Submission (#6369) Approved

As a rule, Jinryeok doesn’t take home strays. At least not anymore.

It shouldn’t be as hard as it is to follow that principle, but sometimes… sometimes tiny creatures trigger something in him, deep down in a place that shriveled up and left when his wife did. Jin’s eyes flick from the futon on his floor to the mostly unimportant paperwork. His gaze trails over various lines of polite, cursive penmanship with passing focus.

The missive on his desk is of no real consequence. It gives Jin something to ruminate over instead of the increasingly worrying problem currently passed out in his work office, but he doesn’t particularly care for the agendas hidden behind the ink.

A soft chime echoes over his shoulder. Sighing, Jin trails a claw over the length of the paper, folding it back into how it had arrived in his possession. He grants the spirit lantern his focus for a breath, but all it does is sway softly, revolving around in the golden casing like a lazy duckling turning in a whirlpool.

There must be something to do, Jinryeok thinks, smoothing down his robes. Anything to take his mind off the kittom resting a few feet away. His attention wanders around the room. Ah.

Fading light trickles in from the circular window at his back, illuminating his desk and bookshelf with a dying haze. There’s a row of well-loved books on the third shelf that he’s been meaning to rebind, and the Elnin tugs himself out of his admittedly comfortable leather-backed chair to grab one.

Jin slowly draws a tome from the batch with careful paws. He’s decided the first one to tackle shall be the one least missed if irreparably damaged by his unskilled decision. Even though they’re all relics he’d be ashamed to abuse, Jin wants to preserve what he can—lest something unfortunate happen in the midst of his indecisiveness.

With about 100 pages, the manuscript is nothing to scoff at; Jin’s just used to his personal collection running up to 400 per volume. This piece in particular is a compiled set of personal prose from an author the Lady of the Manor had taken an interest in. Writing under a laundry list of various Pseudonyms had made it difficult to acquire the compendium at the time, but he’d done it.

She’d loved him ever the more for gifting it to her.

Shaking his head, Jin tucks some stray fringe out of his face. The loosely bound book is placed in the very center of the table, directly in front of his seat. Drawing the edges of his sleeves past his elbows, the Elnin gathers the fabric with cord and sets about dragging the rebinding kit from where he tucked it away four months ago. Once that, too, has found a new home on his desk, Jin tugs on the spirit lantern so it graces the work area with enough luster to wash the space with a warm glow. Jin settles back down in his seat.

By now the sun is falling behind the horizon. It doesn’t strain his eyes to work by the light of his little assistant, but he’ll have to be careful. He has a precious pile of papers falling apart in his paws, of course, and it wouldn’t do to ruin the fading materials completely. Jin supposes he’ll always have the memories, but—

The tired, lonely Elnin sighs. Jin looks over at the futon once more. Nothing moves, save the subtle rise and fall of the sparsely decorated blankets. For a brief moment he reconsiders putting the manuscript away—to be touched and handled another day—but he supposes it’s time.

Jin reaches out to smooth a claw over the fraying cover, and begins.