Penned Sea Hearts

Kai’s stupid book was good, and Ramos hated everything. He hated that he was wrong in his prejudice, he hated that he wanted to read the next book in the series, and he hated that Kai absolutely knew, despite him not saying a thing.

Neither of them had said a thing about it, in fact, but Ramos knew that wouldn’t last long. Kai had already made a few offhand comments, clearly bating Ramos to admit it, but Ramos wasn’t giving in. Not yet. Not while he could still grasp at straws looking for what didn’t work.

At least right now they were focused on the signing, though, because a letter from Kai’s publisher had shown up.

“Three weeks?!” Kai exclaimed as he read the letter quickly, raising an eyebrow. “I made it pretty clear how time sensitive this was.” He scoffed. “At least they’ll be sending a bunch of books soon, though.

Ramos grimaced. He didn’t like how much of Kai’s time he was taking up with this. He’d already done so much for not only the library but him, too. But perhaps Kai wasn’t planning on waiting around. “So, erm, you will go back to the capital and come back when it’s time?”

Kai looked from the letter to Ramos, staring at him as though he was questioning Ramos’ sanity. “Of course not. I’m staying here.”

“But isn’t that expensive?”

Kai laughed. “I don’t mind. At least I’m supporting local business. Even if some of these business owners are mean to you for no reason.”

It wasn’t for no reason, just like Ramos wasn’t mean to them for no reason in turn, but Ramos said nothing, secretly pleased that Kai was staying. And that was the moment he had to pause and reevaluate his feelings.

Why was he pleased by this? Kai vexed him so much sometimes, and his presence disturbed Ramos’ usually perfect concentration, and—

He sighed quietly. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was making sure the library continued functioning. He still didn’t understand why Kai seemed to not be put off in the slightest by Ramos being short with him.

“I guess I have some time to work on this novel, then,” Kai said, though he didn’t sound very happy about it. Ramos wanted to tell him that perhaps he should try some break from the formula if he really was this stuck, but he stopped himself.

Kai was the successful author, and Ramos was an unpublished nobody. Kai knew better than him what to do.

They settled into a mostly comfortable silence. While Kai started writing, occasionally exchanging a few words with the library’s visitors as they came and went, Ramos went around making sure all the books were in the right places, sorted properly, and undamaged, while also dealing with borrows and returns.

But every time Ramos was at the desk, he couldn’t help but try to sneak glances at Kai’s manuscript, the sheets of paper covered in the same awful handwriting as the logbook, and yet Ramos was strangely fascinated by it.

He tried to keep from asking questions, but he couldn’t help himself when he saw Kai throw his pen on the desk in frustration, sighing loudly.

“What is the problem?”

Ramos almost shook his head at himself. He really hadn’t meant to be nosy. But he couldn’t resist trying to fix a story. It was always like a puzzle to solve, bringing delightful satisfaction to him once figured out.

“The whole thing,” Kai said, sighing as he rubbed his eyes, his ears twitching in annoyance. “It’s just so formulaic at this point. Two guys meet each other, don’t like each other at first, then slowly get over it and get together. The end.”

Ramos nodded. Though he didn’t agree the plot had been that simple, he had noticed that structure while reading Kai’s book.

Dammit, now he especially wanted to read the rest so he could compare.

“But you feel like you can’t do something different,” Ramos added, humming, tapping his finger to his lips as he thought about it.

“Exactly!” Kai sighed again, even more dramatically than before, pulling at his hair a little as he leaned back in his chair. “My publisher would probably go ahead and print it, but my fans might not be happy. I don’t get how people still like reading this same plot, but they do.”

When Kai put it like that, Ramos really had to think about what it meant to be a successful writer. He’d never want to be trapped by his accomplishments, though he was simply trying to fool himself into thinking that he was better off as a failure.

“I assume this structure is in all of your books?” Ramos asked, frowning as he thought harder about what could be done differently and yet the same.

Kai nodded with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, yeah, feel free to give me a lecture on how lazy that is.”

Ramos’ heart clenched a little. He hoped none of his earlier comments about Kai’s work had had a significant effect on the man. “No. I am simply asking to help you think of a solution.”

“Oh, that’s sweet, Rami,” Kai said, his gaze immediately growing soft, a warm smile on his face. And Ramos had to turn his gaze down to his logbook, overwhelmed by it. Dammit.

“Well, you could perhaps introduce external conflict. Make them fall in love earlier in the story, then introduce something to tear them apart, perhaps an antagonist spreading rumors about one of them, or something like that. And then have them work through that.”

Kai made an ooh noise as he paged through his manuscript, stopping at one part and writing a note on the side of the paper. “Great idea, Rami. Garsi is an idiot, he’ll fall for it immediately.”

That was also an aspect that Ramos had noticed—Kai’s characters all seemed to be missing some type of intelligence. The couple in the book he’d read were completely oblivious and emotionally stupid respectively. The oblivious one reminded him of Kai, in particular, though Ramos had to wonder if Kai was aware of writing self-inserts, or if he too was oblivious.

There was a joke in there somewhere, but Ramos didn’t feel like making it.

“You’re a writer, too, huh? Knew it.”

Ramos blinked, staring at Kai in shock, his face growing hot. “W-what? Er, no, I simply read a lot.”

Kai’s grin turned a bit guilty as he rubbed the back of his neck, which made Ramos frown. Whatever the merman was going to say, it wasn’t going to be good. “Okay, so, listen, I may have come across your manuscript while rifling around the drawers while librarian-ing.”

Ramos’ eyes widened in horror. But before he could go on a tirade about privacy, Kai continued.

“I didn’t read it past the title because that was when I realized what it was, okay?”

Ramos opened his mouth to say his piece anyway, but no words came out as he couldn’t think of anything to actually say. If Kai hadn’t read it, then it was a reasonable thing that could have happened to anyone. And he did believe Kai wasn’t lying.

So there wasn’t much to say.

“It is literary fiction, isn’t it?”

Ramos rolled his eyes, his gaze drifting to the drawer the manuscript was in. “Unpublishable garbage is what it is.”

Kai made a noise of alarm. “What? Don’t call your work garbage. Publishers want money first and foremost, not art.”

“Yes, clearly,” Ramos muttered, glaring at Kai’s book still on his desk, the two protagonists painted on the cover holding hands while swimming.

His eyes widening when he realized what he’d said, he looked at Kai, only to see the hurt in his eyes, despite his otherwise neutral expression. Kai wasn’t even looking at Ramos, he was staring at his manuscript.

“Apologies, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine, Rami, I hear it from literary snobs all the time.”

Well, that immediately made Ramos want to retract his apology. What he’d said wasn’t nice, but he hadn’t meant to hurt Kai. What Kai had said back had definitely been meant as an insult, though.

But before he could say any of this, Kai floated up from his chair, manuscript and pen in hand. “I’m gonna go get something to eat.”

Ramos couldn’t get a word in before Kai was gone, leaving behind only his chair. And now Ramos wasn’t sure what to do.

Should he try to catch up to Kai? He didn’t particularly want to, though his ever-overthinking self couldn’t help but wonder where Kai’s limits were. Ramos hoped this wasn’t it, but what if he over the next three weeks accidentally insulted Kai enough to make him leave?

What a horrible thought. And certainly not one he needed right now.

Ramos grimaced. Why did Kai calling him a literary snob bother him so much? It wasn’t inaccurate, he supposed. He had always thought he was better than writers like Kai simply because of the genre he wrote. But that was a stupid idea, something he’d used to simply make himself feel better about his many failures.

He pulled open the drawer with his manuscript, taking it out and glaring down at it fiercely, holding it so tightly he was wrinkling the paper. But he didn’t care. The thing had brought him nothing but misery.

He’d been obsessing over it for so many years, trying to make it better and better, wasting so much money on paper and ink only for him to now realize that he’d been doomed to failure from the start. If he were a good writer, one of the countless literary agents he’d pitched the book to would surely see merit in it.

He had thought of throwing the manuscript out many times before, and he had done it with the original drafts already, only keeping this one. Maybe it was time to get rid of it completely, though. He was tired of clinging to his foolish dreams.

Being a full-time author was for people like Kai, and Kai he was not.

With a heavy heart, he made his way outside to the dumpster behind the library, swimming as fast as he could so he could chuck the stack of paper into it before he could think about it too much.

He’d thought about this a lot before now, and he knew this was the right choice, even though it felt wrong. But Ramos wouldn’t let his emotions get the better of him this time. The only way to move on was to stop hanging onto what he’d done in the past.

Gritting his teeth even as tears stung at his eyes, Ramos threw his manuscript into the trash where it belonged, swimming back inside the library before he could panic and try to retrieve it.

It was better this way.

Even if it didn’t feel like it.