The Haunted Bookstore – Gateway to a Parallel Universe Vol. 3, page 6
“If he had returned the books by the settlement date, he wouldn’t have had to pay. I hope he does that next time.”
Kim-un-kamuy’s shoulders had fallen when he realized how much he had to pay, but when I had told him that we’d received a delivery of some new books of Ainu lore, his eyes had sparkled.
I hope he isn’t too discouraged to come and borrow them. I don’t want him to stop reading because of this. Never mind his motives; it would be a shame for all his enthusiasm in studying Japanese to go to waste. …But I do hope he stops asking me to marry him.
As I walked along next to Suimei, I peeked at his face. “Thanks for before.”
“For what?” Suimei looked as blank as ever.
I smiled broadly at him. “For getting angry in my stead. I hate yelling at customers. You really helped me out. I feel like I can depend on you, Suimei.”
Before my eyes, Suimei’s face reddened. “Wha… That’s not true.”
“Of course it is!”
All of a sudden, Kuro popped his head out of Suimei’s bag. His red eyes twinkled. “Suimei is my partner!” he said, brimming with confidence. “Of course you can depend on him! That guy Kim—whatever his name was, he’ll never find a wife, but there must be plenty of people who want to marry Suimei. Hee hee hee. If you’re going to make a move, Kaori, you should do it while you still can!”
“Huh?! Make a…”
“Quit it, Kuro. Why are you in such high spirits?!”
“Huh? But…”
Marriage?! What does Kuro think he’s on about?! I pushed their boisterous bantering out of my ears and began to walk quickly.
Now that Ape-huci-kamuy was no longer beside me, I ought to have been freezing, but my face was incredibly warm. I didn’t understand why I was so agitated.
“We still have people to collect from,” I declared, as if to dodge the thoughts that were all jumbled together in my mind. “We’ll go home for today, but I’ll see you again tomorrow!”
“Huh?!” Suimei protested as he hurried to my side. “You didn’t tell me that Kim-un-kamuy wasn’t the only one!”
“Isn’t it obvious? There are loads left. We’ll be collecting them until early in the new year.”
“I told you! At least explain things in advance!” Suimei groaned in agony, glaring at me. “Who’s next?”
“Let me see… I think it’s a Namahage in Akita. They’re about half a year behind with their payments.”
“I can only see this ending in trouble! We’re going to end up being chased around by someone wielding a knife!”
“I can’t stand any more cold places!” wailed Kuro.
“It’s a job, so we can’t be picky,” I said with an unflappable expression. “Besides, Kuro, you get to sleep in the bag! When the moment comes, we’ll throw you.”
“You haven’t given up on the idea of throwing me?!”
Our lively banter unfurled across the snowfield, which glowed bluish-white under the light of the stars. It was so cold that my skin was tingling, but somehow my heart felt pleasantly warm.
I chuckled to myself. It must have been contagious, for even Suimei and Kuro burst out laughing.
Winter is a harsh season. But if you’re with someone else, you can enjoy it, I thought, etching footprints into the fresh snow as I walked.
“Oh, hey!” Spotting the Oboroguruma who had come to pick us up, I waved enthusiastically.
Chapter 2:
The Love Lives of the Bookstore
IN WINTER, the spirit realm was wrapped in complete silence, lending it an eerie quality. The spirits all shut themselves up in their homes and gave themselves over to idle slumber as they yearned for spring. This was winter in the spirit realm: as still as death, so much so that one hesitated even to breathe.
Illuminating this sleeping world was the winter sky, a sky as red as blood. This frozen sky, studded with flickering stars, painted a crimson glaze over a world dyed white by the snow.
“Ha ha ha ha…”
It was odd to get customers on winter days like these. Having settled the late fees for the moment, I was using the days when I didn’t have to go to my part-time job devoting myself to working through my tsundoku pile.
A tsundoku pile is a stack of books one has bought and not had time to read, so they just keep accumulating. I’d just gotten my hands on the first new title in a while from a series of lengthy Chinese novels that I had been obsessed with as a child. I’d bought all the books in similar genres that I could get my hands on. Well, within the limits of my pocket money, of course.
Reading them all in order, starting with the first one… Oh, how happy it made me!
“Ahhh. What shall I do after this?”
Nibbling a rice cracker, I followed the characters on the page, totally absorbed.
Steam wafted from the kettle alongside the pleasant warmth of the oil stove, weaving seamlessly with the quiet… There was no better way to get on with reading.
“Kaori-kun. Sorry, but could you bring me some tea?” asked the gentleman who was reading next to me. He wore a high-quality suit, but it was all crumpled, and he sat carelessly cross-legged on the tatami. He still had his hat and leather gloves on although we were indoors, and his gray eyes sparkled brightly as he followed the story in his hands with rapt attention.
Without looking up from my book, I flatly refused. “I’m at a really good point right now, so please go ahead and make it yourself.”
“Don’t you think you’re being too cold to me, Kaori-kun?” the gentleman said in a tearful voice. “I’m old, and you should be looking after me! Besides, I’m your employer! I’m only asking you to care about me a little…!”
Grudgingly, I looked up from my book to glare at him. “This is the spirit realm, and I’m not at work right now. If you want tea, Toochika-san, there’s water in the pot. Can’t you brew some yourself? I’m at a critical moment—I’m about to find out whether the protagonist’s rival lives or dies!”
“Hmm, that is a matter of the greatest importance. All right, I’ll make some myself.”
This gentleman who had understood my plight so readily was Toochika-san, a kappa spirit who owned the place where I worked part-time in the human world. He hurriedly got to his feet and headed for the kitchen.
I heard him as he was making tea in the kitchen.
“No doubt about it, tea that a woman has made for you tastes twice or even three times as good. That sweet Kaori-kun gave me the test of making tea by myself. I’ll show her that I can bear that kind of mistreatment. Ha ha ha, to think that I can even make tea… I’m perfect!”
He’s a bit of a narcissist… Chuckling to myself, I called out to him. “What you just said is pretty much sexual harassment!”
“What?! How hard it’s become to navigate this society! Gah, a life in which one cannot say what one thinks is as dry as sand,” Toochika-san said, evidently astonished, as he came bounding back. He put his teacup down on top of the kotatsu and cheerfully reached for the book he had been reading: Edogawa Ranpo’s The Black Lizard and Beast in the Shadows. It was first serialized in the popular magazine Hinode. The main character is a female thief who collects all the beautiful things in the world, and it’s known for being a work in which the famous detective Akechi Kogoro appears.
“Ahh…the Black Lizard. No other woman is as beautiful, wise, cruel, and cunning as she. I want to meet her in the flesh—even if it’s in a dream. My heart won’t stop pounding as her loveliness radiates from the page!” He seemed to have slipped deep into the world of The Black Lizard.
It had to be said. Although Toochika-san usually tried to behave like a gentleman, when he got like this, it was extremely annoying. He started to get caught up in his own little world, making exaggerated gestures like an actor in a play.
“In any case, I’m sorry for keeping you waiting.”
“Oh no, it’s all right. I can read my favorite book.”
In addition to employing me at his shop, Toochika-san was Shinonome-san’s old friend and reading companion. He had apparently promised to have a drink with Shinonome-san today. The two regularly held parties where they each brought books they had recommended to the other and reviewed them together.
But as for Shinonome-san…
“Rargh! I can’t write!”
Shinonome-san’s annoyed voice filtered through from his room, which was next to the living room. As usual, his writing wasn’t going anywhere. A few days ago, he had abandoned his manuscript in a sulk, so now he was struggling to meet his deadline. As a result, Toochika-san had come around to read at our house, but he had been left to his own devices.
“I like talking with Shinonome-san about books, but spending time reading all the books that happen to catch my eye is marvelous. Selecting from all the books put out by a publisher whose work I’ve enjoyed before… This bookstore has just as many books as any library. You can keep me waiting as long as you like.”
Judging from his attitude, Toochika-san was enjoying himself anyway.
“You can get really absorbed, can’t you?” an astonished voice cut in. It was Suimei. Sitting under the kotatsu, he was surrounded by a large pile of books just as we were, but he didn’t seem very interested in them.
“You couldn’t find a book you liked?” I asked.
He flipped through the book he was holding and closed it with a small sigh. “I don’t really understand the attraction.”
“Hmm, really?”
“Perhaps there isn’t a book that suits me anywhere…” Suimei’s shoulders slumped dejectedly.
I hated to see him like that. “It doesn’t have to be a book, does it? How about a film, or a TV drama, or a game?”
Suimei shook his head. “No, it has to be a book,” he insisted.
With a small sigh, I closed my book, thinking back to what had happened a few days ago.
On that winter’s day, large snowflakes had fallen unceasing.
All of a sudden, Suimei had said to me, “I want to read a book.”
By this point, it had been a little more than half a year since I had met Suimei. I was genuinely surprised that he would say such a thing, since up until then, he hadn’t shown much interest in books. But from the way he put it, I got the impression that a certain incident had sparked his curiosity anew.
That incident had unfolded on an autumn day when the sky was painted a dark purple. Suimei had met his dead mother in the spirit realm.
Her death from illness had separated her from Suimei when he was only five years old. Anchored by the regret that she had left the young Suimei behind, she had been unable to reincarnate, and her soul had remained in the spirit realm. Mother and son had been reunited in a place where pained souls lingered, and although it had only been for a mere few days, they had been able to spend some time together.
“I’m bad at expressing my emotions. That was why my mother told me to read books. Read a lot, and study all kinds of feelings. That’s why I want to read one,” Suimei had said with great earnestness.
Luckily, our house was a rental bookstore; we were rolling in books. He had read nearly no books at all before, and I made him try out all kinds, from short stories to bestsellers that had sold a million copies.
Unfortunately, Suimei once again closed a book with a sigh.
“I don’t really get this, either. How can a housewife be a detective? Doesn’t this police detective know the words ‘duty of confidentiality’?”
“It’s just for entertainment! It’s fiction! Fiction!”
“And that manga I read the other day… Don’t you think the main character encountered murder cases too frequently, given that he was only an elementary school student? Dealing with dead bodies so often from an early age seems like it would have an adverse effect on the development of his personality. I feel like he might turn into a murderer when he grows up.”
“What?! It’s based on real events—I’m not comfortable with you saying that! Well, how about fantasy, then? Fantasy..!”
“What are all these elves and goblins? Spirits from somewhere?”
“Does that mean you’ll have to start with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings?!”
“Lord of the… That doorstop of a book? Me, read that?”
For some reason, Suimei was struggling to find something he could really stick with. He wanted to read, and he had the ability to sail through long pieces of writing, but he couldn’t genuinely enjoy them.
This troubled me.
“I just can’t get used to it,” Suimei said apologetically. “At any rate, I don’t have any experience with stories. The truth is, my mother used to read them to me before I was old enough to understand what was going on…but I only found that out recently.”
To a certain extent, Suimei’s upbringing had been defined by a culture of purity. Everyone in the Shirai family who had been involved in raising him had, as a rule, intentionally kept him away from creative works. Consequently, he didn’t really understand the attraction or the significance of fiction.
“My father and the old men of the Shirai family shut me away from everything, you see,” he said. “When I was little, I was locked up in a pitch-black room. I didn’t go to school. I was taught everything I needed to live by an old man. Knowledge, social etiquette, how to behave as an exorcist, how to wield a weapon, how to kill a spirit…
“To them, an education in aesthetics was nothing but a hindrance,” Suimei said resentfully, all emotion wiped from his face.
Suimei was a former exorcist—and he had been born into a tsukimono clan bound to an Inugami. He had been brought up being told: You must not have emotions.
When an Inugami is bound to a person and that person feels jealousy toward someone else, the Inugami is prone to hurting the object of jealousy. As long as Suimei was making his living as an exorcist, emotions were a threat, since there was always a small chance that he might hurt a client. Even so, I feel like forbidding emotions themselves was an overreaction. Then again, perhaps something had happened in the past…
Fortunately, Suimei was now released from that binding spell. The Inugami Kuro was still with him, though the magical connection between them had been severed. Now they were simply friends and partners.
With a sigh, Suimei gazed at the books he had piled up. “I haven’t had much experience with fiction, so it might take me a while to understand the fun of books. Perhaps I just have to follow the usual path and get used to reading straightforward things like children’s picture books first.”
“That makes sense.”
Suimei was trying to outgrow his old self and walk a new path. The first step on that path was studying emotions through reading. I sincerely wanted to help him if I could.
But…there seems to be nothing for it but to make him read books he’s not interested in. I groaned to myself. “A book that you’d enjoy, Suimei? Perhaps there really isn’t one…”
The kotatsu blanket bulged and wriggled, and all of a sudden, another person popped their head out from underneath it.
“I was listening, and… Well, no, I don’t get it.”
It was Kinme. He was one of a pair of raven Tengu twins, and a childhood friend of mine. His jet-black hair was tousled from being under the kotatsu, and although he usually wore a monk’s clothing, today he was dressed very casually in a white turtleneck sweater.
As for why Kinme was at the bookstore without his twin brother Ginme, who he usually always accompanied? Ginme had gone with their teacher the Great Tengu of Mount Kurama to meditate under a waterfall, and Kinme had been lonely all by himself. He’d suddenly turned up and gone to sleep under the kotatsu, so I’d left him alone.
Now he grinned so widely that his drooping golden eyes partly closed as he turned to Suimei. “But hey, you’re a boy of a certain age, right, Suimei? You’ll want to read something sexy. A sexy book.”
“No way, what are you—hey, Kinme!” Suimei protested, bright red.
Kinme cackled with laughter. Then his expression turned serious. “I think it’s extremely natural for boys of a certain age to take an interest in sexual matters. Or rather, to have questions about them.” Staring at Suimei, he tilted his head a little to the side. “How should I put it… How have you studied love, Suimei?”
“Love?” Suimei tilted his head, puzzled by Kinme’s words.
“This is only a theory of mine, but…I don’t think you can learn love from anyone else,” Kinme went on. “For example, you could become aware of love by seeing the harmonious relationship between your parents, but you wouldn’t understand anything about falling in love. That’s because your parents went through the process of falling in love a long time ago. So if you think about where you learn how to fall in love, it must be from communal life at school, or books and television dramas and films… From creative works, right?”
“Oh… Maybe. Parents and teachers don’t instruct us on how to socialize with the opposite sex.”
“Right? That’s because humans are animals. I think they learn sexual behavior through instinct. But when it comes to choosing what they should do next, they have to have something to refer to. Something cultural and rational. These days, though, if you pin somebody down ‘because you love them,’ you’ll just get arrested.”
“I get what you mean, Kinme, but you should say it in a more roundabout way.”
“Huh? But that’s such a pain.” Kinme gazed at Suimei with keen interest. “That’s why I had questions…about your love life, Suimei!”
What information is Kinme trying to get out of him? I looked at my old friend in astonishment. But on the inside, my heart was pounding. I, too, was curious about what Suimei’s love life might be.
After thinking for a little while, Suimei frowned. “I don’t really understand what a ‘love life’ is. The old man who gave me my education told me about the act of human reproduction.”
“The…act?”
“The old man used these ancient books, bound in traditional Japanese fashion. He would stick brushstroke paintings of men and women intertwined with one another under my nose and recount his own experiences—”
