen. “I…yes. And Mathias and Emil. We live together,” she said cautiously. To her horror, Ivan shrunk back even further inside himself than when she first saw him.

    “With friends, you said?” he began to shake. “Coming here, they are?” his voice whispered. They made eye contact and there was the worst sort of fear in his now-dull eyes.

    “Ivan, what’s wrong?” (Name) took his hand in both of her own, serious concern instilling fear in her voice. He didn’t reply. “It’s going to be okay. What’s wrong?”

    They reached the first floor. The elevator opened.

    “HEY (NAME)!” (Name) turned to see Mathias, her most rambunctious housemate, bounding toward her, his trademark grin and recklessness greeting her like always. “You’ve got to go console Lukas, he’s nearly ready to tear apart someone, he got so worried for you--” but then his clear blue eyes slid to the companion beside her, and he came to a dead stop. His composure changed so suddenly that (Name) flinched. Who was this man in front of her, his face as dark as a warrior’s preparing to protect his village? Surely, that wasn’t Mathias.

    “What,” his voice came out as a low growl, “the hell are you doing here.” It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge.

    Ivan, trembling more than ever, discreetly disengaged her hand from his. “I was about to leave,” his voice was different. It wasn’t weak, but it certainly wasn’t like his strong, happy voice. It hid him, just like his layers of clothing did. “They did not have the book I was looking for.”

    “Don’t try any of that, bastard,” Mathias snarled, drawing himself even taller than before to look Ivan dead in the eye. Ivan met his gaze and did not blink. “Why the hell are you here.

    (Name) looked between the two men in appalled confusion. What was going on? She attempted to step between the two in order to intercept the Dane’s damaging glares. “Mathias, what on earth are you doing--”

    Before she could even blink, Mathias had swiftly pulled her behind him as to shield her from her newfound friend. His grip was firm on her wrist, determined not to let go. She stared at it bewildered. Mathias was never so protective. Only an attack from a wild bear could bring such behaviour from him, she thought. What was going on? This was bad. And, she thought as her stomach twisted at the sound of approaching footsteps. Things were about to get a lot worse.

    “(Name), thank Gods, I was so worried—what the hell,” Lukas hissed at the sight of Ivan in the doorway. “Why—how--” he quickly took her by the waist and whisked her several meters away from the offending person. “How did he figure out she was here?” he called out to Mathias, his voice dangerously sharp.

    (Name), bewildered, whipped her head all around in order to figure out what was going on. Lukas was afflicted with the same stolid determination to protect that afflicted Mathias, and looking to the side, she even saw that her best friend Emil was trembling in shock, a rage beginning to build up beneath his skin. Another set of footsteps approached, and she looked to see someone she did not know. He stood tall and trim, a fire burning in the sky-blue eyes behind his glasses. He wore a battered bomber jacket, the number 50 stitched into the broad back.

    “Seriously, dude,” this new man said, voice dark. “Can’t you go one day without causing trouble? Do I need to straighten you out?”

    “Hello, Alfred.” Ivan said calmly. “Good to see you.”

    (Name)’s eyes widened at the scene unfolding before her, what Lukas said barely registered. “What?” she said stupidly. “We’re going home?”

    “Yes. Now.” Lukas’ hard voice confirmed. Arm still around her waist, he immediately began walking her to the entrance to the dark dusk outside. She blinked unable to absorb this all so suddenly.

    “But—Ivan—Emil, what’s going on--” Emil had no answer for her, looking just as bewildered. Lukas’s command rung out again.

    “We’re going, (Name).”

    This was wrong. Through all the confusion that’s what pounded in (Name)’s head. This was wrong. They were wrong. She didn’t know what they were thinking, but Ivan wasn’t what they thought. Why did they all think that? Ivan was her friend, no matter how bad the slights that happened between them in the past, they couldn’t just take this from her. She trusted them, but there was no reason to treat Ivan so cruelly. Was there? There couldn’t be. He was so lonely and sad, he must be so sorry for whatever he did. Right then Lukas looked back at her with his eyes glinting through the darkness, and he said something. As he said it, (Name) vowed that she would prove him wrong.

    “That man doesn’t deserve any of your kindness.”





                                                                                                                                                                                  to be continued

Here's Ivan, my first true love.

I have no idea how this turned out, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless. 

Because, see, my rough draft ran out right before we meet Ivan, so I had nothing to go off of, 
so I just straight wrote the rest, and usually things don't turn out well when I straight write things.

Wait...this ended...sad?!! I don't do sad! Huh, guess I'll have to continue it so it'll become happier. ;)



Oh wait...crap, this happens in like a timeline in my mind and I don't have any others from this timeline published.
I just assume that you know what goes on in my head CRAP

SO IN CASE THINGS DON'T MAKE SENSE:
Reader-chan lives in Norway with Norge, Danmark, and Iceland at this time
Yes, they are countries. This is not human AU.
...But Reader-chan isn't allowed to know that.
The "business in the city" is--you guessed it--a world meeting. 
Which is why people who shouldn't be in Norway are there
IT MAKES SENSE

oh and Amira and Cory are just NPC's I made up. They're pretty cool.


ALSO LANGUAGE NOOOOOTE~

I wanted to romanise the Russian because when it's in Cyrillic it often breaks the flow of the read!
HOWEVER I did not romanise it letter-for-letter!
I just wrote it out it acutally sounds, so I dropped lots of y's and added more y's in, and changed a's to o's and o's to a's and things like that.
So most of these aren't romanised conventionally. I just wanted it so everyone could read it! Because I love you all! (awwwww)

...I'm a language nerd. I'm sorry.
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