The next day, Reita and Touya ate lunch together around Sei's desk. Surprisingly for Sei, Reita has gotten over yesterday's matter as if nothing ever happened. He talked and acted as usual.

If he was acting, Sei would rate it a 10 out of 10. If he wasn't, then his mental fortitude could possibly be tougher than Touya's.

Touya on the other hand was still cautious around Sei.

"I'm going to submit my manga soon. I pulled an all-nighter last night and finished the storyboard. All that's left to do is the inking. I'll be busy for a while, but I'll still go to Daichi's tournament. Not going to stay for long though."

"Are you still doing it manually?" Sei asked.

"I'm not good at drawing digitally. I can't get the right feeling like when I draw on papers. The result is always different than what I imagine it to be. There's also too many complicated functions and settings I need to remember," Reita complained, "I'll stick to my pens and pencils."

"I'm more worried you'll break your device because of your clumsiness. It's actually a wonder how you can trace your drawings neatly and never made any mistakes in the middle of inking." Touya commented.

"Most of them were ruined because you spilled something on the papers," Sei added. He looked at his watch and reached for his crutches, "I have to go to the library."

"Now? They don't know about your injury?" Touya asked.

"They do. It just doesn't feel right if I don't go to the library every Thursday. They might also need me for something. It's on our floor, so it's not a big deal." Sei got up.

"I'll go with you." Touya followed Sei out.

"Then, I'm going to my clubroom to continue my manga. See you later." Reita went the other way, bumping into someone since he was busy waving at them.

Most of the second years have known about Reita's antics, so the person he bumped didn't react much. Sei shook his head hopelessly and went away.

Touya watched Reita leave in thought. He was aware of what happened yesterday, but for Reita to be acting so normally…On the contrary, it wasn't normal. He expected Reita to be depressed for a few days at least.

It was impossible for Reita to get over it that quick, right? But why did he feel like Reita wasn't acting at all?

They arrived at the library, but the front desk was empty. His senior appeared a few minutes later.

"Kurosaki-kun?" she was surprised.

"Good afternoon, Senior. I wanted to check if you need a hand, so I came."

"Actually, you came at a perfect time. Can you sit at the front desk for me? I need to shelf these. Sorry for this when you're injured like that."

"It's nothing, Senior. I only need to sit anyway." Sei went behind the desk and sat down.

"Thank you, Kurosaki-kun. You're an angel." The senior thanked him before leaving with the books.

"I'll wait for you there." Touya pointed to one of the tables.

"You don't have to. Lunch break is still long."

"It's fine. I also have something I want to read here." Touya smiled and left.

Sei played with his phone. There weren't many people in the library during lunch break, one of the reasons why they usually shelved books during this time. The most crowded times would be in exam periods. But during that time, the library committee's advising teacher would replace them to let them study.

A message notification appeared on top of his screen while he was scrolling through the postings of cat videos.

[You're grinning like an idiot]

A corner of Sei's lips twitched. He looked up to see the bleached hair youth smirking at him. In addition to the bandages around his knuckles, there were extra band-aids on his forehead and one corner of his lips.

"Can I help you?" Sei signaled at Sugiura with his eyes and pointed at Touya with a glance.

He couldn't tell if Sugiura got his signal or not. He leaned onto the desk, "Which section is best for sleeping, Mr. Librarian?"

"If you want to sleep, go to the infirmary or the rooftop. This is a place to read and study." Sei shooed him away with a small gesture.

"Then, tell me something to read. It's getting too hot outside and the infirmary's too far."

"You'll fall asleep after 2 or 3 pages anyway."

"Exactly."

The senior student returned and saw Sugiura's delinquent-like figure. She quickly stepped forward and whispered to Sei while looking at Sugiura warily, "Is he bothering you? Do you need my help?"

"He's asking for a book to make him sleep." Sei bluntly said.

"Huh…?" she thought for a while, "Like, literally? For insomnia or something?"

"…No, not really…" Sei got up, "I already thought of some. Have you finished shelving all of them, Senior?"

"Oh, yeah, I have. You can go now, Kurosaki-kun. Thanks again."

Sei nodded and walked out the front desk. He gestured at Sugiura, "Follow me."

They walked past Touya and Sei spoke up, "Touya, I'm helping him first then we can leave."

Touya glanced up at Sugiura for a few seconds and smiled, "Sure. Don't need to rush. Your recovery is more important."

It wasn't a friendly smile. Both Sei and Sugiura knew who that smile was for.

"Wow, that was intense," Sugiura commented in a whisper once they were a distance away, "Why did you tell him that?"

"It'll be worse if I don't. Whose fault is it in the first place?" Sei looked at Sugiura accusingly.

"Mine, it's mine. Happy? I didn't know you're on the library committee, so I couldn't help but tease you."

"Is it even something worth teasing about?" Sei rolled his eyes.

He brought them to the history books section. At the entrance of the section, Sei faintly frowned. His heart suddenly became restless, a warning from the protection charm. He didn't remember having a dangerous scene in the library as a player. But he hasn't got any harmful intent today, so anything was possible to happen.

"Kurosaki-senpai?"

"Let's go to another section." Sei moved away.

But in every section, the ominous feeling didn't change, much less disappeared. So it didn't have any relation with the section?

Sei finally settled into the foreign books section. He pointed up at the second shelf, "Take that one."

"Which one?" Sugiura looked at where he was pointing.

"That dark blue one on the upmost rack."

"Oh, I see it." Sugiura pulled it out and read the title, "What? It's in English??"

"If you're just going to read 2 or 3 pages, at least make it a productive one for your brain."

"But–"

Loud crashing suddenly resounded in the library. Sei turned towards the noise and saw the bookshelf behind them tipped forward towards them.

"Sugiura-kun, look out!" Sei hurriedly shouted.

He couldn't avoid it because of his foot injury, but Sugiura could. He fell down to the ground as he instinctively shut his eyes. He used his arms to cover his face from the books raining down on him from the shelves. The sound of crashing continued twice more before it stopped. The foreign books section was near the end of the columns, so it must've reached the last shelf.

Sei guessed that the shelf didn't hit his upper body thanks to the other shelf it hit. But even though he was already prepared for the pain, there was no extra weight of the wooden shelf on his legs except for the books burying them.

He slowly opened his eyes to check and was stunned by the sight in front of him. Sugiura was above him, holding the shelf with one arm and his back while the other hand supported his body up.

"What's with that face, Senior? Don't worry, you're not getting transmigrated to another world." Sugiura chuckled.

"Is this the time to be joking?! Let it go, you idiot! You'll break your arm!" Sei inexplicably felt mad.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm an idiot. So I don't understand what you're saying. I'll hold this up, so you go crawl out from there senior," Sugiura looked to their side which there was a gap enough for a person to go through. He faintly groaned, "You better hurry. I don't think I can hold this for much longer."

"All the more reason I won't go out. You think I'm mentally strong enough to see you get flattened under this?" Sei raised both of his arms and helped Sugiura hold the shelf up, "I might not be as strong as you, but I'm also a man."

Sugiura indeed felt the weight lessened. He grinned, "Actually, I do think you're that mentally strong. You're not? That's surprising."

"You're really asking to be kicked right now, you know that?" Sei gritted his teeth.

"Just don't kick my balls."

Sei shot his leg up and kicked him exactly there in anger.