In a crowded home like theirs, five cents was a big deal. Twenty cents, even more so. And a dollar? They didn't talk of spending dollars. Those were things reserved for feeding the family and slowly paying the bills on the rickety Hatoful House. Hitori knew this better than anyone, especially as the main exhausted breadwinner in the orphanage—but no one said it was impossible to save up a few pennies.

Hitori entered the room carrying a package in his beak. He sighed when he saw the tent of blankets on the lower bunk bed.

Clunk.

The mass under the blankets stirred as Hitori sat down the package on the floor next to it. He looked over the covers.

"…Nageki, I know you're in there."

No reply. Hitori was preparing to pick up the package and leave after the silence stretched on for longer than five minutes when there was another rustling under the covers.

"No I'm not."

Nageki's voice was muffled, quiet without the addition of the covers. Hitori gently picked at the covers with his beak, pulling them off the face of the mourning dove underneath. Nageki blinked slowly. His feathers were ruffled from being pressed against the blankets.

"Ms. said you were running a fever again, so I came home from work early. Do you feel better now?" Hitori said.

"The fever is gone." Nageki blinked slowly. "Most of it. You… you shouldn't have come home from work. Someone else can take care of me. It's not important, I always get sick; you know that, Hitori."

"It's fine," Hitori said. "It's Friday anyway; I was going to come home early for the family dinner. But I did get you something on the way back!"

Nageki sat up as Hitori plucked up the package from the floor and sat it onto the bed. Nageki perked up as he flipped through the aged book. Hitori had taken care to peel off the price stickers, new and old, before giving it to him. Despite Nageki's glazed eyes, Hitori could already see interest growing in them besides the illness.

"I thought it would be something you'd like," Hitori said. "I wasn't sure, though…"

"Thank you, Hitori," Nageki said, carefully putting the book aside. "It's wonderful."

"You really like it? Oh, good; that's a relief!" Hitori said. "I knew you were already done with the books we had around the house, and I didn't want you getting bored while you were sick again."

"Because I don't do much else around the house but read," Nageki said. His cheer was fading.

"Well there's not much else to do when you're sick," Hitori said. "And you help Ms. and everyone else out in the garden or kitchen. You set the table with everyone else."

"And I don't work or help get money," Nageki said. He coughed, trembling, and Hitori sat up with concern.

Nageki held still and said nothing as Hitori checked his temperature and tucked the covers in a nest around him.

"…I'm a waste of space."

Hitori stopped his primping. Nageki stared at the wall, his blue-rimmed eyes flat.

"No you're not, Nageki," Hitori said, and he took to preening his younger brother. "Everyone here wants you here. You're too young to work, and it would make you sicker; I've told you that before. No one expects you to work."

"I know," Nageki said, looking down, and Hitori continued to preen him.

"I know you feel bad, but don't be so down," Hitori said. "When you feel better tomorrow, you can help me gather millet from the garden. Sounds good?"

Nageki looked at the corner of the room he was pressed into. It was covered in worn beige wallpaper as dull as his feathers, as old and motionless as the pile of tattered paperbacks gathered at the sides of the bed, and just as apt at gathering dust.

"Yes," he said.