Broken Rules

The garden had rules, and the girl knew all of them.

Don't run on the wet stones. Don't pick the flowers before they've opened. Don't speak until spoken to, don't laugh too loud, don't, don't, don't. She had learnt them the way other children learned songs, until they lived under her skin and her first instinct was to hesitate.

'Am I allowed to do this? Will I get in trouble?'

Hinata was very good with rules as a kid. Garnering appreciation from the adults who were not a part of her daily life, the adults called her "a well-behaved girl." They said it the way you'd say it about a nice piece of furniture.

The two complex emotions little Hinata had learnt first in her life were pride and pity. Pride from being the perfect doll that filled the gaps of other adults' hearts and pity from the fragility of the doll that she was. So perfect and delicate, like a little glass animal toy.

Beyond the wall, someone was breaking every rule at once. She heard him before she saw him — a clatter, a bark of laughter, an adult voice rising in alarm and then falling behind. Then a boy came up over the top of the wall like it was nothing, like walls were a suggestion, and dropped down into the forbidden half of the garden with grass stains already on his knees and something bright and unrepentant in his face.

He saw her watching. He didn't apologize and instead grinned, like they were already in on something together. The girl stood very still in her clean clothes and felt, somewhere behind her ribs, a door she hadn't known was there. It opened just a crack, just enough to let the summer in.

Eight years later, the summer came back the way it always did — too fast, and all at once.

"Shelving on the left, reading corner on the right, and if a child asks where the bathroom is, the answer is by the water fountain, not I don't know." Ai had a clipboard. The class president side of her had taken over when they had started volunteering at the library. Her organizing skills shined through her actions and everyone else in the club had gladly let her take the lead. She walked the length of the community library's back room like a general reviewing troops, and the troops, such as they were, slouched against the returns cart in varying states of enthusiasm.

"Three weeks. Two Saturdays a week plus setup. The library's short-staffed for summer for the children's reading program, so we're helping during that time. Any questions?" asked commander Ai.

Cadet Ryuuji's arm shot up.

"Do we get snacks? "

"If you shelve fast enough... So no."

Ryuuji snorted as Futaba and Shizu chuckled from behind. Ai ignored them both and flipped a page, because there was always another page. Shizu had decided to help out with the volunteering after Ai convinced her to join. She hadn't officially joined the club yet but no member was against her being there. Little by little, she was fitting in with the group.

The room smelled like old paper and floor cleaner and, faintly, like the box of juice someone had left open on the windowsill. Dust turned slow circles in the light. Outside, the cicadas had already started up, that long electric drone that meant the season had committed to itself. Ryuuji was reading the volunteer handbook cover to cover, actually reading it, the way he did everything.

"You don't have to read the whole thing," Ryouta told him.

"Hmm... Someone probably worked hard to make this. I need to make sure the lady's effort doesn't go to waste."

"How do you know a woman wrote it?"

Ryuuji turned a page without looking up.

"Such eloquent writing can only come from the tender imagination of the womankind. No man could ever even dream of these words."

Ryouta raised an eyebrow and then proceeded to rub his knuckles lightly on Ryuuji's head. "Sure, kiddo."

The little brother squirmed and threw an annoyed look at Ryouta. But Ryuuji knew he wasn't annoyed — he was happy to see Ryouta show more affection but hid it under a mask of chagrin. Ryouta had started expressing more not just physically through his body language but also through his actions. Ryuuji knew he had come a long way since his initial promise with Futaba. But there was still work left to do for him.

The door swung open and two more filed in — a tall blonde boy ahead of a shorter girl with long white hair tied into a pony tail. Haruto lifted a hand in a lazy wave as Shiomi came in behind him with two cans of coffee from the machine, handed one to him without being asked, the small unthinking choreography of people who had stopped counting favors from each other.

"We can't stay the whole time," Haruto said. "Got our own clubs eating us alive. We should be free during the afternoons, so feel free to use us wherever."

"Heavy lifting" Ai blurted.

"Ah... You must be Ai! Nice to meet you. I'm Haruto."

"... And I'm Shiomi." said the girl as she quietly inserted herself between Ai and Haruto, her possessiveness being noticed only by Shizu and Ryouta who exchanged glances.

Ai bowed in respect as she said, "Nice to meet you too! I'm Ai Tanaka. Ryouta-senpai told me a lot about you two. I'm glad to have you here!" she said cheerfully.

"Same here," said Haruto before jumping onto one of the returns cart, which rolled a foot before Shiomi caught it.

"Off the cart."

"Yes ma'am."

Everyone chuckled as Ryouta watched them and felt the old, quiet thing he always felt around the two of them — not envy exactly. Something with the same shape as envy but softer at the edges. The way they fit. Like two halves of one sentence. He looked away before it could turn into anything.

Finally, the last missing member walked in.

Hinata came in out of the heat looking like the heat hadn't touched her — every hair in place in her neatly tied braid, that soft unhurried smile already assembled, a smile that had never in its life been caught off guard. Behind her, half a step and with minimal expression as ever, came Himawari, carrying her bag and a folded parasol and the particular patience of a woman who had spent years carrying things for someone who never asked twice.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Hinata said, and made it sound true. "Please, don't let me interrupt."

"You're not late, we haven't started," Ai said. "You're on reading corner."

"Wonderful."

Himawari set the bag down, murmured something too low to catch, and Hinata's hand moved — a small motion, quick, closing over a little foil square she'd passed her and folding it away into her sleeve before it fully existed. She didn't look at it. She'd had practice not looking at it.

"Later," she told her, still smiling. "There are children to disappoint, Himawari. It would be rude to keep them waiting."

Himawari inclined her head and headed back outside after bowing slightly towards Ryuuji and Ryouta as they waved to her.

***

The children showed up at ten, and within minutes the room was chaos.

There were around fifteen of them, anywhere from five to nine years old. They rushed straight for the reading corner, arguing over who got which cushion before anyone had even sat down. Someone started crying almost immediately. Nobody seemed to know why, including him.

Hinata stepped into the middle of it like she'd done this a hundred times before.

She held up a picture book with a dramatic gasp.

"Now, this one is very scary. Are you all sure you're brave enough?"

"YES!"

"Really?"

"YEEESSS!"

"...Because there's a bear."

The room went quiet. Not the uneasy kind of quiet — more the excited kind, where everyone was waiting to see what happened next.

Futaba paused halfway through shelving a book as she couldn't help but be caught in Hinata's theatrics just like the kids around her. Hinata dropped her voice into an exaggerated growl for the bear, making it deep enough that a few kids grabbed each other's sleeves. A second later she switched back to the narrator, smiling like she was letting them in on a secret and every child leaned closer. Even the little boy who'd been crying forgot about it.

Futaba watched the whole thing with mild disbelief. She had always thought Hinata was theatrical as half the things she said sounded rehearsed, like she was putting up a front. But this wasn't fake. Kids could tell when someone was pretending to like them and these ones couldn't take their eyes off her.

"...She's really good at this," Futaba muttered.

Ryuuji walked past carrying a stack of returned books as he scoffed.

"She's good at everything."

He didn't sound impressed. He didn't sound annoyed either. It was just a statement, delivered as casually as commenting on the weather before he kept walking. Futaba watched him disappear between the shelves wondering why Ryuuji of all people had said that.

***

The first real problem started at the front desk. Ozaki, one of the senior volunteers, had spent the entire morning hovering over everyone. If a chair was even slightly crooked, he'd straighten it. If a stack of books wasn't perfectly square, he'd fix it himself with an exaggerated sigh. Now he had one of the younger boys by the shoulder.

The kid couldn't have been older than six. A display of picture books had tipped over, leaving books scattered across the floor.

"Do you know how long it takes to set that up?" Ozaki snapped. "No, of course you don't. None of you ever think before you act."

The boy's lip trembled and a second later he burst into tears. Something about the old man's voice and the small crumpling face of the kid made Ryouta snap. A heat came up the back of his neck quickly, and then the voice — the one he had locked away for quite some time — resurfaced after many years from his mouth.

"He's six," he said. "It's a pile of books."

Ozaki turned.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me."

The words kept coming.

"If you want to yell at someone, pick someone your own size."

The library fell silent as Ozaki's face flushed red and his jaw dropped open.

"Excuse me?"

"Ryo."

Ryuuji's voice came from beside him, calm but quiet trying to warn him. But it was already out. It was already in the air. And Ryouta stood there feeling the heat drain back out of him as it left the cold behind and everyone staring at him. Ryouta couldn't help but glance at the boy — not the crying six-year-old, but the other one. The one who Ryouta had been talking to before. The one whose eyes had been friendly thirty seconds ago and had just gone careful and a little scared.

Futaba stepped in before anyone could say anything else. She apologized to Ozaki, crouched beside the little boy to help him gather the books, and somehow managed to get everyone moving again. Within a minute the library sounded normal as Ryuuji sneaked Ryouta out into another room.

"You ok?"

Ryouta held his head in confusion.

"I- Yeah, I don't know. It's- I... I am not sure why I snapped back there."

"To be fair, if you hadn't I would have definitely snapped. I just think... You might've been a little too harsh with your words?"

"Yeah. I realized that after I had spoken."

"Definitely need to apologize to that geezer though."

"Mhmm"

Ryouta was quiet now and Ryuuji knew he couldn't say anything that would make him feel better. But it was familiar. The way Ryouta stood up for the little boy was all too familiar for the younger brother.

***

Ryouta stayed in the corner longer than he needed to, restacking the display Ozaki had made such a production of, squaring the picture books with more care than picture books have ever required, because it was something to do with his hands that wasn't thinking. He could still feel it in his chest, the shape of the words that hadn't been his and had come out of his mouth anyway. The worst part was that it had felt good to get his frustration out, for one bright second, before it cost him.

He had apologized to Ozaki later but the old man didn't say anything back and only grunted. None of the other members had time to talk to Ryouta about it other than Ryuuji who came to his rescue.

He didn't realize he had drifted near Hinata as he was putting the books back.

"You were kind, you know," Hinata said.

He turned. She was sitting on the low reading-corner bench with one of the leftover children — a little one, four or five, who hadn't been collected yet and had fallen half-asleep against her side, one small fist curled in the fabric of her sleeve. Hinata's arm was around the child, easy and sure.

"I yelled at an old man," Ryouta said.

"You defended a small boy who couldn't defend himself." She tilted her head, and the evening light came through the window and lay across her face and made the smile look, for just a moment, like something warmer than a smile. "Most people wouldn't have. Most people would have looked away. You didn't."

"It wasn't- That's not really-"

"You know it almost reminded me of the old you."

Ryouta looked back to see her have a small smirk escape out of her mask. He still remembered the conversation they'd had before about people changing.

He took a deep breath in, as he turned around and got back to arranging, ignoring Hinata.

Hinata watched Ryouta quietly get back to work. She didn't say anything further but in her head celebrated her small victory.

She couldn't help but think,

'I might get to see him again.'