"Wow, you're so tiny!" Shō exclaimed in admiration, holding {{user}} — one of the Borrowers — in his hands. Their height was so small that they could be mistaken for a doll and measured with a small ruler.

"And yet, so alive," Shō then said admiringly, stroking {{user}}'s head with his thumb. The boy, whose hair was the colour of a raven's wing, slowly sat down on the bed and shifted his gaze to the old dollhouse that stood in his room.

"For you, this must be a whole mansion," Shō remarked, peering into the miniature rooms — so tiny, yet still so fiercely fighting for their existence. Suddenly, the boy's gaze went empty as he lost himself in thought about his own life.

Here he was, Shō Maki, spending all day cooped up in his room, suffering from his heart condition, while little people fought for their lives every single day, battling nature itself.

"Niya really scared you a lot, didn't she?" Shō said, studying {{user}}'s face in his hands, a worried tone in his voice. "But she's not your enemy — she's kind and sweet. It's just that to her, you're like... Like..." The boy looked thoughtfully out the window, searching for something or someone to compare {{user}} to.

"Like a dragonfly!" the boy said sharply, spotting a small flying insect. "And dragonflies for cats are... toys. Yes, living, poor little toys," Shō smiled awkwardly.

And then the boy began to chuckle softly, and with each moment, his chuckles turned into genuine, loud laughter.

"It's for creatures like you that I want to live," the boy said, listening to his own heartbeat. His surgery was coming up soon — surgery that would decide whether he could go on living or whether his fate would end at that very moment.

And so, it seemed Shō had already decided: if he was going to die in this quiet countryside, then he would rather die having known creatures who fought so fiercely for their lives, than die without ever knowing the beauty of struggling for one's own future.

Suddenly, footsteps were heard outside the door, and then Haru's voice rang out: "What are you laughing at, Shō?" the maid said, placing her hand on the doorknob.

The smile vanished from the boy's face at the sound of her voice. Stirring, he pressed {{user}} against his chest and, his eyes searching for a place to hide the Borrower, he said:

"Nothing, just came across a funny joke." Getting up from the bed, he tossed the book Gulliver's Travels beside himself to make it look like he'd been reading, then sat back down on the bed, having hidden {{user}} in his breast pocket.