Poetry Between The Shelves
Pairings: Sae Itoshi x Fem!Reader
a/n: welcome to little by little ♡ i've been dreaming about writing this story for a while now and i'm so excited to finally share it with you. i hope you'll fall in love with these two as they slowly fall in love with each other. thank you for reading!! 🌸
Synopsis: The university's star midfielder wasn't where you expected to find him.
Warnings: slow burn, strangers to friends to lovers, university au, library au, fluff, comfort, slice of life, yearning, soft!sae, itoshi sae x reader, blue lock x reader
Days like this made you wonder why you'd ever decided that spending four years analysing books was a good idea.
You were already on your third coffee of the day. You refused to think about how many energy drinks you'd gone through over the past week. The only thing keeping you sane was your favourite spot in the library.
You loved this spot for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest was that it was perfect for people-watching. The windows opened up to the small garden in the centre of the library, filling the space with warm afternoon sunlight, and from here you had a direct view of everyone coming in and out of the library.
The library was unusually quiet for a Thursday afternoon. A few students whispered over laptops in the corner while someone on the second floor shelved returned books with dull thuds. Every now and then, pages turned somewhere nearby. It wasn't silent, it was just quiet enough to pretend you could concentrate.
You read the same sentence in your book for the fourth time in a row. No matter how many times your eyes went over it, it just wouldn't stick in your brain.
Sticky notes peeked out from nearly every page of your book, each one covered in tiny handwriting of annotations you'd promised yourself you'd actually review later.
Your planner sat open beside you, every hour of the week colour-coded in different highlighters. Lecture, seminars, essay deadlines, and three different novels you were supposed to have finished by now. Everything looked organised.
You certainly didn't feel organised.
You sighed and reached for your coffee, only for your fingers to close around an empty paper cup. You frowned at it for a second before giving it a gentle shake, as if somehow a miracle sip would appear.
That explained why your brain had stopped cooperating.
You let out a prolonged groan as you dragged your hand down your face.
There was the muted shuffling sound the library entrance always made whenever someone walked in.
You looked through the gaps between your fingers and immediately recognised the student who had just walked in.
The University's star midfielder.
You weren't exactly caught up on the school's football team- between lectures, essay deadlines, and the never-ending pile of reading your professors assigned every week, you barely had time to remember your own schedule- but you knew who he was, almost everyone did.
You'd never watched one of his matches from start to finish. You had tried to, once, when your roommate insisted, saying something about "School spirit," whatever that's supposed to mean.
Somewhere between reading three hundred pages for class and convincing yourself you'd definitely start your essay tomorrow, you'd ended up skipping the match entirely. Still, you'd heard enough conversations around campus to know one thing.
Sae Itoshi was kind of a big deal.
That's not a face you see in the library every day, and especially not this close to football season. You looked down at your watch, you suppose you could spare a few minutes to people-watch and rest your eyes a little.
Instead of heading toward the computers like most students, he walked straight to the classic literature section.
That alone caught your attention.
You watched as he browsed through the aisles, stopping in one and grabbing a book from the shelf. You squinted, trying to make out the title of the book in his hands, finding yourself weirdly interested in what would bring a guy like him here.
Of all the books you'd expected the campus's golden boy to be reading, classic poetry hadn't even crossed your mind.
You'd actually read it before.
One of your first-year professors had been obsessed with Whitman and had assigned half the class to annotate Leaves of Grass. Your copy was probably still buried somewhere in your dorm room, filled with highlighted passages and increasingly dramatic notes written at two in the morning.
You remembered complaining about it at the time.
You also remembered secretly liking it.
Which was exactly the kind of embarrassing thing an English Literature major wasn't supposed to admit out loud.
Either way, it wasn't exactly the kind of book people expected a football player to borrow. You couldn't help sighing at yourself, you have got to stop making assumptions about people.
He settled onto one of the small couches, tucked between rows of books, crossing one leg over the other as he opened the book almost immediately.
No phone, no headphones. He was just... Reading.
You shook your head a little bit to wake yourself up. You had a fifteen-page essay due next week, and staring at an attractive stranger in the library probably wasn't going to help.
You picked up your pen and stared back down into your books.
You uncapped your highlighter, determined that the next sentence would finally make sense.
It's time for you to lock in.
Sae sat down to read, but before he could even read one line of the book he felt a light buzzing in his pants.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
Practice got moved up to 4
Sae glanced at the time at the top of his screen.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
He'd been looking forward to the quiet hour he'd carefully carved out for himself. Football occupied most of his life, and reading was one of the few things that belonged only to him.
He would never tell anyone this, but he needed a break from football sometimes, reading gave that to him. When Sae read, no one expected anything from him.
He could lose himself in fiction for a while, or read poetry and find comfort in knowing someone, somewhere, had once struggled to put the same feelings into words.
He slipped his phone back into his pocket with another quiet sigh and stood up. Seems like he wouldn't be reading here after all.
His eyes wandered across the library—the entrance, the courtyard, the tables by the window.
That looked like a nice place to read.
Maybe he'd sit there next time.
His eyes kept wandering around the room before abruptly stopping when something caught his eye.
The afternoon light streamed through the windows, casting soft shadows across your face.
Your hair framed your features, the sunlight making it appear a shade lighter than it really was.
You bit your lip as you scribbled something into your notebook before running a hand through your hair to brush it away from your face. You looked completely absorbed in whatever you were writing.
Sae stood frozen for a moment as he admired you. For some reason, he couldn't pull his eyes away.
Something about you made the room feel quieter.
You weren't doing anything remarkable.
If anything, you looked exhausted—surrounded by books, annotations, and half-finished notes.
You were the only person in the room he seemed able to notice.
He stopped the thought as soon as it entered his head.
Since when did he think about sappy things like that?
He shook his head and gripped the book tighter. He didn't have time for this.
He walked briskly to the counter at the front of the library to borrow the book. As the librarian checked the book out under his name, his eyes drifted back toward the window despite himself, at you.
The librarian had said something to him and he hadn't noticed, so cleared her throat and handed him the book. "Thank you. Enjoy your reading."
Sae was snapped back to reality.
He murmured a soft "Yeah, thank you," and turned towards the entrance. He left the library and promptly headed to practice.
The book stayed tucked beneath his arm the entire way there.
You were cutting across campus on your way back to your dorm, finally leaving the library after six mind-numbing hours of reading, note-taking, and pretending to understand literary theory.
You were trudging tiredly on the path, holding a stack of annotated poems and essay notes that refused to stay organised no matter how hard you tried.
The sound of whistles and cheering drifted across the path, catching your attention. It was coming from the football field. They were practicing.
You glanced over almost absentmindedly before spotting a familiar head of hair sprinting across the pitch.
Even from this far away, he somehow made everything look effortless.
You watched him for a few seconds.
Far longer than you'd meant to.
Maybe you'd actually go watch a match this season.
You just wanted to see if the mysterious poetry-reading football player was actually any good.
You sighed and picked up your pace toward your dorm. Your notes suddenly seemed much more interesting than the football field.
Practice was already well underway.
The afternoon sun beat down on the field as the sound of footballs being struck echoed around the pitch.
Sae trapped the ball with ease before sending it across the field with practiced precision.
A few minutes later, while jogging back into position, something beyond the fence caught his eye. A familiar figure walked along the pathway that ran beside the sports grounds.
A backpack slung over one shoulder, headphones in, eyes fixed on whatever notes you were reading as you walked.
The girl from the library.
His eyes followed you for a second. Then another.
A ball lightly bounced off his leg. Sae looked up, and when he saw Shidou grinning at him, he immediately knew he'd been looking at you for too long.
"Never thought I'd catch you staring at a girl."
"In the middle of practice, at that." Karasu added.
"You were literally watching her walk away," Karasu snorted.
"I was looking at the path."
Shidou hummed and gave him a look that said 'i don't believe you at all.'
Sae sighed, he didn't bother arguing with them, in no universe would that make this situation any better; they'd always find a way to tease him one way or another.
By the time he looked back you were already gone.
He clicked his tongue and forced himself to look back toward the drill.
The coach was saying something.
He hadn't heard a word of it.
Some stories begin with fate.
Yours began because someone read poetry.
← Previous Page | Series Masterlist | Next Page →
