While Emiko was feeling bad that she didn’t know any of this, Mizuki showed her a picture of the bookstore where she’d bought the books, which was called Frère. It was a stylish store with a glass front that you might mistake for a café at first glance, with shelves split into square sections. Each of these different shelves was rented out by a different person, and the people running them as tiny bookstores were known as shelf owners.
Mizuki’s target was one of the shelf owners at Frère. She told her that she’d bought every book that had been on his shelf. It seemed that she wanted the handwritten impressions sandwiched at the back of the books no matter what.
“Then I suppose you can’t just buy them anywhere,” Emiko said as she grasped the full picture. “It’s like how you’d want to talk to someone else about things like what they thought of certain scenes, huh? That might be interesting.”
“Right? I can read tons of people’s impressions online, but it’s like how there are some things you wouldn’t say unless you were talking with someone face-to-face. That’s the sort of feeling I want. I don’t want just anyone’s impressions. I want his.”
Mizuki showed Emiko her bundle of sales cards. Each of them had one line introducing the books in the margins. Apparently, they’d also been written by the shelf owner in question. She bragged about how she’d gotten the store’s owner to give them to her.
This must have been what people called “fangirling.” Like how one of Emiko’s friends would fly all over the country following a singer they loved.
“Then I suppose you met that shelf owner?”
“It’s not that easy. But now that I’ve got these books, I have something to message him about. If I talked to him without any other good reason, I’d get bashed.”
Mizuki excitedly explained that Frère’s owner had told her to become a shelf owner there if she ever came to Tokyo. That must have made her pretty happy, because she just kept on talking nonstop. Emiko just listened and nodded along. In any case, she could tell that her granddaughter had spent her money in a way that she felt was worthwhile. That was much better than if she’d bought souvenirs from Tokyo purely out of obligation.
“Y’know how when you’re reading a book and something doesn’t happen like you expect and you get annoyed? But if you look back at it after reading his reviews, then you can see it in a completely different light. He never writes badly about any book, but it’s not like he’s forcing himself to write nice things about it even though he didn’t like it. It makes you accept it more naturally, or like, makes it calming to read or something. Ahh, I love him!”
She talked about how she would read his impressions when she was tired from studying or angry after an argument.
“Oh yeah. Grandma, you like books too, right?”
“I do.”
“Try reading one of these books. Keiichi-san’s impressions are amazing!” Mizuki said, encouraging her to take any of the books from the pile.
Emiko picked out a thin, string-bound book. The feeling of its Japanese paper made her feel nostalgic. The cover had no title.
“Ah, Grandma, that one doesn’t have any impressions inside. An author I happened to meet while we were at Frère gave it to me. A lady with orange hair. Apparently, she made it herself!”
“She made a book by herself?”
That was possible?
“I read it on the Shinkansen home, but I didn’t really get it. I mean, since Keiichi-san gave it a long review online, it’s probably got a lot you can get from it, but it’s not a novel, so…”
Works with mixed reviews made you more curious than works that everyone said were amazing. They made you want to read it for yourself to see what sort of book it was.
“Can I borrow this?” Emiko asked.
“I’ll give it to you, since I didn’t bring you back a souvenir and all.”
Mizuki’s tone was normal, but she might’ve really been worrying about that all this time. Even if her actions and thoughts didn’t match up, she was thinking in her own way.
“Oh yes, I heard you say you wanted to go to a university in Tokyo?” Emiko asked, changing the subject.
“I do,” she replied, voice clear as she sat up straight. “Y’know… Hasn’t Mom been talking kinda weird lately? Why is she fine with me going to Osaka but not Tokyo? I’d be leaving home either way.” Mizuki scowled as she let out her complaints.
“The farther away you are, the harder it gets to go to you if anything happens.”
“If what happens? Like if I get sick, or hurt? I’ll be fine. I can manage alone.”
“I’m sure Mayumi is just worried about you.”
“I didn’t ask her to worry about me. When I was in Tokyo, it just came to me. It was like it was calling to me. I’ve been to Osaka a bunch of times, but I’ve never gotten that feeling there.”
“I see.”
“I’ll be fine on my own. I can make friends quick anywhere too. Ahh, I want to go back to Tokyo,” Mizuki sighed, as if it was the place she truly belonged.
“Well, you’re still only in your second year of high school. You’ve got plenty of time, so you can think hard about where you really want to go.”