"Oh, Akito-san, I didn't know you read Harry Potter. How do you like it?" She didn't dare unfold from her suppliant position until he explicitly told her so, and he hadn't spoken since she'd come in. Ignoring her, Tohru thought as her spine creaked, but if it made him feel better she'd gladly endure a sore back. Despite their last encounter, she'd been immediately moved at the sight of him, white and empty, profoundly drugged.

It took him a long time to answer- his voice had a strange quality, hoarse and spent, and he didn't look at her, just let his eyes wander vacantly about the mostly-bare room. "They don't consider a child of age until they're seventeen, but they tell them their expected moral standards on the word of a talking accessory when they're eleven. It doesn't make much sense."

Tohru paused and sat up, afraid that he wouldn't be able to hear her if she spoke only to the floor mats. "No, I don't suppose that's very fair."

"No... Not much is, I don't think." He slurred the words a little, but didn't correct himself.

Without really thinking, she opened her mouth to object, but stopped as his eyes came to rest on her face. The pupils were huge, drowning the irises in black. Suddenly, the dimness made sense.

"You... I liked Lord of the Rings. Did you read it?"

"Um, no, I haven't. I read a little of The Hobbit for English."

He mumbled something and closed his eyes.

"I can get a copy from the library-"

"Galadrial."

"Pardon, Akito-san?"

"'S who you remind me of, a little. But she was still controlled by the ring. And she didn't love her husband and in the end she left Middle Earth like all the others."

"Oh... I'm sorry."

He was silent a long time, with his eyes closed.

"You should... Leave. And tell Hatori to get you my copy. But tell him to remind me. I won't remember."

---

In the next two weeks, Tohru reads it fervently while she waits for things to boil or bake, and decides she likes it much better than Musashi, the epic they're working on in school. When Akito is admitted to the hospital, she sends it along with Shigure- all the Somas have to go and sit attendance- but he either doesn't remember or is too bad off, because he won't take it back. Later, when Kyo asks, she reads him accounts of the battles, out on the roof, beneath the stars.