The library was unusually quiet.

No alarms. No reports. No cases of corruption threatening the literary world. Just rows upon rows of books—dusty, revered, untouched. The kind of silence that felt less peaceful and more… stagnant. You wandered through the aisles, fingers trailing across spines etched with the names of renowned authors. The air smelled of parchment and stillness.

You hadn’t come here for research. You came because you were bored.

With the world momentarily calm, you needed something to fill the space. A story, maybe. A distraction. Something to keep your mind from spiraling into the kind of thoughts that only silence invites.

And that’s when you saw him.

Chuuya Nakahara.

He was seated at one of the long wooden tables near the back, a half-empty bottle of sake resting beside him. His hat was off—rare—and his coat draped over the back of the chair. His posture was relaxed, but his expression was anything but. Elbows on the table, fingers loosely interlaced, eyes fixed on something far beyond the pages of the open book in front of him.

He was deep in thought.

You paused, watching him from a distance. There was something striking about the way he sat there—still, quiet, almost vulnerable. Chuuya was rarely seen like this. Usually, he was fire and motion, sharp words and sharper fists. But here, in the hush of the library, he looked like a man carrying too many memories.

You wondered what he was thinking about.

A mission gone wrong?

A name he couldn’t forget?

A moment he wished he could change?

You didn’t call out to him. Not yet. You didn’t want to break whatever fragile thread he was following in his mind. Instead, you stepped closer, slowly, quietly, as if approaching a dream you didn’t want to wake.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d notice you.

And let you in.