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The full moon of October was illuminating the night sky. The Imperial Library was quiet, most of its residents asleep. Only a small number of people were awake, all for their own reasons. Deadlines to meet, creeping hunger in the middle of night… Or something was interrupting their sleep.
Satomi Ton was one of the latter ones. He had slept only for an hour or two when he woke up all of a sudden, tears falling down his cheeks. He took deep breaths, trying to calm down his racing heart. Carefully he looked around, confirming that he was in a familiar environment; Shiga Naoya's dark room, the room's owner sleeping right next to him.
‘What was that…? And why was I there?’ Ton tried to wipe away his tears, but all in vain. More tears just kept oozing out and there was no end for the sobbing.
He had had a dream (or that's what he thought it was) where he was in the middle of nothing, surrounded by whiteness. People were panicking around him, but he couldn't see or feel anyone. He could only hear them. Having no idea of what was going on, he had tried to follow the voices, but there was nowhere to go to. And out of nowhere, someone screamed a name that pierced his ears, which had made him wake up.
“Shiga-nii…?” Ton felt a hand touching his lower back. He looked at his left where the older male was awake now, giving him a concerned look.
“Ya okay?”
“Y-yeah. Just thought about something, nothing big,” he just blurted a lie. He still hadn't calmed down and now felt rather embarrassed about his crying.
Shiga quietly looked at him for a moment, as if to examine what was going on. Then he got up and crawled behind the smaller guy to hug him from behind. That was his gesture to show that he was right there with him, but couldn't see his face. Ton could feel the warmth slowly coming back, that he had lost the moment when he had woken up. Lately the autumn nights had gotten awfully cold, so being curled up in bed, or futon in their case, was really convincing to him even right now.
They didn't speak a word, only Ton's random quiet sobs could be heard in the room while Shiga was embracing him. It was minutes later when he finally managed to collect himself and stop crying, but he still felt awful.
“What was that nightmare of yours like?” Shiga asked as calmly as he could.
It took Ton by surprise. More like he knew that it was apparent to Shiga that he had just lied, but he didn't expect him to ask for further details anyways. Knowing that he couldn’t really lie, he just decided to give up and tell what was bothering him.
“There were lots of people hurrying for something… Then someone screamed your name. For a moment I thought it was a nightmare, but it was oddly familiar. Like a memory of something,” Ton felt how Shiga's grip around his waist tightened and the man was nuzzling his face against his back.
“You fool.” Shiga's tone was amused for a hot second, but in the end he felt rather bitter. Why was this guy made to recall something like that? Why was his death so relevant to him? Life and death were no different. He had died once and was now here, with the person he had known for the longest time in previous life. He himself had no memories of some things like his own death, but through the years spent in the library, he had come to learn about some things from Musha and the others. Or from books that he read at times. But he was certain that he wanted to enjoy his time in the library and not worry about missing memories of some small things. Previous life's quarrels with this person called Satomi Ton and other things are all now in the past. He had worse things to worry about now, like saving his and others' literature. He hoped that Ton was the same, even though he had shown behavior of trying to dig his memories at times, as if he wasn’t satisfied with what he had gained upon transmigration and soon after it. But this time it seemed to be an unconsciously recalled memory of a day from a long time ago.
“Shiga-nii…”
“Hm?” the dark blue-haired man reacted to his name, and moved a little closer to rest his chin on Ton's shoulder. He couldn't see the younger guy's face properly from such a position, but he assumed that he had also thought about things just like he did.
“I uhhh…” Ton fell silent and with a gentle nudge, he tried to free himself from Shiga's hug. After Shiga had let go of him and backed off a little, he turned around and looked at the older man with an awkward smile, his eyes red and swollen after all the crying. “Are you hungry by any chance?”
“Huh?” Shiga had to shake his head and give the question another try. Hungry? At this hour? As if he would---
They heard a stomach grumble.
“I take that as a yes,” Ton chuckled.
“Well I guess ya beat me,” Shiga scratched his head and seemed to think for a moment. “How about some quick ramen? Maybe that will warm us up. I think there’s still some vegetables or leftovers we can use.”
The light blue-haired male gave him a nod. The two picked up their Shirakaba jackets for extra warmth on top of their pajamas, and headed to the kitchen in the dining hall.
When in the kitchen, Shiga proceeded to go through available ingredients, picking up the most suitable ones for their needs.
Meanwhile, the beautiful full moon had caught Ton’s attention. He got closer to one of the windows and stared outside the quiet courtyard. Usually there were one or few people enjoying the night, especially on an occasion like this when the sky was clear and gave way to the moon. But he assumed that the outside temperature wasn’t too inviting this time. At least he didn’t really fancy the temperature even inside.
‘Wait, isn't it…,’ he barely managed to turn around when he bumped into Shiga.
“Woah there. Ya sure got busy with watching that moon, eh?” the older guy caught Ton by his shoulders.
“Ah, I’m sorry, Shiga-nii.”
“You didn’t seem to hear anything, so I tried to come poke ya. Wanna help with cutting the veggies?” Shiga pointed at the counter a bit further behind him, where the ingredients for their midnight ramen were waiting to be handled.
“S-sure!” Ton’s cheeks flushed red when he nodded and followed Shiga to the counter. On the way he happened to catch a sight of the calendar hanging on the wall, lots of names listed to each day. The kitchen was particularly popular among some authors, especially ones who loved to cook, so there had to be a reservation system put into practise to avoid problems. What mattered to him was that he realised that the day had changed to October 21st, and now the “nightmare” or more like memory was making more sense to him.
Even though their ways had parted once, thanks to the Special Duty Librarian with alchemy powers, he had been fortunate to meet Shiga again. Same was for his brother Takeo and many other authors in the library. The thought about that filled him with happiness. Yes, how could he not be happy now when he was also preparing a midnight meal with his beloved one?
“Shiga-nii, do you have any plans for today?”
Shiga put down the knife for a moment to think. “Librarian wanted something in the afternoon, but I guess that ain’t anything too big. Ya know, probs wants some papers sorted and delivered somewhere.”
“Then, can we go have some fun in the town?” Ton couldn’t conceal his hopeful thinking of getting to spend some more time with Shiga.
“Sounds fine to me.”
“Yay, that’s a promise!”