Students from all three years trickled into the special classroom where the meeting would be held, wandering around to find their seats. On a whiteboard near the far wall, someone had written “Welcome to the Library Committee!” in dry-erase marker.
Naomi had already taken his seat. Naturally, he was using this opportunity to read his book.
“When you’re uncertain, trust your instincts!”
They sure made it sound simple.
Furrowing his brow, Naomi let out a quiet sigh. So far, this stuff was easier said than done.
Why do I have to be like this?
He’d made it into a good high school and earned himself a fresh start. He’d bought a self-help book. This was the perfect chance to overcome his weaknesses.
And yet, he couldn’t even manage to buy the lunch he wanted. He couldn’t even ask for his own chair back. Now, he’d been shoved onto this committee by his classmates. He thought he might enjoy the job itself, but he just knew that every single time he came here, he’d remember that he hadn’t decided to join this committee.
He hadn’t said, “I’d rather do something else, actually,” at homeroom just now. And that fact was going to haunt him for a solid year.
Maybe it wasn’t so easy for people to change.
“Wonder what class that girl’s from…”
As he stared down resentfully at his book, Naomi overheard the guys next to him whispering to each other. Following their gaze, he spotted a girl with big, round eyes. Her bangs formed a neat line across her forehead, and she had a ribbon in her hair—on one side, but not the other. It was a distinctive hairstyle, but it looked completely natural on her.
“She’s like an idol, man,” mumbled one of the boys a few seats over. Naomi silently agreed. The girl was petite and slender, and her smile was adorable. Judging from where she sat, she was probably a first year, just like him. But it looked like she was already on friendly terms with everyone sitting around her.
After watching her for a few moments, Naomi realized he was staring and looked away hurriedly. It wasn’t like he’d done anything bad, but he somehow still managed to feel guilty.
The library committee chairman gave them a quick overview of their main responsibilities and yearly events, then wrapped things up early. The work itself did sound kind of fun, just as Naomi had expected. He’d always wanted to try sitting behind the lending desk at a library.
There was a chorus of scraping sounds as everyone rose from their chairs.
Naomi found himself glancing over at the girl he’d spotted earlier. He knew her name now, since they’d all introduced themselves. Kadenokouji Misuzu was a pretty striking name, but she was a pretty striking person, so it felt right.
A small group was already forming around Misuzu. Some were first-year boys; others were older guys. They all had their cell phones out. They were probably asking for her contact info.
“Oh, right. One last thing, guys!” Everyone turned around—the third-year committee chairman was holding his cell phone up in the air. “We’re gonna make a WiZ group for updates and stuff. Come on over here so I can add you.”
Hurriedly taking out his own phone, Naomi started up the WiZ app. Fortunately, he already had it installed.
WiZ was the most popular chat app of the moment, and most people who owned a smartphone used it regularly. You could easily form big groups and send out notifications to everyone at once, so it was convenient for this sort of thing.
The members of the committee swarmed around the chairman. Once you had the app open on the Contact Exchange screen, you could easily add anyone nearby to your friends list, or join any open groups.
They’d already set up a group called Nishiki High Library Committee, and Naomi joined it easily enough. He breathed a small sigh of relief—the idea of messing this up somehow had given him some serious pangs of anxiety.
“If anybody couldn’t join the group just now, just have someone else pass the messages to you, okay? That’s it for today!”
With those words from the chairman, the committee members headed for the exit. It got congested right away. Figuring he might as well wait for them to clear out, Naomi looked down at his phone and checked out his new WiZ group once again.
Spotting the name Kadenokouji Misuzu on the list of members, he found himself smiling a little. Of course, he didn’t have the nerve to send her a direct message. He could never contact her directly. Still, he felt lucky just to have the name of a girl that cute in his phone.
“Hm...?”
At that point, Naomi noticed something—or the lack of something, rather. Looking up from his screen, he glanced around the room. Most of the committee members had left by now, but there was one other first-year who also seemed to be waiting for the congestion to clear up.
It was a girl from his class. He knew her name already, and he’d just noticed it wasn’t listed in the WiZ group.
The girl in question closed her bag like she was ready to head home. She straightened up and began striding for the door. She was about to leave.
But…
“If anybody couldn’t join the group just now, just have someone else pass on the messages to you, okay?”
This might be a problem, right?
“Ich…” Naomi’s voice came out softer than he expected it to—nerves, probably. “Ichigyou-san.”
Ichigyou Ruri stopped in her tracks and looked over at him. She didn’t smile or reply. Naomi forced a smile onto his face, but he had the feeling it looked kind of awkward. He needed to get straight to the point.
“Um, you…you didn’t manage to join the WiZ group, right? Maybe we should…add each other, or something…” The words came out slowly, in bits and pieces.
Despite being in the same class and on the same committee, this was the first time Naomi had ever spoken to Ruri. The two of them hadn’t even walked here together from their classroom.
He’d managed to say what he needed to say, though. Now they could just add each other on the app and be on their way.
Ichigyou Ruri frowned slightly. A cold shiver ran down Naomi’s spine. Had he screwed this up already? They’d be on the same committee for at least a year. Hopefully he hadn’t somehow insulted her without meaning to.
Too nervous to say anything else, he waited anxiously for her reply.
Still frowning, she took a phone out of her bag and started tapping at its screen, using a bit more force than was strictly necessary. After a few hard taps, she paused to run her eyes back and forth across the screen for a while. It was hard to tell what exactly she was doing.
“Um, do you have WiZ installed?” Naomi finally asked.
There was no reply. Still silent, Ruri started hammering the power button on the side of her phone. The look on her face only got more intense. Naomi was tempted to run for the hills. She looked like she might start yelling at any moment.
“Nngh.”
Naomi couldn’t make sense of the sound at first, but he realized Ruri had let out a grunt of frustration. Pushing the phone back into her bag, she took out a paper and pen and quickly jotted something down. Then she held out the paper in Naomi’s direction.
“If there’s anything I need to know, contact me here.”
Uncertainly, Naomi accepted the piece of paper. Before he could look at it, Ruri had turned around and stalked out of the room.
Naomi looked down at the note she’d handed him. It wasn’t a WiZ username, or even a phone number for her house. It was her home address.
7.
THROUGH THE LARGE WINDOWS of the library, Naomi could hear the faint sounds of children playing outside. It was a pleasant background soundtrack for his reading.
The Kyoto City Library South Branch was located on Takeda-kaido Road, just a little south of Kyoto Station. The building was old, and it also housed a youth activity center, so the library itself wasn’t especially spacious. Its collection was smaller than those of the other branches, and it only had sixteen seats in the reading area. But it was a cozy little place, and that was why Naomi loved it.
He flipped to the next page. There weren’t many of them left; he was drawing close to the end of this story.
Today, he was working on a book by Jean M. Auel, an American author—one of the novels in her epic Earth’s Children series, which is set thirty-five thousand years in the past. Its heroine is a Cro-Magnon girl named Ayla who was raised by a tribe of Neanderthals and eventually sets off on a long journey to find others of her own kind. There were six novels in all, and because of length, they’d been split into sixteen volumes when translated to Japanese. Naomi was about to finish off the very first one.
After reading the final sentence, he quietly closed the library book.
The children were still squealing outside. The world hadn’t changed at all in the time he’d spent immersed in his book. But he could feel the story he’d just read slowly permeating through him from tip to toe. He loved moments like this.