Note: I was writing about the little library in the cell at the Kurosawa House, and then Mio and Mayu showed up.
Was Once Too At The Full by EstiRose
It was a small, intimate library. The books had sat alone so many years, too many years being unread. Sure, some had been fortunate, to be paged through as the members of the family read them, but most of them had been forgotten, lost.
They spent a lot of time grumbling at each other, wishing that someone would come back. That scholar had been the last one to read them, the last one to speak their words. He’d even written in his own little book, which had joined them on the shelves.
That little book had talked to them about what it had seen on its masters’ travels, and they became familiar with it just as they knew each others’ contents. That one had ended depressingly, with the uncertain fate of the scholar who had been imprisoned there, going one day and never returning.
The little book also held hope for his fate, even over centuries.
It was decades, centuries of waiting before someone else came. Before someone came looking through the shelves, two young women in clothes the books had never seen before. One of the two looked through the shelves, her lips pursed in disappointment. The books were aware that they were fading, falling apart, becoming unreadable, except for the little book containing the Scholar’s last, confused words.
One of the girls plucked it off the shelf, and the other books watched, envious, as she looked through its pages. “Mayu, look,” she said, and the other girl read over her shoulder.
She could have read them if they hadn’t been going to pieces. She could have known more about their contents if there were contents still legible.
But, some of the older books murmured, at least she was reading something. At least she was paying attention to a book.
She put the book away, turned to the desk, seemingly forgetting about the library. Her twin joined her, and then they were almost away. But the second girl got trapped.
The first girl went off to free her. Mayu, the second girl, just paced the room, ignoring the library, ignoring the books.
And then she touched the door, and it opened. She was gone.
Even if her sister came back, the books doubted she would stop for them. It wasn’t the way the humans seemed to work. They rested back on their shelves, hoping that someday, someone would save them, restore them, and read them. Then, that someday, everything would be well again.