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Working at an antique bookstore was not the most lucrative job, but for a part-time gig, it was a bigger source of comfort than Joel dared to expect from elsewhere.

Maria's Antique Bookstore was a homely two-story building constructed from aging red bricks and the storefront itself was largely unremarkable. One of its two street-facing windows was always shuttered, and hanging inside to advertise to passing pedestrians was a proclamation for whatever confections the old tigress was offering this week. The other window was usually open, when the weather permitted, as it was now as Joel passed, to cycle out the air and, Joel suspected, tempt passerby with the smell of pastries. This week, according to the chalkboard Joel glanced at as he hurried in to work, Maria was selling sushki and baklava.

His entrance was heralded by the tinny chime of the bell over the door: neither of the customers in sight looked in his direction. The ancient tigress Maria hunched behind the desk and peered at him with bright orange eyes behind her trifocal lenses. He took a deep and satisfied breath laden with the scents of old paper and sweet pastry before adjusting the weight of his bag on his shoulder and approaching the cashier's desk.

"Good afternoon, Madam Donskovna," he greeted her.

"Sushki or baklava?" The old tigress tapped the countertop with a knobby finger, indicating the lamp-warmed treats within.

"Sushki," Joel answered, crouching down to inspect the donut-looking pastries that seemed to be sprinkled with poppy seeds. "I haven't had one before, and I know I love your baklava."

Maria nodded. "As you should. Go, change. It will be ready when you return." She pointed to the back of the store. "Use upstairs bathroom, Kostya is in storeroom."

Joel managed not to flinch at the mention of her grandson. He stood up to his full height-- Madam Donskovna stood a head taller, even hunched as she was-- and smiled his thanks.

The second story of the bookstore was limited to employees. It was sectioned into three main rooms: a large and dominating common room for the employees, a kitchen where Maria baked her confections--which thusly gave the entire floor a more condensed scent of pastries than the main store--and a sizable bathroom with a private shower stall in case of emergencies. As there were only five employees, including Maria, Kostya, and Joel himself, and only three employees there at once, the lounge saw little use, and the plush black sofa saw more action as a coat rack than a place for reclining and relaxation.

Joel changed into his blue work shirt and pulled a clean apron black off the hook as he passed the kitchen. Indigo was not his best color: where it was a good, clean contrast for Maria and Kostya, the steel grey of his own Maltese coloration made it almost tacky, in his opinion.

He looked at the clock on the wall, finding that he'd arrived fifteen minutes early, as he often tried to do. He could afford to take a little longer, he reasoned as he drifted towards the couch. He could delay going down to the basement with Kostya.

For a moment, Joel froze as the thought settled into his mind, and he wondered where that had come from. He wasn't afraid of Kostya. The older, much larger tiger made him... uncomfortable, certainly, but it wasn't as if Kostya was ever cruel to him. Occasionally rude, Joel couldn't deny, remembering the time the older tiger had spent the better part of a shift they'd spent together glaring at him while quite aggressively removing the covers and bindings from old books. But it wasn't as if Joel wasn't used to being stared at, especially by other tigers. Other tigers just didn't usually make him feel like they were imagining removing his arms.

He sighed as he flopped onto the couch. "Just a minute or two," he promised himself. He wasn't avoiding Kostya. He was just avoiding the glare of those hard amber eyes.

Joel traced the patterns on the plaster ceiling with his eyes, an action that was altogether much too familiar to him, but he held himself to his allotted minute and a half before he was up and marching back down to the store.

He wove his way through the aisles, looking this way and that for any customers with that familiar "I don't know where something is but I don't want to talk to the old lady" expression but none of them caught his attention. Several more customers had wandered in while he was upstairs, but they all seemed fairly confident as they perused the shelves, so he had no option but to approach Maria for his assignments that day.

The old tigress smiled at Joel as he approached, the same encouraging smile as always with the same amber eyes as her grandson, somehow a million degrees warmer.

"Today, you are in storeroom with Kostya," she instructed, passing Joel a Tupperware container within which were three round pastries. "He is binding books. You will take inventory."

Joel nodded as he took the plastic container. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you again."

"No need for thank-yous. I will bring tea. Tea helps wash sushki down."

The younger tiger opened his mouth to thank her again, and closed it. "Are you sure you'll be good out here?"

"I own this place," Maria said with a grin that showed her yellowed but quite sharp teeth. "I do not worry about anything."

Her smile dissipated a moment before Joel made to turn away, and she reached out to catch his arm in a surprisingly strong grip.

"It is Kostya's birthday," she said quietly. "He insists on coming to help me here, or working his construction, instead of enjoying it. He does not want his grandmother's doting; you will keep him company for me."

Joel's earlier discomfort returned. This was not of course the first time that Maria had saddled the two younger tigers together, and usually it resulted in little more than awkward silence as the two worked, and the odd coincidence when Joel looked up and found Kostya frowning as he glared at him from across the room.

But Maria had asked this of him, and she had given him a job when, to be completely honest, she hadn't needed to. As she'd said, she didn't have much to worry about, especially on days when Kostya was around. Her grandson was surprisingly multifaceted, sturdy and strong as well as knowledgeable about much of the practices around maintaining books and running a bookstore. He was even quite handsome to top it all off, though his attitude seemed to offset that. However, that was all Joel knew about him.The large tiger was intimidating, but he was also interesting. Joel wasn't obligated, but he was curious.

So he found himself heading towards the basement and opening the door to the soundproofed storeroom. The storeroom made up the entirety of the basement, with floor-to-ceiling shelves surrounding its perimeter and several long, dark wooden tables stacked with books filling its length. Hunkered over one of these tables with his back towards the door was Kostya, a large tiger with with fur that was cream-soda orange instead of the vibrant sunset hue of his grandmother, humming avidly along to the harsh rock music that was playing at an exuberant volume in a language Joel didn't recognize, though he was almost certain it wasn't Russian.

Joel cleared his throat as he closed the storeroom door behind him, and wasn't surprised when the older tiger didn't hear him. He made his way towards the table, coming around the side so that he could see what Kostya was actually doing: as he rounded into the older tiger's periphery he saw that he was kettle stitching a sheaf of pages in preparation for rebinding them into a new hard cover. Kostya's ear twitched and his humming came to a sudden halt as he watched Joel take a seat across from him.

"I did not know you were on shift today," he said by way of greeting, brows furrowed. "I can turn the music off."

"No, it's fine." Joel placed the Tupperware container on the table and nudged it between them. His tail curled itself around his ankle as he settled himself, ready for the other tiger to find some reason to leave him in the storeroom alone. "I'm apparently supposed to be working with you today."

Kostya's furrowed eyebrows rose incredulously. He placed his middle finger on the sheaf of text signatures, holding his sewing needle between his forefinger and thumb. "Why?"

"Your grandmother asked me to."

"I do not need help with binding."

Joel shrugged. "There's other things for me to do. It's Thursday, inventory day."

Kostya was quiet for a moment, not quite glaring at Joel, but apparently unsure where else to direct his confusion. Eventually he pulled out his phone and paused the music before pushing away from the table. "I will speak with her."

"You really don't have to," Joel said, exasperatedly. "Kostya, she just wants you to have some company on your birthday."

The older tiger froze, but did not turn. "Do not call me that. You are not my friend."

Kostya left without further comment, and Joel didn't stop him. His tail hung limply behind him, and he counted his breaths, breathing deeply. He realized that he wasn't all that upset, or even particularly surprised; the interaction, so far as Joel could tell, had gone about as well as he had expected.

After a moment to collect himself, he stood and ambled over to the box of arrivals and hefting it--as usual, it was overpacked--and moved it to the computer in the corner furthest from the door. As he began keying in arrivals, Joel played through the interaction with Kostya, or whatever Joel was expected to call him, in his mind.

The bigger tiger had, by all accounts, been rude as shit to Joel and unfortunately, Joel was so used to that that it barely registered as anything out of the ordinary. For some reason, ever since he had been hired by Madame Donskova, her grandson had done his absolute best to avoid Joel, and when that was not an option, he was not shy about making his displeasure known. The madam herself seemed roughly as confused as Joel was about the subject: though her grandson was not especially social with any of the employees, he seemed particularly unhappy whenever Joel was present. What was even more interesting, though, was that whenever he wasn't immediately aggressive, Kostya was often awkwardly amicable; he didn't hold conversation well, but Joel would often look up from finishing a task and find the larger tiger watching him before almost guiltily turning away. It was often a toss-up on how Kostya would respond on any given day, even if things were often skewed towards the negative.

Joel sighed. He enjoyed his work, even if it wasn't often the most mentally intensive. Furthermore, he greatly appreciated Madam Donskovna's charity in employing him at all, though he was beginning to suspect it had less to do with species familiarity and more to do with trying to get her grandson to interact with someone who wasn't herself. Admittedly, Joel himself didn't talk much with the other employees; he'd gotten the job so he wouldn't have to answer his family's questions about his life--he could do without dealing with that from people he had little-to-no obligation to.

The minutes began to melt as the grey tiger worked, and before he knew it he had reached the bottom of the arrivals box and the little clock in the corner of the computer screen told him more than an hour had passed. He sighed again and stretched before taking a look around. Kostya hadn't returned, but his half-bound sheaf of text lay forgotten on the table where he'd left it.

Succumbing to his curiosity, Joel approached the table and turned a page of the signatures, squinting at the indecipherability of what he found to be handwritten Russian on old, worn notebook paper. He quickly gave up on any hope of reading the text, but as he ran the paper between his fingers, he noticed dark, reddish stains along the edge of the page. On further inspection, holding up the sheaf of pages while holding the needle and thread in place so as not to lose Kostya's spot, Joel found that the same stains marred the entire stack; when he flipped through the pages, he found that they even blotted out entire blocks of writing. His brows furrowed and he leaned in to sniff it, detecting the faded scent of iron that, even as old as the paper was, hadn't disappeared entirely.

Joel's heart pounded in his chest like a beating drum, and his guts clenched as he turned toward the door that stood stoic and isolating between him and Kostya. He saw no discernable movement and made an effort to relax, counting his breaths once more and forcing his tail to uncoil itself from around his leg and hang loosely behind him. Realizing that he was still holding the old, bloodstained sheaf of pages, he returned them to their place on the desk and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

It was several long minutes before the drumbeat of his heart faded in Joel's chest and ears. He had grown good at that, emptying his mind and focusing not on breathing, but on nothing at all. He clenched and unclenched his fists as he moved to stand at the end of the table, never letting his claws fully out or in. In between states were often where people found most of their anxiety, but for Joel, liminality was often the most comfortable, when he didn't need to worry about where he was going just because he was going.

When the door opened and Kostya returned, Maria was close behind him, and though the tigers intentionally excluded Joel from their conversation (or argument, if he was judging their tones correctly) the way in which Maria gestured to him made it clear that he was at least tangentially related to it.

Joel watched quietly as the tigers argued, completely unaware of what they might be saying, though Joel had never seen Maria as animatedly upset as she seemed to be now. Kostya was hunched, and responded sparsely to his grandmother's verbal attacks, until he finally growled, in English, "Fine! I will do it!"

The older tiger looked for a moment as if she wanted to spit back a response, but she looked past Kostya at Joel and deflated. She turned her orange eyes back to her grandson and murmured something, in Russian, before taking her leave.

The door shut with a click of finality, and Joel watched the larger tiger breathe; Kostya's shoulders were tense, but they expanded and contracted steadily as the seconds passed. The room was silent, and after a moment, Joel realized he was staring, perhaps intrusively, while the other man collected himself. Suddenly, inspiration struck him: he moved to the table and retrieved the Tupperware container from where he'd left it.

"Hey, um," he spoke up and then realized he didn't know what to call Kostya, since he'd told him not to call him that. "Happy birthday?"

Kostya's ear twitched, and at first it looked as if he wouldn't respond, obstinately watching the door his grandmother had exited from, but with an audibly nasal sigh, the older tiger turned and raised his eyebrow at the container Joel was offering.

"What is this?"

"It's your birthday, right?" Joel removed the lid of the container. "Your grandmother doesn't usually let me pay for them, and I don't expect you do either, but," he paused, searching for the words to make what he wanted to say less cheesy, and failing. "Sharing something sweet usually makes me feel good. Birthdays aren't meant to be spent alone."

Kostya's ears cupped forward and a grimace stretched across his muzzle. Unlike the usual frowns that an interaction between them usually provoked, though, Joel noticed that he looked more embarrassed than displeased.

"I-Thank you." Kostya said, taking one of the pastries before moving to his seat at the table, pushing away his work with his free hand.

Joel took a seat across from him and picked up a piece of sushki, breathing in the sweet scent of the pastry. "It isn't a problem."

While he quickly took a bite of the confection--and almost choked at its surprising density--Kostya had held back, his brows furrowed as he looked between the sushki in his hand and the sheaf of papers he'd moved a distance away.

"I should apologize," Kostya began, "Because I have been rude to you. And I thank you for taking the interest in me despite my attitude."

Joel chewed slowly, unable to respond thanks to his surprisingly dry mouth, and realized that Maria had forgotten to bring their tea, likely due to dealing with Kostya's outburst. To his surprise, apparently understanding his predicament, Kostya cracked an admittedly handsome smile that elicited a sheepish grin in return.

"Take your time, I'm..." His smile wavered and he tapped his forehead with a finger, but he forged on, meeting Joel's eyes with his own. At once, Joel understood that his gaze wasn't naturally hard, just guarded. "My grandmother should mind her business, in my opinion, but she thinks that the two of us are in need of friends. Earlier, when I told you not to call me "Kostya", it is because that is a familial nickname, something those close to me use. You and I are not friends yet. But if you would forgive my... long standing behavior, then you can call me Konstantin."

Joel sat and chewed his pastry, and in the silence, Konstantin began to eat his own, dropping his gaze to the table, and occasionally to the sheaf of papers beside him. He had a feeling it had been Maria who had convinced her grandson to apologize, but...he seemed genuinely sorry, like he understood the way his way of closing himself off was harming others; even if he didn't give a damn about Joel, which he now doubted to be the case, he had admitted that his grandmother was worried, which Joel himself already knew--though he couldn't forget that she'd also apparently taken interest in him. The tiger was a mystery, without a doubt, but Joel couldn't help but be intrigued, and he wondered for the first time if the feeling was mutual.

He swallowed his mouthful of pastry and cleared his throat, waiting to level his gaze with Konstantin's. "I think that you've got a lot going on, Konstantin," he said. "But I also think that friends are supposed to help one another figure things out. So yeah, I accept your apology."

"Thank you," Konstantin said, relief painting his features. "So I have another question for you, now: would you like to enjoy my birthday dinner with me?"