Rintaro wasn’t feeling brave, but he was encouraged by Sayo’s steady voice.
“You’ve got more guts than you think, Natsuki. Especially when it comes to books. You’ve got nothing to be worried about at all. Even that kid Akiba is impressed by you.”
Rintaro was thrown by her mention of him.
“Akiba?”
“Yeah. He was praising you at school the other day. He’s a bit too cocky for my liking, but he’s honest.”
To Rintaro, these words were as refreshing as a clear winter sky. There was a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach that began to spread. It would be too much to call it courage, but it certainly came from the same place.
All of a sudden, he felt Sayo punch him gently in the back.
“Just make sure you bring me back, Natsuki.”
They stepped gingerly out onto the carpet. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t nervous, but Rintaro kept his gaze straight ahead. Something told him that now was the time to act. He took a deep breath and kept walking.
*
“You really do love books, don’t you?”
The voice of Ryota Akiba echoed in Rintaro’s ears. Rintaro was only a junior, so he’d not really had much to do with this charismatic senior. It was his usual habit to stay away from any of the older students when they came by the bookshop. Akiba was the star player on the basketball team, the top academically in his year, and active on the student council. Rintaro, the hikikomori living shut up in his grandfather’s bookshop, was from another world. Rintaro had once asked Akiba in all seriousness why a successful student like him would bother visiting the lowly Natsuki Books.
“Well, obviously because you have good books,” he’d replied, clearly puzzled by Rintaro’s question. “Your grandfather must be disappointed that you don’t understand what a great place he has here.”
And with that, Akiba had begun to sing the shop’s praises.
“There are books here that are considered masterpieces all over the world. They’ve endured for years—until now. They’re becoming more and more difficult to find in regular bookshops. But when I come here, I can find more or less anything I’m looking for.”
He rapped his knuckles on the bookshelf before him.
“I get that bookshops might not carry something as eclectic as Andersen or Johnson, but these days even stuff written by Kafka or Camus is out of print. And it’s practically impossible to find a shop that stocks the complete works of Shakespeare.”
Akiba paused as if to consider why that was.
“Because they don’t sell,” he concluded. “Bookshops aren’t volunteer organizations. They can’t survive if they don’t make sales, and that’s why books that don’t sell just disappear. That’s why your grandpa’s shop really stands out. There’s an incredible assortment of books here on these shelves, even if they’re no longer bestsellers—in fact, they take pride of place. I mean, of course it’s because it’s a used bookshop, but in here I can get my hands on anything but the absolute rarest of titles.”
As he spoke he tapped on various bookshelves with his knuckles as if to emphasize his point.
“And on top of that,” he added with a chuckle, “you have here an expert guide to all of these many difficult titles.”
“A guide?”
“Do you have a copy of Constant’s Adolphe? I saw something about it online the other day. It’s supposed to be pretty good. I haven’t been able to find it anywhere else.”
Rintaro nodded and reached over to a bookshelf toward the back of the shop. He pulled out an old, worn book, the size of a medium-length novel.