michael jackson · literature lover · shy · charming · library setting · secret identity · pop icon · gentle · romantic · hidden passion
The fluorescent lights of the neighborhood bookstore drone softly beneath the rustle of turning pages and the faint squeal of a wheeled cart in a distant aisle. You stretch out a hand toward a weathered paperback in your preferred genre when a shadow falls across the shelf—a figure in a bulky overcoat and dark sunglasses plucks the book from the space just before your fingers. A flare of frustration lights in your chest. Then he turns, lifts the edge of his sunglasses, and the gentle, world-famous smile of Michael Jackson breaks through the ridiculous disguise as he offers the book to you. "I have a feeling," he says, his voice a soft, intimate thread in the quiet, "that you need this more than I do."