She exhaled, and with it the oppressive presence seemed ever so slightly to shrink. Rintaro finally remembered to breathe. Sweat had begun to bead on his forehead.
“When I first heard the rumors about a book-loving boy running around rescuing books, I thought perhaps he would have some words of wisdom for us. Not that I believed it would change anything, but I thought perhaps he could give us a hint of how we might regain that power that we’ve lost.”
She turned her hollow eyes back on Rintaro.
“But it seems I’ve overestimated you.”
Her white hand fluttered slightly.
“You should go back to where you came from.”
She waved her hand and something banged behind Rintaro. The wooden door of the shop had opened. Time to embark on his return journey. But Rintaro couldn’t even raise his head, let alone get up from his stool. He stayed pinned to the spot.
“We’re done here.”
The woman’s voice was frigid.
She got to her feet and, as if she’d lost interest in Rintaro completely, turned and headed toward the back of the shop. Rintaro raised his head slightly to see the back wall melt away and a passageway open up. This time there were no bookshelves, overhead lamps, nothing—just a dark, endless corridor. The only sound was the dull clacking of the woman’s shoes as she slowly faded into the distance.
“I can go home . . .”
Rintaro’s mind roamed as if in search of something.
As he watched the woman walk away, he wondered why he was hesitating. His best arguments had been dismissed, his best ideas ridiculed, and his pride literally blown away by a chill wind, but at least nothing had happened to actually hurt him. He was free to slink away, shoulders slumped, and go back to his humdrum existence. He could forget about what happened in those mysterious labyrinths of books. There was only so much a high school kid could do after all. He wasn’t a superhero—he was just some moody, gloomy bookworm who happened to make his way to Wonderland. Although this time he could take credit for navigating his way through a series of complicated discussions, he was and always would be a hopeless shut-in, a hikikomori.
With a slightly smug look on his face and an ingrained acceptance of his fate, he had always suppressed what was there in his mind and his heart. That was how he had always lived his life, and he’d been doing just fine, thank you.
And wasn’t that good enough?
But then—
“No, that’s not good enough,” he muttered to himself.
Somewhere in the depths of his mind there was a glimmer of something bright. The main reason he was here—it was as if he had managed to haul a sinking treasure chest back to the surface of the ocean.
Sayo!
His head shot up, and he shuddered in horror. The sound of retreating footsteps was fading quickly. He jumped up.
“Wait! Please.”
He yelled it with all his strength, but his voice was swallowed up by the long dark corridor. The sound of the woman’s footsteps continued farther into the distance.
“Where’s Sayo? Please give her back!”
His voice echoed hopelessly. There was no reply besides the ever-fainter footsteps.
Rintaro turned and looked at the latticed door behind him. It was wide open as if to say, “Look, here’s the way out! Go through me and everything will be back to normal. Ordinary, depressing, constricted, but at least there’s no need to work up your courage. You don’t even need self-respect.”
Rintaro imagined himself sitting in a warm, cozy bookshop. And yet his feet didn’t budge. The goal of this journey hadn’t been to get himself home quickly. He couldn’t ignore his real purpose.