![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
- bsd,
- bsd: c: atsushi,
- bsd: c: kyouka,
- bunal,
- bunal: c: akutagawa,
- bunal: c: atsushi,
- bunal: c: chuuya,
- bunal: c: dazai,
- bunal: c: hagiwara,
- bunal: c: haruo,
- bunal: c: hori,
- bunal: c: ishikawa,
- bunal: c: kafuu,
- bunal: c: kan,
- bunal: c: katai,
- bunal: c: kenji,
- bunal: c: kitahara,
- bunal: c: kouyou,
- bunal: c: kunikida,
- bunal: c: kyouka,
- bunal: c: librarian,
- bunal: c: masaoka,
- bunal: c: miyoshi,
- bunal: c: mori,
- bunal: c: muroo,
- bunal: c: musha,
- bunal: c: naoya,
- bunal: c: natsume,
- bunal: c: niimi,
- bunal: c: odasaku,
- bunal: c: ranpo,
- bunal: c: rohan,
- bunal: c: shigeharu,
- bunal: c: takamura,
- bunal: c: takiji,
- bunal: c: tanizaki,
- bunal: c: tokuda,
- bunal: c: touson,
- bunal: c: wakayama,
- bunal: c: yokomitsu,
- bunal: c: yoshikawa,
- other: p: atsushi/chuuya
Library Life
Title: Library Life
Fandom: Bungou to Alchemist, Bungou Stray Dogs
Character(s): BSD Atsushi, BSD Kyouka, BunAru Chuuya, BunAru Mori, BunAru Dazai, BunAru Kouyou, BunAru Akutagawa, Takiji, BunAru Atsushi, BunAru Kyouka, BunAru Tanizaki, Takamura, Naoya, BunAru Kenji, BunAru Odasaku, Kafuu, Masaoka, Kitahara, BunAru Ranpo, BunAru Katai, Touson, Tokuda, Wakayama, Yokomitsu, BunAru Kunikida, Kan, Ishikawa, Hori, Haruo, Niimi, Hagiwara, BunAru Natsume, Muroo, Rohan, Yoshikawa, Mushanokouji, Miyoshi, Shigeharu, Librarian
Pairing(s): BunAru Chuuya/BSD Atsushi
Genre: Fluff
Word Count: 8,425
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Atsushi and Kyouka adjust to a peaceful, or at least more peaceful, life in the National Library.
Notes: Normally I don't post RP-inspired fic by itself (and in this community), but look at that word count, that's long.
Kyouka and Atsushi need to be examined by a doctor if they’re going to stay in the library. This makes sense. If you come from a strange place, you could be carrying diseases, and Kyouka and Atsushi are from another world. There’s no place stranger than that.
The problem is which doctor… or, it’s not really a problem with him, but with his name.
Kyouka can’t help but flinch away from Mori Ougai - it’s Mori Rintarou when he’s doing doctor work, he says - when he even comes near her, much less tries to touch her. There aren’t any needles involved, it’s a routine check-up, but there’s no way she can trust this man not to do her harm.
Mori looks at her wide eyes and tense posture, and takes a seat in his own chair. “Chuuya told me a little about your circumstances,” he says. “You don’t need to tell me any details, but the Mori you know wasn’t a good person?”
An understatement. She nods.
“If there were another doctor at this library, I would gladly ask for them to provide your care. But unfortunately, it’s only me, and for the safety of the people living here I can’t go without giving at least one check-up.” Mori hums thoughtfully. “Is there anything that would make you more comfortable?”
Kyouka thinks about it. She doesn’t know if she can ever trust anyone with the same name as that man, but she understands the necessity of the check-up.
“No needles, you can’t touch me, and I won’t take my clothes off,” she says finally.
“That can be done,” he answers.
It’s still an extremely tense examination for her, but eventually she’s declared to be in good health, and she doesn’t have to deal with that again for a year.
Maybe she’ll feel differently in a year.
Atsushi knows that the people in this library aren’t the same as the ones he knows back home. He wonders how long it’ll take for him to call the library ‘home’ - but anyway, that’s off topic. Chuuya proved that they’re different before he even arrived here, and seeing the other Nakajima Atsushi settled it.
Even so, he can’t help but treat them sort of similarly, before he’s actually gotten to know them.
So when Dazai comes back from a book delve injured and sighing about how he wants to ‘die painlessly and magnificently’, and Atsushi wishes him ‘good luck’ without even thinking about it, he’s not expecting Dazai to burst into tears.
It’s the last thing he’d expected, actually - he doesn’t think he’s seen his Dazai genuinely cry, ever. He doesn’t know how to deal with this, but he also has to try to make up for making anyone cry. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it! I hope you stay with us a long time, Dazai!”
“You’re just saying that…” Dazai sniffles.
“No, it’s true! Because-” Think, Atsushi. He doesn’t know this Dazai well yet, but- “If you died, then think of all your fans and how they wouldn’t get to read anything else you wrote!”
Dazai considers that for a second. “Well… I don’t want to disappoint my fans…” His tears slow to a stop.
Atsushi sighs in relief. He won’t be so careless again.
If Kouyou didn’t open his mouth, Kyouka would easily mistake him for a woman, like the Kouyou she knows. His voice is too deep for there to be any confusion, however, and so Kyouka can easily separate him in her mind from the Kouyou of her home.
It may not be the same for him, considering how quickly he takes to her.
“Kyouka, you aren’t wearing your hair up today?” he asks, when she enters the dining hall to eat breakfast with the authors.
“I overslept,” she answers. If you take too long to show up to breakfast, you won’t get any breakfast, so oversleeping is dangerous and her hairstyle has to be sacrificed - that’s what she’s used to, at least.
“We all do now and then,” he answers with a soft laugh. “I’ll put it up for you, if you want.”
She stares at him for a moment. “Aren’t you hungry?” If he works on her hair, he’ll have less time to eat.
“I won’t eat this,” he answers. “I’ll get my own breakfast later. Oh, would you like a braid?”
Kyouka ends up with her hair in a long, singular braid. It’s not her usual, and she can’t help admiring it throughout the day.
By now, Atsushi’s learned the names of all of the authors here, though he hasn’t spoken to all of them at any length.
There’s one who he’s specifically avoided talking to, for example, who’s just joined him outside the library. Atsushi was only out here to admire how nice a day it is for this season, and he’s regretting it when Akutagawa smiles at him.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks.
“N-not at all.” Atsushi thinks it’s rude to tell a person not to smoke if they’re outside, but more than that he just doesn’t know this Akutagawa’s temperament yet.
So Akutagawa puffs on a cigarette for a while. For him, it’s probably quiet companionship; for Atsushi, he’s looking for a subtle way to make his escape.
“The day is lovely today, is it not?” Akutagawa asks. Atsushi nods. “On winter mornings, it’s difficult for me to leave my futon, so I usually miss it.”
“I’m used to having to get up no matter what,” Atsushi replies. “If I overslept and missed work, Kunikida would scold me.” No reason to talk about what would happen if he overslept before that.
Akutagawa raises an eyebrow. “If it’s this Kunikida, he’s more likely to tell you afterwards all about the scoop you missed by sleeping in.”
“I’m not used to everyone being so different. Especially you, the Akutagawa I know is…” Atsushi flushes a little and thinks of something harmless to say. “Well, he doesn’t smoke? He’s always coughing.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Akutagawa says, puffing out some smoke. “But, if it’s mental health versus physical health, I’d wish for the person with my name to be stable, at least.”
Atsushi doesn’t correct him.
Kyouka isn’t really looking for hiding spots, just places in the library where she can have peace and quiet if she wants to. The people here are kind, but also very loud. That she could also hide if things got bad is something she’s acknowledged, though.
She’d thought this out of the way alcove would be promising, but she finds Kobayashi already tucked away in there. He lifts his hood a little to look at her, then scoots to the side to make room.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’ll find another spot.”
He nods, and then says, “It’s just me and Ishikawa that know about this place. So it’s good for hiding, if neither of us are here.”
Ah, he saw through her intentions. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Kobayashi thinks for a second. “...Even if you don’t think you’ll have to use them anymore, it’s good to confirm places to hide. Is it like that for you, too?”
“...Yes.” She tilts her head at him. She knows why she’s like that, but it’s probably much different for a writer…
“I can show you all the hiding spots I know,” he replies. “If you want, since we’re kindred spirits.”
She’ll ask him about it later. “Thank you very much.”
Of course Atsushi speaks to the other Nakajima. Despite how strange it is to talk to someone who shares his name, Nakajima is always kind and polite to him, and has been helpful getting him settled into the library.
So he’s concerned when Nakajima’s badly injured on a mission, and decides to bring him something. He likes cats, but there’s already a cat plush in the repair room to play with… maybe he’ll appreciate some chazuke like Atsushi would?
When Atsushi enters the repair room, Nakajima has his glasses off and his hair pushed back. He glances at Atsushi, but his gaze doesn’t seem at all unfocused despite the lack of glasses. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”
Atsushi falters for a moment. Nakajima’s voice is much more harsh than normal. Maybe he’s just grumpy while injured? “I brought you some food,” he says, setting the tray next to Nakajima’s bed. “So you’ll get well soon.”
“All I need is time and ink,” says Nakajima. He eyes the chazuke for a second. “...Well, I’ve never had this myself before.”
“You’ve never had chazuke?” Atsushi can’t imagine that, it’s such a common dish.
“He’s had it. I haven’t,” Nakajima replies. “I’m not usually in control of our body for anything but fighting.”
Oh. Split personality. Okay.
While Nakajima eats his chazuke, Atsushi ventures another question. “If you’re only in charge for fighting, then why are you still…?”
“So he doesn’t feel this pain,” Nakajima answers, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He turns a glare on Atsushi. “Is there a problem?”
“N-no, not at all!”
The other, other Nakajima is scary, but at least he seems to be taking good care of his other half.
The other Izumi Kyouka is a man, and that’s strange for Kyouka to think about, but she’ll accept it as simply how things are here.
Izumi is a strong germophobe, which is a trait he doesn’t share with Kyouka. She’s decided not to make any comment on him constantly cleaning his gloves, or reheating any food he eats - it’s just how things are.
A trait they do share…
“What a cute doll!”
Kyouka blinks, and pulls the rabbit doll she always carries with her out of where it’s tucked into her kimono’s sash. “This one?”
“Yes, it’s adorable.” He smiles warmly at her. “Where did you get it? I collect rabbit goods of my own, you see, but I don’t have that one yet.”
“Atsushi won it for me from a claw machine in Yokohama.” So it’s probably hard to get from another world’s Tokyo.
“Is that so… It might be on eBay, still…” He considers the odds of that for a moment, before shaking his head. “Aaah, I shouldn’t get my hopes up for that.”
“Even if you can’t find another, you can’t have this one,” she says, firmly.
“Of course not. It’s obviously important to you.” He sounds the tiniest bit offended that she suggested he would take it from her, but his expression softens. “Please take good care of it.”
Whenever Atsushi comes close to being alone with Tanizaki, he always ends up being steered somewhere else somehow, or else Tanizaki is lured away. Chuuya will show up out of nowhere to ask Atsushi to help him with a line he’s having trouble with (even though it’d make more sense to ask literally anyone else in the library), or Akutagawa will engage Tanizaki in a scholarly debate that he warns Atsushi will be boring to him, and he should probably find something more interesting to do.
So, Atsushi doesn’t really know what kind of person this Tanizaki is. He’s certainly much more elegant than the one he knows - err, no offense to his Tanizaki - so maybe his personality suits his image.
It doesn’t.
“With all the authors that have been summoned so far, why is not a single one of them a woman?” Tanizaki asks, to probably no one in particular, since he’s not looking at Atsushi and he’s the only other one in the room. “It’s an unbearable torment.”
“Miss Librarian is a woman,” Atsushi points out. He still doesn’t know her name. “And Kyouka - err, my Kyouka.”
“Dear Kyouka is a girl, not a woman,” Tanizaki replies. “And Miss Librarian has ignored my every invitation to step on me, mistreat me, use me as a tool. There’s no hope of her being the one to fulfill my desires.”
...Oh.
Err.
Well, he’s glad they ruled out Kyouka as an option for that right away, but, um?
“I… wouldn’t know anything about that…” He backs up. Can anyone, anyone at all, please rescue him from this conversation?
“You’re still too innocent for those sorts of pleasures. Then again...” Tanizaki rubs his chin, before smiling widely. “You do room with Nakahara, so perhaps I’m mistaken about your innocence, hm?”
Atsushi has no answer to that that isn’t turning bright red and making a break for it.
Kyouka finds Takamura sitting at a table with a large block of wood and carving tools. The wood looks distinctly uncarved.
Takamura smiles at her when she approaches. “Good afternoon, Kyouka.”
“Good afternoon.” She looks back to the wood, then at him. “What is this going to be?”
“Well, I’m not sure yet.” He drums his fingers on the table. “It’s good wood for carving, so I can’t be satisfied until I finish working with it, but I don’t know what I want to make from it yet.”
“It’s writer’s block, but with wood carving.” She examines it carefully, but she’s not a carver, so she doesn’t know what to do with it either… But she recalls a set of toys she saw in a window, when she went to pick up some coffee the last time they ran out. “Animals?”
Takamura blinks at her. “You think so?”
“A set of wooden animals. The children will like them.” Meaning, Kenji and Nankichi. She, of course, is not a child - she’s fourteen.
Takamura takes another critical look at the wood, before nodding. “It’s been awhile since I carved toys… Alright. Thank you very much for your help.”
It wasn’t much help, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to turn down the wooden rabbit he presents to her when he’s finished carving the set.
When there’s no detective work to be done, Atsushi finds himself with a lot of free time.
Of course, he does his work at the library diligently - shelving books, organizing new acquisitions, that sort of thing. But his hours are much more predictable than they were at the Agency, and the work isn’t nearly as strenuous.
So, in order to make himself as helpful as possible, he’s going to improve his cooking. He’d already learned how to make some very basic dishes, but he wants to be able to move onto more complex meals soon.
Currently he’s frowning at some clams. He’s cooked them for a few minutes, and some of them have opened, but not all of them…
“You’re going to want to take them off heat pretty soon,” says Shiga.
Atsushi had noticed him come into the kitchen, but he hadn’t realized that he was paying attention to Atsushi’s cooking, so he still startles a little. “But they’re not all open-”
“That’s normal for a batch of clams. Some of ‘em just won’t open, and you’ll ruin the ones you’ve already got open trying to get all of them.” Shiga reaches over and turns off the burner for Atsushi. “Just throw out the closed ones. You’ve got plenty left.”
“Th-thank you.” There are still a good number of clams, at least enough to feed him and Chuuya. Not enough to feed all the authors. “Do you cook much, Shiga?”
“I’m pretty good,” Shiga says. Atsushi spares a glance at what he’s making, and immediately looks away lest he be horribly demoralized by how much fancier it is than his dish. “I started off pretty bad, though. Heh, but that’s a given when you grow up having servants do all the cooking for you.”
Atsushi can’t even picture that kind of life. “I’d like to be able to make something as nice as that, but…”
“What, this? It’s not so hard. I’ll teach you how to cook this next time, how about that?” Shiga asks. When Atsushi just stares at him in surprise, he grins. “It’s the job of old men to pass on their skills to the next generation, and all that.”
Shiga doesn’t look anything like an old man, but Atsushi’s too grateful to question that.
Of all the people Kyouka knows at home who could be a child here, she supposes Kenji isn’t a bad pick. It’s certainly less strange than if, say, Kunikida were a child.
They’re similar in personality: energetic and cheerful. This Kenji is a vegetarian, while her Kenji would eat anything you put in front of him and several things that you didn’t. There’s the strangeness of hearing Chuuya call him ‘Miyazawa-sensei’, but other than that he’s refreshingly familiar and likable.
“Kyouka,” Kenji asks her, kicking his feet under the table, “do you ever get tired of adults bossing you around?”
Kyouka thinks first of Akutagawa. “Yes.”
“Me too,” Kenji says. “We’re almost grown-ups, so they should trust us more. Kyouka, you’re really smart and mature, so I’m sure you don’t have to be watched by adults at all!”
She’s probably more mature than Kenji, at least. Although… “How old are you?”
He thinks for a moment. “Um… Thirty-seven?”
...She’s never going to get used to that.
Now that Atsushi’s cooking more, under Shiga’s careful instruction, he’s getting better at it. And getting better at it means that sometimes, writers will smell what he’s cooking and want a taste. It doesn’t happen every time, but when it does he’s usually happy to share with them.
Except if it’s curry. If it’s curry, it happens every time, without fail.
“Mm, mm~ Somethin’ smells great in here!”
Atsushi’s learned to stop being surprised when Oda shows up in the middle of him making curry. Maybe he can smell it from across the library. “Hi, Oda.”
“Hey, Atsushi.” Oda flashes him a grin. “Scallop curry today, huh? Ya ever been to Aomori?”
“No, I haven’t. It’s not really close to Yokohama, and I don’t travel much...” If you consider the ‘other worlds’ thing, this is definitely the farthest he’s ever traveled.
“Aaah, that’s too bad. Dazai can talk yer ear off about it if he gets a chance, y’know,” Oda replies with a laugh.
“Dazai’s from Aomori?” Atsushi asks. He doesn’t know where his is from, but probably not that far away.
“Born and raised! He might slip into Tsugaru-ben if ya fluster him enough.”
Atsushi can’t picture him flustering Dazai, but he’s already made this Dazai cry, so anything is possible. Anyway. “Did you want a taste of curry?”
“You betcha!”
Nagai sits down across from Kyouka. He looks like he’s in a good mood, though his smile fades when he sees the glum expression on Kyouka’s face. “Is something wrong?” he asks. “You seemed to be having a good time earlier, when Kitahara was showing off the song he wrote.”
“I was,” she says. Nagai is someone who is trustworthy, and she doesn’t have any strange associations with him from before, so she’ll open up, a little. “When your job is over, you’ll all disappear.”
“It’s true,” he says. He also doesn’t lie to her, which she appreciates. “Though no one knows exactly when that will be.”
“When you’re gone, I won’t have any proof any of this ever happened.” And she’s not sure she’ll be able to believe it really happened, instead of just her making it up.
“Hmm, if that’s the issue, then… Have you considered keeping a diary?” he asks. “Physical evidence is more convincing than just your memories. You could even tape in photographs, if you’d like.”
She’s never kept a diary before. For much of her life, she didn’t have anything good to write in it. But now…
She nods, determined. She won’t let these good memories disappear.
“Atsushi, do you know how to play baseball?” Masaoka asks, and Atsushi has to actually think about it.
He’s never actually played. He wouldn’t have had the right equipment as a child, and as a detective he was too old to just mess around with a ball out back. Anyway, he can’t see any of the others playing, except probably Kenji and maybe Tanizaki.
But he’s done enough running around for other reasons, so…
“I don’t, but I could learn?” he says.
“Good enough!” Masaoka replies, and claps him on the back. “We’re one person closer to a full team!”
“How many do you have so far?” Atsushi asks. Most of the authors here don’t seem like they’d be very interested in sports.
“Well, Yoshikawa said he’d play, and if I ask nicely enough I bet Natsume would give in, so counting us two… Four,” says Masaoka.
Atsushi may not know all the rules, but… “Don’t you need nine people on a team?”
“Yep.”
“And two teams to actually play a game?”
“Yep.”
Atsushi sighs. “...Let me know when you get another fourteen people to agree and I’ll be right there.”
“That song you sang the other day, about the rain, was nice,” says Kyouka.
“Thank you.” Kitahara wears a gentle smile. “Children’s songs are my specialty. Well, one of them, at least.”
Kyouka nods. Some writers are good at lots of things. Some writers are only good at one thing, and get a little defensive about how novelists can’t understand poets if they’re asked about it.
“Do you sing at all, Kyouka?” he goes on.
She shakes her head.
“Oh? I’m sure you have a lovely voice. But, if you don’t want to, then that’s that,” he replies.
“I do want to,” she says. She wants to be able to make people happy that way. “...But it’s embarrassing.”
“Not one for being the center of attention?” Kitahara asks. She nods. “Would it be any easier if you only sang for one person? Like Atsushi, for example.”
“That’s more embarrassing,” she answers, before she can dwell on it and get flustered.
Edogawa is pushy. He’s much like Atsushi’s former coworker that way.
Lately he’s been trying to learn about Atsushi’s ability. He knows that Atsushi has one - Atsushi isn’t sure how, since Chuuya swears up and down he said nothing to him about it, and he trusts Chuuya - but he doesn’t have any details of what it does, and Atsushi doesn’t want to talk to him about it.
So, obviously, the next best plan is to try to trigger Atsushi’s ability. And since he doesn’t know what the ability is, he can only do that with trial and error.
Atsushi has had worse done to him than had a bucket of water dumped on him when he opened a door. It’s okay. It’s a little bit funny, even, once he gets his wet bangs out of his eyes.
Not everyone agrees.
“Completely unacceptable,” says the librarian, with her arms folded across her chest. “Apologize this instant and swear to never do such a thing to him again, Edogawa.”
“I-it isn’t that big of a deal, really…” Atsushi says. He has dry clothes now (Chuuya’s wouldn’t fit him, so he’s wearing some of Katai’s, since they’re about the same height and he’d be beyond awkward in, say, Tanizaki’s) and he’s dried his hair, so everything is fine.
“It is a big deal!” she says. “You should be able to feel safe in the library, and that can’t happen if certain people are going to attack you for the sake of answering a question you don’t want to answer in the first place!”
“Well… but it’s…” He still doesn’t want to answer what his ability is, even if it would make the pranks stop, but he also doesn’t really want to fear further pranks like this.
“I understand,” says Edogawa, sounding mostly resigned. “I’ve been thoroughly chastised and I won’t do such a thing to you again, Atsushi. I apologize.”
Atsushi pauses. Apologies are still a bit strange for him to get. “Thank you.”
“But if you ever do want to discuss it-” The librarian shoots Edogawa a venomous glare, and he laughs. “Kidding, only kidding...”
“Thank you for lending Atsushi your clothes,” Kyouka says. She sets the washed and folded pile of clothing on Katai’s dresser.
“It’s no big deal,” says Katai with a chuckle. “I can’t picture that guy feeling too comfortable in the fancy stuff Tanizaki wears, and he’s Dazai’s height, but Dazai’d freak out if anything happened to his super-expensive outfits…”
The novelist Dazai does talk about being stylish much more than the detective Dazai. Kyouka doesn’t know how she feels about him taking anything seriously, much less something as unimportant as that.
“It’s still nice of you. So, to repay you...” Kyouka thinks. “I could give you advice about girls.”
He nearly chokes. “H-hey, no offense, but you’re a lot younger than my type-”
“But I’m still a girl. So I should know more than you do,” she reasons.
“No way. You probably haven’t even been on a date yet.”
“I have been on a date before,” she says. “One date.”
He raises his eyebrows, clearly dubious. “Yeah? A nice date?”
She nods. “Atsushi took me around to all the places I wanted to go to and bought me lots of things. And then we went to the police station so I could turn myself in.”
“...thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass on your advice.”
In the place Chuuya and Atsushi had first met, Chuuya had complained about the lack of literature available by people he already knew. There was just Edogawa’s eroguro and Shimazaki’s ‘New Life’, and he said he’d rather read the eroguro than that.
Atsushi has to wonder what was so bad that he’d pick reading anything else over it, and what Shimazaki is like. He’s quiet and a little bit gloomy, but Atsushi doesn’t know anything about what he writes or his history.
“Do you know what it feels like to die?” Shimazaki asks, as a conversation starter.
That’s… what a strange question. “I’ve never died before. Wouldn’t you know already?”
Shimazaki shakes his head. “Authors don’t come into this world with all their memories intact. We can get them back as we get stronger, but I still haven’t remembered my death. And no one will tell me about theirs, either.”
“Well, it’s probably a sensitive subject…” Atsushi can understand being morbidly curious, if you had the opportunity to learn something like that. “Maybe you’ll remember soon?”
“Maybe. Or, Katai said that if I died and was transmigrated again, I’d have a good chance to remember that time.” Shimazaki’s frown deepens. “But then he wouldn’t let me go die. He’s such a strange person.”
This is uncomfortably familiar. “I don’t think it’s all that strange to want your friends not to die…?”
While Kouyou and the other Kyouka are very strange to Kyouka, both in gender and in personality, it seems even stranger to have someone closely associated with them that just doesn’t exist in her world. Or, maybe there is a Tokuda Shuusei, and they just never met.
“It must be nice to be able to live a peaceful life now, as a normal librarian,” Tokuda says. “I’ve gotten dragged into something troublesome again.”
“It’s nice,” she agrees. “If you really hate it, couldn’t you just not fight? There are lots of writers here.”
“There are definitely plenty who are stronger than me, but…” He sighs. “I was the first one summoned, so if I don’t see it through to the end, I’ll be disappointed in myself. And if I gave up, Sensei would scold me, and Kyouka - the other one - would never let me hear the end of it. I’d be lectured until I came back to work.”
She considers that for a few moments. “...I see. You really like both of them.”
Tokuda stares at her in silent bewilderment.
“It’s more troublesome to fight than to be lectured, unless it’s someone you like scolding you.” Kyouka nods, satisfied at having seen past Tokuda’s harsh exterior. “I’m glad Izumi has friends.”
“Geeze, this is troublesome in its own way…”
“Hey, want to have a drink?”
It’s not the first time Wakayama has said this in Atsushi’s presence, but usually Chuuya is with him - the two of them are drinking partners. Atsushi looks behind him to see if Chuuya’s snuck up on him (he hasn’t) before pointing to himself.
Wakayama chuckles, lifting up his cup of sake. “Yeah, you. You’re old enough, right?”
“Well, yes, but…” Atsushi takes a seat across from Wakayama. “I probably won’t be as fun to drink with as Chuuya is…”
“Maybe, but he’s not all that good to drink with. He drinks too quick and picks fights instead of relaxing.” Wakayama sighs, but it’s fond. “Good taste in sake, though.”
“Oh,” says Atsushi, pouring himself some sake. Chuuya is pretty quick to get into bar fights, he knows that from experience. “I’m sorry about him.”
“That’s alright. Sometimes you’ve just gotta let the people you love do what they want to do.”
Atsushi nods, and then blushes when he realizes the implications of agreeing. Wakayama, thankfully, doesn’t call him on it.
Yokomitsu is a quiet, serious person, even more so than Kyouka. As such, she’s more or less comfortable around him, and tends to gravitate towards the conversations he’s having with other people if there’s no one she wants to talk to at the moment.
“Can you really tell what your friend thinks just by his eyes?” she asks, after one such overheard conversation.
“Of course,” he answers. “Kawabata and I were sworn friends for over twenty years. If you know a person for such a long period of time, you’ll no longer need spoken words to understand each other.”
Kyouka, of course, hasn’t known anyone for nearly that long. But her thoughts go to Atsushi, and the times on cases when they’d coordinated flawlessly without explaining everything they were going to do. In the middle of a fight, you can’t sit down and discuss your plans.
“That makes sense,” she replies. “It’s good to have someone like that.”
Everyone’s gotten used to Atsushi being in the library, he thinks, and it’s no longer a novelty that this person with the same name as an author came from another world to live with them. It’s not a novelty in the way that the talking cat is not a novelty: it is certainly strange, if you stop to think about it, but everyone’s accepted it as part of their daily life.
He’d been worried about this Kunikida hounding him for answers: he talks frequently about ‘scoops’ and getting information for new writing material. Strangely, though, Kunikida has mostly left him be.
“Do you dislike me?” Atsushi blurts out one day, and Kunikida tilts his head at him in obvious confusion. “Since - I thought since you want to get scoops, it’s weird that you haven’t asked me anything-”
“Oh, that. You seem like you don’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t ask.” That’s Kunikida’s straightforward answer.
“...That’s all?”
Kunikida nods. “I’m from before I-novels got really popular, but there’s always a danger when you’re writing autobiographical works or about real people. You get to choose what you write about yourself, but other people don’t get to choose what you write about them, so you have to be responsible with what you say. ...It’d be nice if Shimazaki was a little more careful there, but what’s done is done.”
“Oh… Thank you, Kunikida.” Atsushi gives a small smile. “But, it’d still be nice to get to know you without any writing involved.”
“I’m always up for that.” Kunikida flashes him a grin.
Kikuchi is often the one in charge of picking up this or that from the nearby shops, because he can be counted on not to spend too much of the library’s money on unnecessary things. Even when he gambles, he takes care to only waste his own money.
Kyouka doesn’t have to be here, but she likes seeing what they stock in Tokyo, and she doesn’t mind Kikuchi’s company. She usually sticks close to him, unless something catches her eye.
“Did you find something nice?” he asks, noticing that she’d stopped following.
She nods, and points out to him the rabbit plush she’d found. It’s about as large as her head.
“That’s a cute rabbit,” he says, sounding genuine. “Are you buying one?”
She shakes her head and turns out her empty pockets. She probably shouldn’t have spent that much on flowers for her room earlier…
“Aaah, well. If that’s the case, I’ll loan you some money for it.” Kikuchi checks the price tag, then starts rifling through his wallet while Kyouka just stares at him. “It’s a loan, though, I expect you to pay me back when you get the chance to.”
She hides her smile in her giant rabbit plush all the way back to the library.
Atsushi likes to think of himself as a reasonably frugal person. He isn’t used to having much money, so he doesn’t make too many frivolous purchases. That’s not a complaint about the size of his paycheck! It’s just how he is.
Even if he won’t buy much for himself, he’ll let other people borrow money from him if they make a case for needing it. It doesn’t have to be much of a case: a simple ‘I need to get these debt collectors off my back’ spoken with teary eyes will work every time.
Or, almost every time.
“Ishikawa… you’ve borrowed money from me twice already without paying me back,” says Atsushi, very slowly.
Ishikawa laughs, a bit nervously. “Yeah, but that was-”
“This month.”
“Some things came up, and I’ve really gotta ask for your help, there’s nowhere else I can turn! I swear it’ll be the last time I ask for money from you!” Ishikawa says, hands clasped together. He looks like he’s about to get on his knees in supplication.
Atsushi feels bad for him, but… “You swore that the last time, too. ...I’m sorry, but I can’t give you any more. Maybe there are some jobs you can do for the library that you’d get paid for?”
“I don’t mind doing hard labor if it’s for money, but...” Ishikawa gives Atsushi a sorrowful look. “Even if it’s just a little, you can’t spare any change?”
Atsushi ends up giving him the change in his pocket, while promising that this will be the absolute last time he lends him money. He’s not sure if Ishikawa even heard him say that.
The Akutagawa here isn’t like Akutagawa there, so much so that Kyouka sometimes wonders if one of them changed their name sometime during their life. But, even so, it’d still make them ‘Akutagawa Ryuunosuke’, so it doesn’t really matter what their birth name was.
Speaking of names.
“‘Tacchanko’?” she repeats, after Akutagawa has ended his conversation with Hori and left the room.
Hori flushes with embarrassment. “Well… It’s just Akutagawa who calls me that, since I used to study under him. But most people who I’m friends with call me Tacchan.”
He is cute, suiting a cute nickname; he doesn’t look all that much older than her, even though the fact that he’s a published author means he’s almost definitely an adult. But it’s who the nickname came from that has her confused. “Akutagawa was a good teacher?”
He nods. “I learned a lot from him, and he’s always been very kind to me. If I was able to carry on his legacy, then that’s something I’m proud of.”
The Akutagawa she knew first has been carrying his own legacy, given to him from Dazai. She’ll be glad if that legacy stops there.
“It’s a very cute name,” she says, rather than voicing that thought. “It fits you.”
“...I’m a man too, you know…”
“Sensei! Sensei, did you read this paper, they’re talking about ‘Gloom in the Country-’”
Dazai trying to get someone’s attention is nothing new for Atsushi, but back in the Agency, usually it was to annoy them in some way, and it was almost always successful. When Satou doesn’t meet Dazai’s gaze or acknowledge him, Atsushi can’t help but feel bad for him: the disappointment and hurt is visible on Dazai’s face.
Dazai leaves first, and the morose way he slinks off gives Atsushi the courage to speak up. “Why don’t you want to talk to Dazai?”
“...It’s hard to explain,” Satou says. “Bad memories, I guess.”
That’s an awfully simple explanation for ‘it’s hard to explain’. Atsushi’s frown deepens. “He seems like he really admires you.”
“He was one of my disciples when we were alive, but…” Satou looks away. “Is it so bad that I want to put that part of my past behind me?”
“...I don’t think that’s what you’re doing, though,” says Atsushi, before he can consider whether that’s polite to say. “If you were going to start a new relationship, that would be one thing, but if you keep treating Dazai like everything’s the same as back then, nothing’s going to change.” He swallows. “I think… maybe my senior’s advice would help you here.”
“What’s that?” Satou asks, looking back.
Atsushi remembers the words clearly. He could never forget a single one. “‘Do not pity yourself. If you wallow in self-pity, life will be an endless nightmare.’”
“...Whoever told you that is a very wise person,” says Satou, after a moment to let them sink in.
“He is,” says Atsushi, and glances towards the door Dazai left through.
Nankichi seeing her as an ally makes sense: she’s the closest one to his apparent age, apart from Kenji.
That said, she’s really not sure she knows how to pull off pranks.
“It’s easy,” he tells her. “We’re not gonna hurt anybody, we’re just gonna surprise them.”
Kyouka nods. She’s pretty sure that hiding a toy snake in the bathroom cabinet will be fine. Besides, it’s just a snake.
They hang around the area until one of the authors goes in. It’s Hori.
Kyouka has about a second to briefly question why Nankichi looks more unsure than excited before a loud shriek reaches her ears.
“S-s-snake!!”
Hori stumbles out of the bathroom, pale as a sheet. Akutagawa is the first person to reach him, and after a moment of holding his shoulders and convincing him that everything will be okay, Akutagawa goes to investigate.
This is the time where Nankichi whispers, “We should go.”
Kyouka doesn’t think she should debate this. Hori is on the brink of tears and she hasn’t yet worked up the nerve to knowingly upset any Akutagawa when it’s unnecessary. They bail.
She doesn’t help Nankichi with his pranks for a while after that.
A cry of “ow!” followed by tears catches Atsushi’s attention, and he hurries to find Hagiwara sitting on the floor, sniffling.
“Are you okay?” Atsushi asks. “Can I help?”
Hagiwara shakes his head. “I… I tripped over my sandal lace again.”
Oh. Atsushi doesn’t laugh or smile, but he does relax a little knowing it’s not serious. He sits down beside Hagiwara. “Nothing’s sprained?”
“Just a little bruised.” Hagiwara’s still sniffling. “I’m so clumsy, and useless, I shouldn’t have ever existed…”
“That’s not true,” Atsushi says, before the conversation can go down that familiar path. “You’re really talented, and you’ve inspired a lot of people.”
Hagiwara wipes some of the tears out of his eyes. “Me? Inspirational?”
“Yeah! I mean, Miyoshi’s always talking about you, and all…” Atsushi doesn’t know much about the literature of this world, but he’d bet there’s more than just Miyoshi who admire Hagiwara’s writing.
That seems to be enough, anyway. Hagiwara exhales, having stopped crying entirely. “That’s right… Even my imperfect poetry can be enough to make someone else happy, somehow.”
“Right, so, it’s good that you’re alive.” Atsushi doesn’t know if he can be the person who makes someone else feel like it’s okay for them to live, especially someone who’s already as talented and famous as Hagiwara-
-but Hagiwara hugs him for saying that, so he must have done okay.
Kyouka has gotten her own paycheck before, so that isn’t completely new. Kyouka has even gotten gifts with no expectation of repayment before, though she wasn’t used to that before coming to the library.
But the near-constant stream of gifts is new. If she isn’t getting rabbit toys from Izumi (“they’re completely disinfected, don’t worry”) or baubles from Kouyou (“this would look lovely in your hair”) or carvings from Takamura (“I saw this piece of wood and thought of you”) or seeds from Kobayashi (“you’re keeping a flower box, right?”) or-
She could go on, but the short version is that almost everyone has given her some kind of gift at this point.
The most consistent person, though, is Natsume. Every week, he’ll have some sort of candy for her, citing that he bought too much for himself once again.
She allows it for a while - she’s passed the point where she’s concerned about poisoning, especially with candy still in its wrapper - then finally has to ask. “Do you buy too much candy on purpose?”
He chuckles. “Oh, you’ve found me out.”
“It’s too consistent for it to be a mistake every week,” she says. “...So why do you always say it’s a mistake?”
“I thought perhaps your pride wouldn’t allow you to accept gifts from me without an excuse for taking them,” he replies. “People your age can be like that at times, you know.”
It’s true that there are willful teenagers out there who won’t take gifts from adults, but…
“I’ll accept them,” she says. “Please be honest in the future.”
“You and Saku have been getting along lately, huh?” Muroo takes a seat beside Atsushi.
Atsushi gets the feeling of an impending ‘if you hurt my best friend, I’ve read about fifty ways to kill you’ conversation. “Ah - well - he’s a good person, so…”
“That’s great,” says Muroo, smiling without a hint of malice. “Keep it up!”
Atsushi tilts his head again. “Aren’t you going to threaten me or something? In case I do something bad?”
“Anybody can tell you’re not a bad person,” says Muroo. “And Saku’s really shy, he has a hard time making friends. If he relies just on me and Haku, what if something happens to us in a book delve?”
Chuuya’s already impressed upon Atsushi that authors can dissolve into nothing when they’re on missions like that. They don’t often, because Miss Librarian prioritizes keeping them alive over advancing, but sometimes things happen.
“Well… I’m glad you think I can help, but I don’t think I’d be a good replacement for you,” Atsushi says. “So, please stay alive.”
“Of course I will,” says Muroo, with an easy laugh. “If I can’t forgive anyone who makes Saku cry, the absolute worst thing would be to make him cry myself. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Kyouka’s primary jobs are normal librarian duties - organizing books and so on - but since people live here in this library, she’s also taken on some roles necessary for any place where people live: namely, laundry.
Many of the authors have delicate clothing that can’t just be thrown in a washing machine. It requires special treatment, and she’s sure to check each and every article of clothing so she doesn’t accidentally ruin one.
“Ah, that’s Kouyou’s clothing, so if you aren’t going to take it apart, you can wash it in the bathtub. That’s what he usually does.”
Kyouka looks up. Kouda Rohan is a very tall man, and would be slightly intimidating to anyone without Kyouka’s history.
“I’ll wash it properly,” she says. “Because he trusted it to me.”
“Good,” he says. “It’s worth the effort.” He sits down with her, and without asking, starts pointing out which clothes need to be given special care and which can go in the washer and dryer.
Taking care of thirtysome authors’ clothing takes a long time, but it goes quicker with two people working on it. It’s also not quite as boring when she has someone to talk to.
Even if it does hurt her neck a little to look up that far.
Atsushi keeps in shape. He can’t help it. Even knowing that he’ll never be called on to purify a tainted book, because he literally can’t as a living person, he still has the worry that someday, some unspecified bad thing will happen, and it’ll be his job to keep everyone else safe.
They’re just authors, after all, and he’s the one who’s…
“Good! Keep it up!”
Yoshikawa’s voice interrupts his thoughts and his stretches. “Ah - good morning, Yoshikawa.”
“Good morning!” he replies cheerfully. “Getting in some morning training? Excellent! If you make it a routine, you won’t slack off!” That said, he settles into his own morning training.
For a person who probably has done more writing about fighting than actual fighting, Yoshikawa’s own routine is fairly rigorous. It’s no wonder he’s more muscular than most of the other authors here. There are a few things Atsushi might like to try himself, in the future.
When they’re both done, Yoshikawa tosses him a water bottle. “You did well! You’re a little skinny, but you’re stronger than I thought!”
“Well…” There’s probably no reason to tell Yoshikawa the real reason Atsushi can handle so much exertion. “I do my best.”
“You should teach me some things,” Yoshikawa answers. “Between the two of us, we’ll get even stronger than before!”
It sounds nice. Atsushi has no reason to refuse.
“Kyouka, shouldn’t you be in school right now?” Musha asks. Kyouka had been calling him ‘Mushanokouji’ before he insisted on the shorter version.
“Miss Librarian is looking into it,” she says. “I’ll go when all the paperwork is settled.”
“Hmm, there’s an awful lot of that these days…” He sighs. “But, you must miss having school friends your own age to talk to! Right?”
“I didn’t go to school much,” she answers.
The inevitable, confused reply: “Why not?”
She considers. Not because she doesn’t know the reason, but because Musha is a sheltered person who doesn’t know many things. Some of them are practical things like how to ride a bicycle, and some of them are more serious.
But, she’s also not very fond of lying if she doesn’t have to. “The mafia doesn’t send you to school. You get educated there.”
Musha pauses for a second, then moves - not so fast that Kyouka couldn’t dodge if she wanted, but she reads his intentions easily, and lets him hug her.
“Kyoukaaaaa, that’s so sad!” he says, voice warbling. “I didn’t like school either, but I’m still glad I got to go! You could meet a lot of nice people there, and learn cool things, and have fun, and- and-”
“It’s alright.” She pats his arm, because she’s not really sure what else to do with an adult clinging to her like this.
“It’s not okay! But we can try and make up for it, we can send you to summer camp right away! As soon as it’s summer!”
She’s not sure she likes the sound of that.
Atsushi’s given up on guessing people’s actual ages. Both Kenji and Nankichi are older than him, despite being children. Shiga is in his eighties, Kobayashi is in his twenties, and you’d never tell there was a gap in maturity. It’s just impossible to tell.
Miyoshi, though, is shorter than Atsushi, and a little less mature than Atsushi (though he wouldn’t say that out loud), and has starry eyes for an older writer. So surely he’s-
“Sixty-three,” Miyoshi says. “Heart attack.”
-way older than Atsushi. He sighs. “I know everyone’s a published writer here, but it would be nice to have someone close to my age…”
“Hmmm… Well, I do think there’s someone who’s really less than twenty years old here,” Miyoshi says. “Actually, I’m sure of it!”
Atsushi perks up a little. “Who?”
“The cat.”
“...Never mind.”
There isn’t much Kyouka can do for injured writers: the only things that can heal them are ink and time. Nonetheless, she visits them in the repair room when she has free time, mostly because she knows it’s painful to be left alone to heal.
Nakano gives her a small smile when she asks how he’s feeling. “It’s painful, but certainly not the worst pain I’ve experienced.”
“What’s worse than battle for a writer?” she asks.
“Well, I was a communist during a time when people like that were routinely imprisoned for thought crimes, so…” He doesn’t continue, but she doesn’t need him to.
“...I understand,” she says, after a moment. “Was that recent?”
“It feels recent,” he replies. “I don’t know if I’ll ever forget.”
“You won’t,” she says, “but it hurts less. The memories, I mean.”
He looks at her strangely, and she rolls back one sleeve to show a mark on her arm.
“I won’t forget that it was painful,” she says. “But I’ve stopped feeling the pain as much when I think about it. I think it’s like that if it’s the mafia or if it’s the police.”
Nakano sits up in bed. It probably still hurts, but he seems like he’d be in more pain if he didn’t hug her that very moment.
Kyouka has a room to herself, but Atsushi doesn’t. This isn’t because of her gender, not entirely: though there’s certainly no way she’d share a room with any of the authors, she’d requested a room of her own and received it. It’s the closest room to Atsushi’s that was available at the time.
Atsushi’s grateful for knowing that at the end of the day, someone will definitely come to share his room with him.
“Hey, Tiger Lily.” Chuuya’s already yawning when he opens the door to their room.
“Hi, Chuuya. Long day?” Atsushi asks, setting aside the book he’d been reading while lying in bed.
“It took us forever to find that shitty leader Taint, we just kept getting lost and lost and…” Chuuya grumbles before flopping into bed next to Atsushi. “Whatever, I’m done for the day. If they want me to leave this bed, they’re gonna have to drag me out by force.”
“I don’t think they’ll do that,” Atsushi says with a soft laugh.
“They used to, but people barge in here way less now that you’re sharing the room with me. Wonder what they think we’re doing in here?” Chuuya asks, and grins when Atsushi blushes. “Well, probably nothing that we’re not actually doing.”
Atsushi flushes more, but doesn’t refute what Chuuya says. “You didn’t get hurt too badly?”
“No, just lost and bored. And look, both of those are already cured.” He tugs Atsushi a little closer to him.
Atsushi smiles through his embarrassment and pecks Chuuya lightly on the cheek. “Welcome back.”
“Glad to be back, Atsushi.”
Fandom: Bungou to Alchemist, Bungou Stray Dogs
Character(s): BSD Atsushi, BSD Kyouka, BunAru Chuuya, BunAru Mori, BunAru Dazai, BunAru Kouyou, BunAru Akutagawa, Takiji, BunAru Atsushi, BunAru Kyouka, BunAru Tanizaki, Takamura, Naoya, BunAru Kenji, BunAru Odasaku, Kafuu, Masaoka, Kitahara, BunAru Ranpo, BunAru Katai, Touson, Tokuda, Wakayama, Yokomitsu, BunAru Kunikida, Kan, Ishikawa, Hori, Haruo, Niimi, Hagiwara, BunAru Natsume, Muroo, Rohan, Yoshikawa, Mushanokouji, Miyoshi, Shigeharu, Librarian
Pairing(s): BunAru Chuuya/BSD Atsushi
Genre: Fluff
Word Count: 8,425
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Atsushi and Kyouka adjust to a peaceful, or at least more peaceful, life in the National Library.
Notes: Normally I don't post RP-inspired fic by itself (and in this community), but look at that word count, that's long.
Kyouka and Atsushi need to be examined by a doctor if they’re going to stay in the library. This makes sense. If you come from a strange place, you could be carrying diseases, and Kyouka and Atsushi are from another world. There’s no place stranger than that.
The problem is which doctor… or, it’s not really a problem with him, but with his name.
Kyouka can’t help but flinch away from Mori Ougai - it’s Mori Rintarou when he’s doing doctor work, he says - when he even comes near her, much less tries to touch her. There aren’t any needles involved, it’s a routine check-up, but there’s no way she can trust this man not to do her harm.
Mori looks at her wide eyes and tense posture, and takes a seat in his own chair. “Chuuya told me a little about your circumstances,” he says. “You don’t need to tell me any details, but the Mori you know wasn’t a good person?”
An understatement. She nods.
“If there were another doctor at this library, I would gladly ask for them to provide your care. But unfortunately, it’s only me, and for the safety of the people living here I can’t go without giving at least one check-up.” Mori hums thoughtfully. “Is there anything that would make you more comfortable?”
Kyouka thinks about it. She doesn’t know if she can ever trust anyone with the same name as that man, but she understands the necessity of the check-up.
“No needles, you can’t touch me, and I won’t take my clothes off,” she says finally.
“That can be done,” he answers.
It’s still an extremely tense examination for her, but eventually she’s declared to be in good health, and she doesn’t have to deal with that again for a year.
Maybe she’ll feel differently in a year.
Atsushi knows that the people in this library aren’t the same as the ones he knows back home. He wonders how long it’ll take for him to call the library ‘home’ - but anyway, that’s off topic. Chuuya proved that they’re different before he even arrived here, and seeing the other Nakajima Atsushi settled it.
Even so, he can’t help but treat them sort of similarly, before he’s actually gotten to know them.
So when Dazai comes back from a book delve injured and sighing about how he wants to ‘die painlessly and magnificently’, and Atsushi wishes him ‘good luck’ without even thinking about it, he’s not expecting Dazai to burst into tears.
It’s the last thing he’d expected, actually - he doesn’t think he’s seen his Dazai genuinely cry, ever. He doesn’t know how to deal with this, but he also has to try to make up for making anyone cry. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it! I hope you stay with us a long time, Dazai!”
“You’re just saying that…” Dazai sniffles.
“No, it’s true! Because-” Think, Atsushi. He doesn’t know this Dazai well yet, but- “If you died, then think of all your fans and how they wouldn’t get to read anything else you wrote!”
Dazai considers that for a second. “Well… I don’t want to disappoint my fans…” His tears slow to a stop.
Atsushi sighs in relief. He won’t be so careless again.
If Kouyou didn’t open his mouth, Kyouka would easily mistake him for a woman, like the Kouyou she knows. His voice is too deep for there to be any confusion, however, and so Kyouka can easily separate him in her mind from the Kouyou of her home.
It may not be the same for him, considering how quickly he takes to her.
“Kyouka, you aren’t wearing your hair up today?” he asks, when she enters the dining hall to eat breakfast with the authors.
“I overslept,” she answers. If you take too long to show up to breakfast, you won’t get any breakfast, so oversleeping is dangerous and her hairstyle has to be sacrificed - that’s what she’s used to, at least.
“We all do now and then,” he answers with a soft laugh. “I’ll put it up for you, if you want.”
She stares at him for a moment. “Aren’t you hungry?” If he works on her hair, he’ll have less time to eat.
“I won’t eat this,” he answers. “I’ll get my own breakfast later. Oh, would you like a braid?”
Kyouka ends up with her hair in a long, singular braid. It’s not her usual, and she can’t help admiring it throughout the day.
By now, Atsushi’s learned the names of all of the authors here, though he hasn’t spoken to all of them at any length.
There’s one who he’s specifically avoided talking to, for example, who’s just joined him outside the library. Atsushi was only out here to admire how nice a day it is for this season, and he’s regretting it when Akutagawa smiles at him.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks.
“N-not at all.” Atsushi thinks it’s rude to tell a person not to smoke if they’re outside, but more than that he just doesn’t know this Akutagawa’s temperament yet.
So Akutagawa puffs on a cigarette for a while. For him, it’s probably quiet companionship; for Atsushi, he’s looking for a subtle way to make his escape.
“The day is lovely today, is it not?” Akutagawa asks. Atsushi nods. “On winter mornings, it’s difficult for me to leave my futon, so I usually miss it.”
“I’m used to having to get up no matter what,” Atsushi replies. “If I overslept and missed work, Kunikida would scold me.” No reason to talk about what would happen if he overslept before that.
Akutagawa raises an eyebrow. “If it’s this Kunikida, he’s more likely to tell you afterwards all about the scoop you missed by sleeping in.”
“I’m not used to everyone being so different. Especially you, the Akutagawa I know is…” Atsushi flushes a little and thinks of something harmless to say. “Well, he doesn’t smoke? He’s always coughing.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Akutagawa says, puffing out some smoke. “But, if it’s mental health versus physical health, I’d wish for the person with my name to be stable, at least.”
Atsushi doesn’t correct him.
Kyouka isn’t really looking for hiding spots, just places in the library where she can have peace and quiet if she wants to. The people here are kind, but also very loud. That she could also hide if things got bad is something she’s acknowledged, though.
She’d thought this out of the way alcove would be promising, but she finds Kobayashi already tucked away in there. He lifts his hood a little to look at her, then scoots to the side to make room.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’ll find another spot.”
He nods, and then says, “It’s just me and Ishikawa that know about this place. So it’s good for hiding, if neither of us are here.”
Ah, he saw through her intentions. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Kobayashi thinks for a second. “...Even if you don’t think you’ll have to use them anymore, it’s good to confirm places to hide. Is it like that for you, too?”
“...Yes.” She tilts her head at him. She knows why she’s like that, but it’s probably much different for a writer…
“I can show you all the hiding spots I know,” he replies. “If you want, since we’re kindred spirits.”
She’ll ask him about it later. “Thank you very much.”
Of course Atsushi speaks to the other Nakajima. Despite how strange it is to talk to someone who shares his name, Nakajima is always kind and polite to him, and has been helpful getting him settled into the library.
So he’s concerned when Nakajima’s badly injured on a mission, and decides to bring him something. He likes cats, but there’s already a cat plush in the repair room to play with… maybe he’ll appreciate some chazuke like Atsushi would?
When Atsushi enters the repair room, Nakajima has his glasses off and his hair pushed back. He glances at Atsushi, but his gaze doesn’t seem at all unfocused despite the lack of glasses. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”
Atsushi falters for a moment. Nakajima’s voice is much more harsh than normal. Maybe he’s just grumpy while injured? “I brought you some food,” he says, setting the tray next to Nakajima’s bed. “So you’ll get well soon.”
“All I need is time and ink,” says Nakajima. He eyes the chazuke for a second. “...Well, I’ve never had this myself before.”
“You’ve never had chazuke?” Atsushi can’t imagine that, it’s such a common dish.
“He’s had it. I haven’t,” Nakajima replies. “I’m not usually in control of our body for anything but fighting.”
Oh. Split personality. Okay.
While Nakajima eats his chazuke, Atsushi ventures another question. “If you’re only in charge for fighting, then why are you still…?”
“So he doesn’t feel this pain,” Nakajima answers, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He turns a glare on Atsushi. “Is there a problem?”
“N-no, not at all!”
The other, other Nakajima is scary, but at least he seems to be taking good care of his other half.
The other Izumi Kyouka is a man, and that’s strange for Kyouka to think about, but she’ll accept it as simply how things are here.
Izumi is a strong germophobe, which is a trait he doesn’t share with Kyouka. She’s decided not to make any comment on him constantly cleaning his gloves, or reheating any food he eats - it’s just how things are.
A trait they do share…
“What a cute doll!”
Kyouka blinks, and pulls the rabbit doll she always carries with her out of where it’s tucked into her kimono’s sash. “This one?”
“Yes, it’s adorable.” He smiles warmly at her. “Where did you get it? I collect rabbit goods of my own, you see, but I don’t have that one yet.”
“Atsushi won it for me from a claw machine in Yokohama.” So it’s probably hard to get from another world’s Tokyo.
“Is that so… It might be on eBay, still…” He considers the odds of that for a moment, before shaking his head. “Aaah, I shouldn’t get my hopes up for that.”
“Even if you can’t find another, you can’t have this one,” she says, firmly.
“Of course not. It’s obviously important to you.” He sounds the tiniest bit offended that she suggested he would take it from her, but his expression softens. “Please take good care of it.”
Whenever Atsushi comes close to being alone with Tanizaki, he always ends up being steered somewhere else somehow, or else Tanizaki is lured away. Chuuya will show up out of nowhere to ask Atsushi to help him with a line he’s having trouble with (even though it’d make more sense to ask literally anyone else in the library), or Akutagawa will engage Tanizaki in a scholarly debate that he warns Atsushi will be boring to him, and he should probably find something more interesting to do.
So, Atsushi doesn’t really know what kind of person this Tanizaki is. He’s certainly much more elegant than the one he knows - err, no offense to his Tanizaki - so maybe his personality suits his image.
It doesn’t.
“With all the authors that have been summoned so far, why is not a single one of them a woman?” Tanizaki asks, to probably no one in particular, since he’s not looking at Atsushi and he’s the only other one in the room. “It’s an unbearable torment.”
“Miss Librarian is a woman,” Atsushi points out. He still doesn’t know her name. “And Kyouka - err, my Kyouka.”
“Dear Kyouka is a girl, not a woman,” Tanizaki replies. “And Miss Librarian has ignored my every invitation to step on me, mistreat me, use me as a tool. There’s no hope of her being the one to fulfill my desires.”
...Oh.
Err.
Well, he’s glad they ruled out Kyouka as an option for that right away, but, um?
“I… wouldn’t know anything about that…” He backs up. Can anyone, anyone at all, please rescue him from this conversation?
“You’re still too innocent for those sorts of pleasures. Then again...” Tanizaki rubs his chin, before smiling widely. “You do room with Nakahara, so perhaps I’m mistaken about your innocence, hm?”
Atsushi has no answer to that that isn’t turning bright red and making a break for it.
Kyouka finds Takamura sitting at a table with a large block of wood and carving tools. The wood looks distinctly uncarved.
Takamura smiles at her when she approaches. “Good afternoon, Kyouka.”
“Good afternoon.” She looks back to the wood, then at him. “What is this going to be?”
“Well, I’m not sure yet.” He drums his fingers on the table. “It’s good wood for carving, so I can’t be satisfied until I finish working with it, but I don’t know what I want to make from it yet.”
“It’s writer’s block, but with wood carving.” She examines it carefully, but she’s not a carver, so she doesn’t know what to do with it either… But she recalls a set of toys she saw in a window, when she went to pick up some coffee the last time they ran out. “Animals?”
Takamura blinks at her. “You think so?”
“A set of wooden animals. The children will like them.” Meaning, Kenji and Nankichi. She, of course, is not a child - she’s fourteen.
Takamura takes another critical look at the wood, before nodding. “It’s been awhile since I carved toys… Alright. Thank you very much for your help.”
It wasn’t much help, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to turn down the wooden rabbit he presents to her when he’s finished carving the set.
When there’s no detective work to be done, Atsushi finds himself with a lot of free time.
Of course, he does his work at the library diligently - shelving books, organizing new acquisitions, that sort of thing. But his hours are much more predictable than they were at the Agency, and the work isn’t nearly as strenuous.
So, in order to make himself as helpful as possible, he’s going to improve his cooking. He’d already learned how to make some very basic dishes, but he wants to be able to move onto more complex meals soon.
Currently he’s frowning at some clams. He’s cooked them for a few minutes, and some of them have opened, but not all of them…
“You’re going to want to take them off heat pretty soon,” says Shiga.
Atsushi had noticed him come into the kitchen, but he hadn’t realized that he was paying attention to Atsushi’s cooking, so he still startles a little. “But they’re not all open-”
“That’s normal for a batch of clams. Some of ‘em just won’t open, and you’ll ruin the ones you’ve already got open trying to get all of them.” Shiga reaches over and turns off the burner for Atsushi. “Just throw out the closed ones. You’ve got plenty left.”
“Th-thank you.” There are still a good number of clams, at least enough to feed him and Chuuya. Not enough to feed all the authors. “Do you cook much, Shiga?”
“I’m pretty good,” Shiga says. Atsushi spares a glance at what he’s making, and immediately looks away lest he be horribly demoralized by how much fancier it is than his dish. “I started off pretty bad, though. Heh, but that’s a given when you grow up having servants do all the cooking for you.”
Atsushi can’t even picture that kind of life. “I’d like to be able to make something as nice as that, but…”
“What, this? It’s not so hard. I’ll teach you how to cook this next time, how about that?” Shiga asks. When Atsushi just stares at him in surprise, he grins. “It’s the job of old men to pass on their skills to the next generation, and all that.”
Shiga doesn’t look anything like an old man, but Atsushi’s too grateful to question that.
Of all the people Kyouka knows at home who could be a child here, she supposes Kenji isn’t a bad pick. It’s certainly less strange than if, say, Kunikida were a child.
They’re similar in personality: energetic and cheerful. This Kenji is a vegetarian, while her Kenji would eat anything you put in front of him and several things that you didn’t. There’s the strangeness of hearing Chuuya call him ‘Miyazawa-sensei’, but other than that he’s refreshingly familiar and likable.
“Kyouka,” Kenji asks her, kicking his feet under the table, “do you ever get tired of adults bossing you around?”
Kyouka thinks first of Akutagawa. “Yes.”
“Me too,” Kenji says. “We’re almost grown-ups, so they should trust us more. Kyouka, you’re really smart and mature, so I’m sure you don’t have to be watched by adults at all!”
She’s probably more mature than Kenji, at least. Although… “How old are you?”
He thinks for a moment. “Um… Thirty-seven?”
...She’s never going to get used to that.
Now that Atsushi’s cooking more, under Shiga’s careful instruction, he’s getting better at it. And getting better at it means that sometimes, writers will smell what he’s cooking and want a taste. It doesn’t happen every time, but when it does he’s usually happy to share with them.
Except if it’s curry. If it’s curry, it happens every time, without fail.
“Mm, mm~ Somethin’ smells great in here!”
Atsushi’s learned to stop being surprised when Oda shows up in the middle of him making curry. Maybe he can smell it from across the library. “Hi, Oda.”
“Hey, Atsushi.” Oda flashes him a grin. “Scallop curry today, huh? Ya ever been to Aomori?”
“No, I haven’t. It’s not really close to Yokohama, and I don’t travel much...” If you consider the ‘other worlds’ thing, this is definitely the farthest he’s ever traveled.
“Aaah, that’s too bad. Dazai can talk yer ear off about it if he gets a chance, y’know,” Oda replies with a laugh.
“Dazai’s from Aomori?” Atsushi asks. He doesn’t know where his is from, but probably not that far away.
“Born and raised! He might slip into Tsugaru-ben if ya fluster him enough.”
Atsushi can’t picture him flustering Dazai, but he’s already made this Dazai cry, so anything is possible. Anyway. “Did you want a taste of curry?”
“You betcha!”
Nagai sits down across from Kyouka. He looks like he’s in a good mood, though his smile fades when he sees the glum expression on Kyouka’s face. “Is something wrong?” he asks. “You seemed to be having a good time earlier, when Kitahara was showing off the song he wrote.”
“I was,” she says. Nagai is someone who is trustworthy, and she doesn’t have any strange associations with him from before, so she’ll open up, a little. “When your job is over, you’ll all disappear.”
“It’s true,” he says. He also doesn’t lie to her, which she appreciates. “Though no one knows exactly when that will be.”
“When you’re gone, I won’t have any proof any of this ever happened.” And she’s not sure she’ll be able to believe it really happened, instead of just her making it up.
“Hmm, if that’s the issue, then… Have you considered keeping a diary?” he asks. “Physical evidence is more convincing than just your memories. You could even tape in photographs, if you’d like.”
She’s never kept a diary before. For much of her life, she didn’t have anything good to write in it. But now…
She nods, determined. She won’t let these good memories disappear.
“Atsushi, do you know how to play baseball?” Masaoka asks, and Atsushi has to actually think about it.
He’s never actually played. He wouldn’t have had the right equipment as a child, and as a detective he was too old to just mess around with a ball out back. Anyway, he can’t see any of the others playing, except probably Kenji and maybe Tanizaki.
But he’s done enough running around for other reasons, so…
“I don’t, but I could learn?” he says.
“Good enough!” Masaoka replies, and claps him on the back. “We’re one person closer to a full team!”
“How many do you have so far?” Atsushi asks. Most of the authors here don’t seem like they’d be very interested in sports.
“Well, Yoshikawa said he’d play, and if I ask nicely enough I bet Natsume would give in, so counting us two… Four,” says Masaoka.
Atsushi may not know all the rules, but… “Don’t you need nine people on a team?”
“Yep.”
“And two teams to actually play a game?”
“Yep.”
Atsushi sighs. “...Let me know when you get another fourteen people to agree and I’ll be right there.”
“That song you sang the other day, about the rain, was nice,” says Kyouka.
“Thank you.” Kitahara wears a gentle smile. “Children’s songs are my specialty. Well, one of them, at least.”
Kyouka nods. Some writers are good at lots of things. Some writers are only good at one thing, and get a little defensive about how novelists can’t understand poets if they’re asked about it.
“Do you sing at all, Kyouka?” he goes on.
She shakes her head.
“Oh? I’m sure you have a lovely voice. But, if you don’t want to, then that’s that,” he replies.
“I do want to,” she says. She wants to be able to make people happy that way. “...But it’s embarrassing.”
“Not one for being the center of attention?” Kitahara asks. She nods. “Would it be any easier if you only sang for one person? Like Atsushi, for example.”
“That’s more embarrassing,” she answers, before she can dwell on it and get flustered.
Edogawa is pushy. He’s much like Atsushi’s former coworker that way.
Lately he’s been trying to learn about Atsushi’s ability. He knows that Atsushi has one - Atsushi isn’t sure how, since Chuuya swears up and down he said nothing to him about it, and he trusts Chuuya - but he doesn’t have any details of what it does, and Atsushi doesn’t want to talk to him about it.
So, obviously, the next best plan is to try to trigger Atsushi’s ability. And since he doesn’t know what the ability is, he can only do that with trial and error.
Atsushi has had worse done to him than had a bucket of water dumped on him when he opened a door. It’s okay. It’s a little bit funny, even, once he gets his wet bangs out of his eyes.
Not everyone agrees.
“Completely unacceptable,” says the librarian, with her arms folded across her chest. “Apologize this instant and swear to never do such a thing to him again, Edogawa.”
“I-it isn’t that big of a deal, really…” Atsushi says. He has dry clothes now (Chuuya’s wouldn’t fit him, so he’s wearing some of Katai’s, since they’re about the same height and he’d be beyond awkward in, say, Tanizaki’s) and he’s dried his hair, so everything is fine.
“It is a big deal!” she says. “You should be able to feel safe in the library, and that can’t happen if certain people are going to attack you for the sake of answering a question you don’t want to answer in the first place!”
“Well… but it’s…” He still doesn’t want to answer what his ability is, even if it would make the pranks stop, but he also doesn’t really want to fear further pranks like this.
“I understand,” says Edogawa, sounding mostly resigned. “I’ve been thoroughly chastised and I won’t do such a thing to you again, Atsushi. I apologize.”
Atsushi pauses. Apologies are still a bit strange for him to get. “Thank you.”
“But if you ever do want to discuss it-” The librarian shoots Edogawa a venomous glare, and he laughs. “Kidding, only kidding...”
“Thank you for lending Atsushi your clothes,” Kyouka says. She sets the washed and folded pile of clothing on Katai’s dresser.
“It’s no big deal,” says Katai with a chuckle. “I can’t picture that guy feeling too comfortable in the fancy stuff Tanizaki wears, and he’s Dazai’s height, but Dazai’d freak out if anything happened to his super-expensive outfits…”
The novelist Dazai does talk about being stylish much more than the detective Dazai. Kyouka doesn’t know how she feels about him taking anything seriously, much less something as unimportant as that.
“It’s still nice of you. So, to repay you...” Kyouka thinks. “I could give you advice about girls.”
He nearly chokes. “H-hey, no offense, but you’re a lot younger than my type-”
“But I’m still a girl. So I should know more than you do,” she reasons.
“No way. You probably haven’t even been on a date yet.”
“I have been on a date before,” she says. “One date.”
He raises his eyebrows, clearly dubious. “Yeah? A nice date?”
She nods. “Atsushi took me around to all the places I wanted to go to and bought me lots of things. And then we went to the police station so I could turn myself in.”
“...thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass on your advice.”
In the place Chuuya and Atsushi had first met, Chuuya had complained about the lack of literature available by people he already knew. There was just Edogawa’s eroguro and Shimazaki’s ‘New Life’, and he said he’d rather read the eroguro than that.
Atsushi has to wonder what was so bad that he’d pick reading anything else over it, and what Shimazaki is like. He’s quiet and a little bit gloomy, but Atsushi doesn’t know anything about what he writes or his history.
“Do you know what it feels like to die?” Shimazaki asks, as a conversation starter.
That’s… what a strange question. “I’ve never died before. Wouldn’t you know already?”
Shimazaki shakes his head. “Authors don’t come into this world with all their memories intact. We can get them back as we get stronger, but I still haven’t remembered my death. And no one will tell me about theirs, either.”
“Well, it’s probably a sensitive subject…” Atsushi can understand being morbidly curious, if you had the opportunity to learn something like that. “Maybe you’ll remember soon?”
“Maybe. Or, Katai said that if I died and was transmigrated again, I’d have a good chance to remember that time.” Shimazaki’s frown deepens. “But then he wouldn’t let me go die. He’s such a strange person.”
This is uncomfortably familiar. “I don’t think it’s all that strange to want your friends not to die…?”
While Kouyou and the other Kyouka are very strange to Kyouka, both in gender and in personality, it seems even stranger to have someone closely associated with them that just doesn’t exist in her world. Or, maybe there is a Tokuda Shuusei, and they just never met.
“It must be nice to be able to live a peaceful life now, as a normal librarian,” Tokuda says. “I’ve gotten dragged into something troublesome again.”
“It’s nice,” she agrees. “If you really hate it, couldn’t you just not fight? There are lots of writers here.”
“There are definitely plenty who are stronger than me, but…” He sighs. “I was the first one summoned, so if I don’t see it through to the end, I’ll be disappointed in myself. And if I gave up, Sensei would scold me, and Kyouka - the other one - would never let me hear the end of it. I’d be lectured until I came back to work.”
She considers that for a few moments. “...I see. You really like both of them.”
Tokuda stares at her in silent bewilderment.
“It’s more troublesome to fight than to be lectured, unless it’s someone you like scolding you.” Kyouka nods, satisfied at having seen past Tokuda’s harsh exterior. “I’m glad Izumi has friends.”
“Geeze, this is troublesome in its own way…”
“Hey, want to have a drink?”
It’s not the first time Wakayama has said this in Atsushi’s presence, but usually Chuuya is with him - the two of them are drinking partners. Atsushi looks behind him to see if Chuuya’s snuck up on him (he hasn’t) before pointing to himself.
Wakayama chuckles, lifting up his cup of sake. “Yeah, you. You’re old enough, right?”
“Well, yes, but…” Atsushi takes a seat across from Wakayama. “I probably won’t be as fun to drink with as Chuuya is…”
“Maybe, but he’s not all that good to drink with. He drinks too quick and picks fights instead of relaxing.” Wakayama sighs, but it’s fond. “Good taste in sake, though.”
“Oh,” says Atsushi, pouring himself some sake. Chuuya is pretty quick to get into bar fights, he knows that from experience. “I’m sorry about him.”
“That’s alright. Sometimes you’ve just gotta let the people you love do what they want to do.”
Atsushi nods, and then blushes when he realizes the implications of agreeing. Wakayama, thankfully, doesn’t call him on it.
Yokomitsu is a quiet, serious person, even more so than Kyouka. As such, she’s more or less comfortable around him, and tends to gravitate towards the conversations he’s having with other people if there’s no one she wants to talk to at the moment.
“Can you really tell what your friend thinks just by his eyes?” she asks, after one such overheard conversation.
“Of course,” he answers. “Kawabata and I were sworn friends for over twenty years. If you know a person for such a long period of time, you’ll no longer need spoken words to understand each other.”
Kyouka, of course, hasn’t known anyone for nearly that long. But her thoughts go to Atsushi, and the times on cases when they’d coordinated flawlessly without explaining everything they were going to do. In the middle of a fight, you can’t sit down and discuss your plans.
“That makes sense,” she replies. “It’s good to have someone like that.”
Everyone’s gotten used to Atsushi being in the library, he thinks, and it’s no longer a novelty that this person with the same name as an author came from another world to live with them. It’s not a novelty in the way that the talking cat is not a novelty: it is certainly strange, if you stop to think about it, but everyone’s accepted it as part of their daily life.
He’d been worried about this Kunikida hounding him for answers: he talks frequently about ‘scoops’ and getting information for new writing material. Strangely, though, Kunikida has mostly left him be.
“Do you dislike me?” Atsushi blurts out one day, and Kunikida tilts his head at him in obvious confusion. “Since - I thought since you want to get scoops, it’s weird that you haven’t asked me anything-”
“Oh, that. You seem like you don’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t ask.” That’s Kunikida’s straightforward answer.
“...That’s all?”
Kunikida nods. “I’m from before I-novels got really popular, but there’s always a danger when you’re writing autobiographical works or about real people. You get to choose what you write about yourself, but other people don’t get to choose what you write about them, so you have to be responsible with what you say. ...It’d be nice if Shimazaki was a little more careful there, but what’s done is done.”
“Oh… Thank you, Kunikida.” Atsushi gives a small smile. “But, it’d still be nice to get to know you without any writing involved.”
“I’m always up for that.” Kunikida flashes him a grin.
Kikuchi is often the one in charge of picking up this or that from the nearby shops, because he can be counted on not to spend too much of the library’s money on unnecessary things. Even when he gambles, he takes care to only waste his own money.
Kyouka doesn’t have to be here, but she likes seeing what they stock in Tokyo, and she doesn’t mind Kikuchi’s company. She usually sticks close to him, unless something catches her eye.
“Did you find something nice?” he asks, noticing that she’d stopped following.
She nods, and points out to him the rabbit plush she’d found. It’s about as large as her head.
“That’s a cute rabbit,” he says, sounding genuine. “Are you buying one?”
She shakes her head and turns out her empty pockets. She probably shouldn’t have spent that much on flowers for her room earlier…
“Aaah, well. If that’s the case, I’ll loan you some money for it.” Kikuchi checks the price tag, then starts rifling through his wallet while Kyouka just stares at him. “It’s a loan, though, I expect you to pay me back when you get the chance to.”
She hides her smile in her giant rabbit plush all the way back to the library.
Atsushi likes to think of himself as a reasonably frugal person. He isn’t used to having much money, so he doesn’t make too many frivolous purchases. That’s not a complaint about the size of his paycheck! It’s just how he is.
Even if he won’t buy much for himself, he’ll let other people borrow money from him if they make a case for needing it. It doesn’t have to be much of a case: a simple ‘I need to get these debt collectors off my back’ spoken with teary eyes will work every time.
Or, almost every time.
“Ishikawa… you’ve borrowed money from me twice already without paying me back,” says Atsushi, very slowly.
Ishikawa laughs, a bit nervously. “Yeah, but that was-”
“This month.”
“Some things came up, and I’ve really gotta ask for your help, there’s nowhere else I can turn! I swear it’ll be the last time I ask for money from you!” Ishikawa says, hands clasped together. He looks like he’s about to get on his knees in supplication.
Atsushi feels bad for him, but… “You swore that the last time, too. ...I’m sorry, but I can’t give you any more. Maybe there are some jobs you can do for the library that you’d get paid for?”
“I don’t mind doing hard labor if it’s for money, but...” Ishikawa gives Atsushi a sorrowful look. “Even if it’s just a little, you can’t spare any change?”
Atsushi ends up giving him the change in his pocket, while promising that this will be the absolute last time he lends him money. He’s not sure if Ishikawa even heard him say that.
The Akutagawa here isn’t like Akutagawa there, so much so that Kyouka sometimes wonders if one of them changed their name sometime during their life. But, even so, it’d still make them ‘Akutagawa Ryuunosuke’, so it doesn’t really matter what their birth name was.
Speaking of names.
“‘Tacchanko’?” she repeats, after Akutagawa has ended his conversation with Hori and left the room.
Hori flushes with embarrassment. “Well… It’s just Akutagawa who calls me that, since I used to study under him. But most people who I’m friends with call me Tacchan.”
He is cute, suiting a cute nickname; he doesn’t look all that much older than her, even though the fact that he’s a published author means he’s almost definitely an adult. But it’s who the nickname came from that has her confused. “Akutagawa was a good teacher?”
He nods. “I learned a lot from him, and he’s always been very kind to me. If I was able to carry on his legacy, then that’s something I’m proud of.”
The Akutagawa she knew first has been carrying his own legacy, given to him from Dazai. She’ll be glad if that legacy stops there.
“It’s a very cute name,” she says, rather than voicing that thought. “It fits you.”
“...I’m a man too, you know…”
“Sensei! Sensei, did you read this paper, they’re talking about ‘Gloom in the Country-’”
Dazai trying to get someone’s attention is nothing new for Atsushi, but back in the Agency, usually it was to annoy them in some way, and it was almost always successful. When Satou doesn’t meet Dazai’s gaze or acknowledge him, Atsushi can’t help but feel bad for him: the disappointment and hurt is visible on Dazai’s face.
Dazai leaves first, and the morose way he slinks off gives Atsushi the courage to speak up. “Why don’t you want to talk to Dazai?”
“...It’s hard to explain,” Satou says. “Bad memories, I guess.”
That’s an awfully simple explanation for ‘it’s hard to explain’. Atsushi’s frown deepens. “He seems like he really admires you.”
“He was one of my disciples when we were alive, but…” Satou looks away. “Is it so bad that I want to put that part of my past behind me?”
“...I don’t think that’s what you’re doing, though,” says Atsushi, before he can consider whether that’s polite to say. “If you were going to start a new relationship, that would be one thing, but if you keep treating Dazai like everything’s the same as back then, nothing’s going to change.” He swallows. “I think… maybe my senior’s advice would help you here.”
“What’s that?” Satou asks, looking back.
Atsushi remembers the words clearly. He could never forget a single one. “‘Do not pity yourself. If you wallow in self-pity, life will be an endless nightmare.’”
“...Whoever told you that is a very wise person,” says Satou, after a moment to let them sink in.
“He is,” says Atsushi, and glances towards the door Dazai left through.
Nankichi seeing her as an ally makes sense: she’s the closest one to his apparent age, apart from Kenji.
That said, she’s really not sure she knows how to pull off pranks.
“It’s easy,” he tells her. “We’re not gonna hurt anybody, we’re just gonna surprise them.”
Kyouka nods. She’s pretty sure that hiding a toy snake in the bathroom cabinet will be fine. Besides, it’s just a snake.
They hang around the area until one of the authors goes in. It’s Hori.
Kyouka has about a second to briefly question why Nankichi looks more unsure than excited before a loud shriek reaches her ears.
“S-s-snake!!”
Hori stumbles out of the bathroom, pale as a sheet. Akutagawa is the first person to reach him, and after a moment of holding his shoulders and convincing him that everything will be okay, Akutagawa goes to investigate.
This is the time where Nankichi whispers, “We should go.”
Kyouka doesn’t think she should debate this. Hori is on the brink of tears and she hasn’t yet worked up the nerve to knowingly upset any Akutagawa when it’s unnecessary. They bail.
She doesn’t help Nankichi with his pranks for a while after that.
A cry of “ow!” followed by tears catches Atsushi’s attention, and he hurries to find Hagiwara sitting on the floor, sniffling.
“Are you okay?” Atsushi asks. “Can I help?”
Hagiwara shakes his head. “I… I tripped over my sandal lace again.”
Oh. Atsushi doesn’t laugh or smile, but he does relax a little knowing it’s not serious. He sits down beside Hagiwara. “Nothing’s sprained?”
“Just a little bruised.” Hagiwara’s still sniffling. “I’m so clumsy, and useless, I shouldn’t have ever existed…”
“That’s not true,” Atsushi says, before the conversation can go down that familiar path. “You’re really talented, and you’ve inspired a lot of people.”
Hagiwara wipes some of the tears out of his eyes. “Me? Inspirational?”
“Yeah! I mean, Miyoshi’s always talking about you, and all…” Atsushi doesn’t know much about the literature of this world, but he’d bet there’s more than just Miyoshi who admire Hagiwara’s writing.
That seems to be enough, anyway. Hagiwara exhales, having stopped crying entirely. “That’s right… Even my imperfect poetry can be enough to make someone else happy, somehow.”
“Right, so, it’s good that you’re alive.” Atsushi doesn’t know if he can be the person who makes someone else feel like it’s okay for them to live, especially someone who’s already as talented and famous as Hagiwara-
-but Hagiwara hugs him for saying that, so he must have done okay.
Kyouka has gotten her own paycheck before, so that isn’t completely new. Kyouka has even gotten gifts with no expectation of repayment before, though she wasn’t used to that before coming to the library.
But the near-constant stream of gifts is new. If she isn’t getting rabbit toys from Izumi (“they’re completely disinfected, don’t worry”) or baubles from Kouyou (“this would look lovely in your hair”) or carvings from Takamura (“I saw this piece of wood and thought of you”) or seeds from Kobayashi (“you’re keeping a flower box, right?”) or-
She could go on, but the short version is that almost everyone has given her some kind of gift at this point.
The most consistent person, though, is Natsume. Every week, he’ll have some sort of candy for her, citing that he bought too much for himself once again.
She allows it for a while - she’s passed the point where she’s concerned about poisoning, especially with candy still in its wrapper - then finally has to ask. “Do you buy too much candy on purpose?”
He chuckles. “Oh, you’ve found me out.”
“It’s too consistent for it to be a mistake every week,” she says. “...So why do you always say it’s a mistake?”
“I thought perhaps your pride wouldn’t allow you to accept gifts from me without an excuse for taking them,” he replies. “People your age can be like that at times, you know.”
It’s true that there are willful teenagers out there who won’t take gifts from adults, but…
“I’ll accept them,” she says. “Please be honest in the future.”
“You and Saku have been getting along lately, huh?” Muroo takes a seat beside Atsushi.
Atsushi gets the feeling of an impending ‘if you hurt my best friend, I’ve read about fifty ways to kill you’ conversation. “Ah - well - he’s a good person, so…”
“That’s great,” says Muroo, smiling without a hint of malice. “Keep it up!”
Atsushi tilts his head again. “Aren’t you going to threaten me or something? In case I do something bad?”
“Anybody can tell you’re not a bad person,” says Muroo. “And Saku’s really shy, he has a hard time making friends. If he relies just on me and Haku, what if something happens to us in a book delve?”
Chuuya’s already impressed upon Atsushi that authors can dissolve into nothing when they’re on missions like that. They don’t often, because Miss Librarian prioritizes keeping them alive over advancing, but sometimes things happen.
“Well… I’m glad you think I can help, but I don’t think I’d be a good replacement for you,” Atsushi says. “So, please stay alive.”
“Of course I will,” says Muroo, with an easy laugh. “If I can’t forgive anyone who makes Saku cry, the absolute worst thing would be to make him cry myself. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Kyouka’s primary jobs are normal librarian duties - organizing books and so on - but since people live here in this library, she’s also taken on some roles necessary for any place where people live: namely, laundry.
Many of the authors have delicate clothing that can’t just be thrown in a washing machine. It requires special treatment, and she’s sure to check each and every article of clothing so she doesn’t accidentally ruin one.
“Ah, that’s Kouyou’s clothing, so if you aren’t going to take it apart, you can wash it in the bathtub. That’s what he usually does.”
Kyouka looks up. Kouda Rohan is a very tall man, and would be slightly intimidating to anyone without Kyouka’s history.
“I’ll wash it properly,” she says. “Because he trusted it to me.”
“Good,” he says. “It’s worth the effort.” He sits down with her, and without asking, starts pointing out which clothes need to be given special care and which can go in the washer and dryer.
Taking care of thirtysome authors’ clothing takes a long time, but it goes quicker with two people working on it. It’s also not quite as boring when she has someone to talk to.
Even if it does hurt her neck a little to look up that far.
Atsushi keeps in shape. He can’t help it. Even knowing that he’ll never be called on to purify a tainted book, because he literally can’t as a living person, he still has the worry that someday, some unspecified bad thing will happen, and it’ll be his job to keep everyone else safe.
They’re just authors, after all, and he’s the one who’s…
“Good! Keep it up!”
Yoshikawa’s voice interrupts his thoughts and his stretches. “Ah - good morning, Yoshikawa.”
“Good morning!” he replies cheerfully. “Getting in some morning training? Excellent! If you make it a routine, you won’t slack off!” That said, he settles into his own morning training.
For a person who probably has done more writing about fighting than actual fighting, Yoshikawa’s own routine is fairly rigorous. It’s no wonder he’s more muscular than most of the other authors here. There are a few things Atsushi might like to try himself, in the future.
When they’re both done, Yoshikawa tosses him a water bottle. “You did well! You’re a little skinny, but you’re stronger than I thought!”
“Well…” There’s probably no reason to tell Yoshikawa the real reason Atsushi can handle so much exertion. “I do my best.”
“You should teach me some things,” Yoshikawa answers. “Between the two of us, we’ll get even stronger than before!”
It sounds nice. Atsushi has no reason to refuse.
“Kyouka, shouldn’t you be in school right now?” Musha asks. Kyouka had been calling him ‘Mushanokouji’ before he insisted on the shorter version.
“Miss Librarian is looking into it,” she says. “I’ll go when all the paperwork is settled.”
“Hmm, there’s an awful lot of that these days…” He sighs. “But, you must miss having school friends your own age to talk to! Right?”
“I didn’t go to school much,” she answers.
The inevitable, confused reply: “Why not?”
She considers. Not because she doesn’t know the reason, but because Musha is a sheltered person who doesn’t know many things. Some of them are practical things like how to ride a bicycle, and some of them are more serious.
But, she’s also not very fond of lying if she doesn’t have to. “The mafia doesn’t send you to school. You get educated there.”
Musha pauses for a second, then moves - not so fast that Kyouka couldn’t dodge if she wanted, but she reads his intentions easily, and lets him hug her.
“Kyoukaaaaa, that’s so sad!” he says, voice warbling. “I didn’t like school either, but I’m still glad I got to go! You could meet a lot of nice people there, and learn cool things, and have fun, and- and-”
“It’s alright.” She pats his arm, because she’s not really sure what else to do with an adult clinging to her like this.
“It’s not okay! But we can try and make up for it, we can send you to summer camp right away! As soon as it’s summer!”
She’s not sure she likes the sound of that.
Atsushi’s given up on guessing people’s actual ages. Both Kenji and Nankichi are older than him, despite being children. Shiga is in his eighties, Kobayashi is in his twenties, and you’d never tell there was a gap in maturity. It’s just impossible to tell.
Miyoshi, though, is shorter than Atsushi, and a little less mature than Atsushi (though he wouldn’t say that out loud), and has starry eyes for an older writer. So surely he’s-
“Sixty-three,” Miyoshi says. “Heart attack.”
-way older than Atsushi. He sighs. “I know everyone’s a published writer here, but it would be nice to have someone close to my age…”
“Hmmm… Well, I do think there’s someone who’s really less than twenty years old here,” Miyoshi says. “Actually, I’m sure of it!”
Atsushi perks up a little. “Who?”
“The cat.”
“...Never mind.”
There isn’t much Kyouka can do for injured writers: the only things that can heal them are ink and time. Nonetheless, she visits them in the repair room when she has free time, mostly because she knows it’s painful to be left alone to heal.
Nakano gives her a small smile when she asks how he’s feeling. “It’s painful, but certainly not the worst pain I’ve experienced.”
“What’s worse than battle for a writer?” she asks.
“Well, I was a communist during a time when people like that were routinely imprisoned for thought crimes, so…” He doesn’t continue, but she doesn’t need him to.
“...I understand,” she says, after a moment. “Was that recent?”
“It feels recent,” he replies. “I don’t know if I’ll ever forget.”
“You won’t,” she says, “but it hurts less. The memories, I mean.”
He looks at her strangely, and she rolls back one sleeve to show a mark on her arm.
“I won’t forget that it was painful,” she says. “But I’ve stopped feeling the pain as much when I think about it. I think it’s like that if it’s the mafia or if it’s the police.”
Nakano sits up in bed. It probably still hurts, but he seems like he’d be in more pain if he didn’t hug her that very moment.
Kyouka has a room to herself, but Atsushi doesn’t. This isn’t because of her gender, not entirely: though there’s certainly no way she’d share a room with any of the authors, she’d requested a room of her own and received it. It’s the closest room to Atsushi’s that was available at the time.
Atsushi’s grateful for knowing that at the end of the day, someone will definitely come to share his room with him.
“Hey, Tiger Lily.” Chuuya’s already yawning when he opens the door to their room.
“Hi, Chuuya. Long day?” Atsushi asks, setting aside the book he’d been reading while lying in bed.
“It took us forever to find that shitty leader Taint, we just kept getting lost and lost and…” Chuuya grumbles before flopping into bed next to Atsushi. “Whatever, I’m done for the day. If they want me to leave this bed, they’re gonna have to drag me out by force.”
“I don’t think they’ll do that,” Atsushi says with a soft laugh.
“They used to, but people barge in here way less now that you’re sharing the room with me. Wonder what they think we’re doing in here?” Chuuya asks, and grins when Atsushi blushes. “Well, probably nothing that we’re not actually doing.”
Atsushi flushes more, but doesn’t refute what Chuuya says. “You didn’t get hurt too badly?”
“No, just lost and bored. And look, both of those are already cured.” He tugs Atsushi a little closer to him.
Atsushi smiles through his embarrassment and pecks Chuuya lightly on the cheek. “Welcome back.”
“Glad to be back, Atsushi.”