That said…
Naomi glanced over at Ruri. She was still staring at the numbers on the blackboard with a deadly serious look on her face.
She would have put the effort in no matter what. Even if he hadn’t helped her and she’d been forced to do it all alone, she would still have gone out there, bowed her head to everyone, and scraped together all the books she could.
He knew it was true. That was just the kind of person Ruri was.
He had to admire her for it.
“Hmm...”
Ruri nodded to herself abruptly and looked over at Naomi. His heart beat a little faster as their eyes met.
“All right. I have an idea.”
After a two-minute walk from the bus stop, Ruri and Naomi approached a plot of land bordered by an absolutely antique-looking wooden wall. Ruri strode confidently alongside it, and Naomi followed close behind.
A large building came into view on the property. It was a splendid old mansion, the kind of place that looked like it might charge admission.
“Come on in,” said Ruri as she opened the wooden front gate. Looking around nervously, Naomi followed her as she stepped onto the grounds.
Ruri’s home was located on a quiet residential corner in the Shimogamo district, a bit upstream along the Kamo River. There was a city-run botanical garden close nearby, and the mountains that surrounded the Kyoto Basin were noticeably closer here. There were few stores or businesses around, and no library at all, so Naomi rarely visited the area.
The house itself was a large wooden building that really did look like something out of a period TV show. If he hadn’t known better, Naomi would have assumed it was some sort of historical landmark. It was that impressive.
After double-checking to make sure there wasn’t anyone taking tickets, he hurried along after Ruri. She headed past the main building, toward the back of the spacious lot it sat on.
With a small buzz, the yellow light of incandescent bulbs cut through the darkness. Naomi swallowed as he stepped up the creaking wooden stairs.
He’d walked up into a miniature library.
Ruri had taken him to an old storage building in the corner of her backyard. The first floor had been filled with piles of random boxes, but the attic-like second floor was completely lined with wooden bookcases.
Apart from the windowed wooden door that led outside, every single inch of wall was covered with built-in shelves that were packed with books. And even that wasn’t enough storage space for the whole collection; the floor was half hidden under piles of dusty tomes.
“These are the books my grandfather collected before he passed away,” said Ruri calmly. “He just picked up anything that caught his eye, so I don’t think any of them are particularly valuable.”
The words didn’t fully register with Naomi. The sheer number of old books he was looking at was too much for him to process. A wonderful flood of information washed over him, and his brain threatened to overheat.
Moving a bit unsteadily, he headed over to a nearby shelf and squatted down in front of it. One by one, he studied the spines of the books on the lowest shelf. There were some surprisingly recent books but also many clearly older ones. Just at a glance, he saw novels, works of philosophy, map collections, and reference books. Everything was jumbled up in a chaotic, random mess; and of course, none of them had call numbers on the spine. These were wild books, unlike the domesticated varieties you’d find in a library. They’d been stuffed into these shelves at random.
“Wow.”
He hadn’t intended to say anything. But there was genuine excitement swelling up inside his chest, and he couldn’t hold it down. For someone like Naomi, this was basically a dragon’s treasure hoard.
“I guess you grew up reading these books, Ichigyou-san…”
After voicing this thought, Naomi realized it was kind of an embarrassing line. He avoided looking over at Ruri rather than risk seeing her reaction.
“I’d like to donate these books to the school sale.”
Naomi blinked and turned toward her, forgetting all about his previous concern.
“I thought it might be a little strange for one person to bring this many books. But I really want to do everything I can.”
“Uh, are you sure?” Naomi asked.
He wasn’t so sure about the idea, personally. This was his very first visit to this room, but these books already looked like priceless treasures to him. Even if none of them had monetary value, they were clearly precious in other ways.
These were mementos of her departed grandfather, after all. They were a part of her family’s history. They were part of her history.
“Doesn’t this collection mean a lot to you? Do you really want to get rid of them?”
As he spoke those words, Naomi found himself a bit perplexed by his own behavior. He was supposed to be collecting as many books as possible, but here he was, trying to discourage her from donating them.
He knew why, of course. Naomi was a booklover to his core, and a selfish part of him couldn’t help but feel it was wrong to give a whole collection away.
“I am a little sad to lose them, I suppose...” With a gentle smile, Ruri pulled a book off a nearby shelf. Running her hand over the top of it, she sent a small cloud of dust flying—it caught the light of a hanging lightbulb for a moment before disappearing.
“But I’ll never finish reading all these by myself.” She paused to look all around her, taking in the entire massive hoard. “I know my grandfather wouldn’t have hesitated to donate his old books. And more importantly, a book’s meant to be read, don’t you think?”
Ruri smiled again as she spoke those final words. That was enough to convince Naomi. He could tell she loved books as much as he did. That was what mattered, more than her words themselves. They had to get these hibernating books into the hands of people who would read them.
Meeting her gaze, he nodded firmly. Now that the decision was final, he was eager to get started.
“Okay, then. How the heck do we get them to school?”
Let’s carry them ourselves, Ruri had suggested.
They trudged slowly down the dirt road that ran alongside the Kamo River, pushing a big metal handcart. Their sluggish pace wasn’t a deliberate choice on their part; they’d gotten greedy and overloaded the cart. Even so, this load was less than one-tenth of the contents of that library.
They’d considered hiring a delivery service at first, but given the number of books, it would have been a very expensive job. Two high schoolers couldn’t afford that kind of thing. After some uncertainty, they’d settled on the most basic and primitive method of all: hauling them to school a bit at a time over a bunch of trips.
It was about six kilometers from Ruri’s house in Shimogamo to Nishiki High, far enough that they’d normally take a bus to get there. Walking briskly, the trip might take a little over an hour on foot... But, dragging a heavy cart along with them, it was probably going to take twice as long.