Summer had come to Japan, and also to Iwatobi. A heating wave was on its wake, but this couldn't be felt in the library where Makoto and Kisumi had taken Nagisa and Rei. There was no doubt that this was a really bad day to spend indoors, but Makoto had needed to borrow a book he could read aloud to Nagisa, Kisumi had to check for a book he could read over the summer, not like he read much though. Rei liked spending time at the library and Nagisa didn't want to stay home alone.

"You sure you'll be fine on your own, Rei?" Makoto asked as Rei declared that he wanted to go down and check out some books and said that the others didn't have to come along.

"Makoto, stop the mother-hen act," Kisumi smiled. "Rei's 9 years old you know."

Makoto smiled. "9 years old is still a rather young age," he justified.

"I'll be fine," Rei said, almost interrupting the two men's discussion. "You don't have to worry about me, Makoto-san," he said.

Makoto nodded. "Okay," he said. "I won't go far though. If you need anything, just come over." he smiled at Rei as he said the last before turning to Nagisa. "Is there anywhere you want to check out?" he asked.

Nagisa shook his head. "Not really," he said as he followed Makoto and Kisumi down the hallway of shelves. He stopped shortly after by the shorter shelves, meant for children's books.

"You found something?" Makoto asked.

"Picture-books," Nagisa answered before he walked over to the shelves and picked out a book about ocean life. He then walked over to a small chair by a table and sat up on it before he opened the book and started reading.

Makoto bent down to check the level of difficulty of the book and looked up with a smile. "It's easy-read," he said. "He should be fine,"

Then he and Kisumi continued to look for books. Nagisa had asked Makoto to find some horror stories, he seemed to find them interesting. So Makoto walked around and looked for a book with shorter horror stories, although he was skeptical of the matter.

After around 20 minutes the two men met up with Rei who had also found some books he would like to borrow. Makoto was surprised that Rei had picked out four rather difficult looking books while he and Kisumi had only picked out a book or two each.

"Where's Nagisa?" Rei asked as he saw that Makoto and Kisumi were alone.

Makoto smiled. "He found some picture-books for children and is probably still reading," he answered. "I'll go get him," he said then and headed towards where he had last seen Nagisa.

He was right, the boy was still sitting on the chair, but now with a stack of books next to him. Makoto scanned the titles. They were all about penguins it seemed. Nagisa seemed to be all caught up in the book he was reading.

Rei came over as well and looked at the younger boy. He smiled happily as he also read the titles of the picture-books.

"Should've figured," he said.

"What?" Makoto asked, looking down at Rei who was still looking at Nagisa with a soft expression on his face.

"Nagisa has always been fond of penguins so it's not surprising that he is only reading about penguins," Rei answered.

"Why penguins?" Makoto asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," Rei answered. "But the animal has always held a meaning to him. He once had a penguin plushy which he received from the orphanage,"

"But he doesn't have it now," Makoto stated. "What happened to it?" he asked.

Rei smiled. "It was sacrificed because of Nagisa's generosity," he said. Makoto sent him a confused look and Rei continued in a hushed voice.

"About a year ago, a girl was brought to the orphanage one late night. Nagisa and I were sharing a room at that time, and she got the room next to ours to sleep in. I heard the grown-ups say that she had seen something terrible, but I didn't know what until she came to mine and Nagisa's room that night.

"Why did she come there?" It was now Kisumi asking the question.

"She couldn't sleep," Rei answered. "She kept on thinking about what had happened earlier that same night. She was scared."

"What happened?" Makoto asked, now concerned.

"She said her parents had fought. They were in the middle of a divorce but then her mother suddenly went crazy and stabbed her father in the back with a knife. Her older brother tried stepping in between them and protect their father. She said her brother was okay but she didn't know where he was. He'd gotten injured. Her father was also in the hospital and her mother was elsewhere. She was scared her mother came back to kill her or something…" Rei trailed off and then continued. "She was about Nagisa's age and scared out of her mind. Nagisa felt bad for her and asked that all three of us slept together. So we did that. Nagisa let her borrow his penguin plushy and she hugged it tight all night while sleeping. The following day, when she had to leave, she said that she was scared to sleep alone and therefore Nagisa let her have the plushy and told her to be brave." As Rei said this, he smiled proudly.

"I remember the incident," Kisumi said. "It wasn't too far from where my parents live. I saw the police cars and ambulances that night," he said.

"I remember too. It was reported in the local paper," Makoto said. "But it didn't mention anything about a little girl?" He looked questioningly at Kisumi as if asking if he knew why.

"I think they kept her out of the spotlight for her own sake. It might have been too much on such a small child to be interrogated by the police," Kisumi explained.

Makoto nodded and looked back to Nagisa who was still sitting with his book. He was almost done by now. He too sent the boy a proud look. "So this is why he likes penguins?" he asked Rei.

"It gave more meaning to it, but he was always fond of penguins because of the plushy and the town mascot," he explained.

"Oh yeah," Kisumi smiled. "It is a rockhopper penguin, right?" he asked.

Makoto nodded and walked up to Nagisa as the boy had now finished his book. He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, causing Nagisa to look up before he grabbed the next book.

"Do you want to borrow those?" Makoto asked.

"Are you done, Mako-chan?" Nagisa asked.

"Yeah," Makoto said. "We're leaving now, so if you want to read those, take them with you and we'll borrow them for a while," Makoto said.

Nagisa hopped down from the chair and grabbed he entire stack of books, along with the two ones he had already finished. He then headed towards Kisumi and Rei who were both waiting for him and Makoto.

"Didn't you just read those two?" Rei asked as he noticed that Nagisa had brought the first two books as well.

Nagisa looked up. "I want to read them again, silly Rei-chan." He said this like it was obvious, and it probably was to him, but anyone else found it weird.

"Let's just go home," Makoto said as he guided Nagisa towards the front as they could borrow the books before they all headed home to Makoto's place for dinner.

The incident that is explained here is related to something that actually happened. I guess writing stuff down in a story is kinda my way of coping. It worked before, it works now, or so it seems. Due to privacy of the people who are involved in what happened IRL, I'm not going to explain further about what happened.

Thanks for reading

Jackie