So far the morning had gone off without a hitch. It hadn’t taken Miyuki all that long to get to work under the stern eye of Tanka-san (who it seemed was one of those types of people who were rarely happy). In all honesty, it hadn’t been that bad despite the aura of projected doom that Tanaka-san gave off; a bit dull perhaps, but that was only to be expected. Shelving was a rather repetitive task that didn’t require tons of brain power after all. So far it had been quiet, with only a handful of patrons milling about; mostly older men and women and parents with young children although ninja could be seen here and there pouring over jutsu scrolls and whatever non-fiction book they needed for an upcoming mission. Later, when the schools let out, it would get busier as students began to descend in order to get a leg up on either homework or studying for an upcoming test.
She had just finished shelving what few books had been in her latest cart and had begun sorting out the small mess that had resulted from patrons re-shelving their own scrolls in what was inevitably the wrong place (but hey, at least they tried to put things back when they were done rather than just leave things lying out on the tables) in the donton jutsu section (although why anyone thought that this was the right place for a copy of the Necronomicon, she’d never know; oh well, she’d get it back where it belonged in horror soon enough) when Nagisa-san (“Oh call me Akiko-chan”) wandered over to her.

“Ah Hasegawa-chan.” Nagisa-san began, “I know that this isn’t something that Tanaka-san mentioned, but would you mind terribly handling story time? Usually Reiko-chan handles it – the kids absolutely love her – but she’s a bit tied up helping a patron, and I’m scheduled to go on lunch around then. Tanaka-san gets so out of sorts when we don’t go on our breaks at the appointed time or close enough to it; it throws everyone else’s schedules off since there has to be at least one person manning the desk, plus you’re not trained on how to check out or return books – not that I’m not sure that you can’t pick it up; it really isn’t all that hard to do, but no-one has the time to walk you through it today and that’s something we only teach people who are going to be here for more than a day or two.”

“Sure.” Miyuki chirped, “If Tanaka-san wouldn’t mind.” She didn’t relish getting into trouble for doing something one of the other librarians asked of her just because it was something Tanaka-san hadn’t outlined during her brief orientation. It wasn’t like she was shirking her work or anything (not that there was all that much to do at the moment), but she’d feel better if everything was approved and above board; just to be on the safe side.

“Great!” Nagisa-san said, clapping her hands together, “Just pick out one of the picture books stacked by the beanbag chair over in the children’s section; whichever one you feel like reading. We usually get about a dozen kids, and they’re generally well behaved if a bit wiggly – but that’s kids that age for you. They really seem to like it when you do all the voices, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to or can’t.”

--- --- ---

Story time had gone by with little trouble. Nagisa-san had been right that the kids were a bit wiggly, but they weren’t all that bad; no tantrums, no hitting, no biting, minimal wandering (which was promptly headed off by an attentive parent), and the little girl that couldn’t have been more than two years old (if even that) who kept trying to climb into her lap for the story was utterly adorable. And yes, she even managed to do the voices.
Shortly after that had come her lunch break which seemed to just fly by and then it was back to work shelving. There were more patrons now, but at least they were mostly behaving themselves. A trio of civilian girls around her age were camped out at a table, what had to be school books spread out in front of them, were busy gossiping and not taking any pains to be particularly quiet about it. As they hadn’t gotten loud enough to warrant being asked to quiet down (silence in a library was a myth; so long as you didn’t start shouting or screaming it was okay to talk above a whisper), Miyuki was ignoring them for the most part.

“Ah, Shinobi-san.” A voice said, interrupting her slightly.

Miyuki turned to look at the guy who spoke (and who turned out to be rather cute in her opinion). “Yes?”

“Do you know where I can find a book on bird watching in Sakura country?”

Miyuki nodded. “That would be in natural science which is over against the wall, three aisles down. Do you need help finding any book in particular?”

The guy shook his head “You’ve been very helpful so far Shinobi-san; thank you.” He said before wandering off to the stacks that Miyuki had mentioned. Miyuki spared the time for one little sigh before getting back to work. She still had a couple of hours to go before she was done with her mission and she didn’t think that Tanaka-san had any patience for a young girl’s crush no matter how new or short lived.