fic: Of books and tales - part 1
Title: Of books and tales
Author: prologuesized
Pairing(s): Akame
Rating: PG-13
Genre: fairytale, au, romance, fantasy
Beta by: -
Disclaimer: not mine
Summary: "I'll read you," he said to it and pouted. "But I won't be your friend. I don't need books as friends."
Author Note: I like some of the ideas I had for this... but writing a fic with a plot is so hard.. Some of my ideas didn't come out as nicely as they could've because I fail with these kinds of fics :( But it entertained me while writing so...
Of books and tales
Once upon a time there was a dusty and old bookstore for ancient and forgotten books. It was located in the very heart of the city, yet it was so small and build from dark wood that people often failed to even acknowledge it. The windows were covered with thick and dark curtains.
In the city lived a small boy. In the beginning of this story he was only eight years old, carefree and impulsive. He had friends and he was active, a smiling and handsome boy with dark curls that everyone adored, a smile that melted frozen hearts and eyes that burned with an uncontrollable flame.
The boy had everything, for no one ever managed to say no to him. He knew what strings to pull and what to do to get his way. His mother and father were rich and granted him with everything he ever could’ve wanted, he was the centre of attention at school with a large group of friends and he was talented in many things. But the boy was never happy - inside he was cocky and cold, a person who had nothing to achieve except for the control he had over others.
One day while playing hide-and-seek with his friends, he slipped in from the old wooden door to the dimmed bookshop. He hid himself between the bookcases and panted, leaning to his aching knees, pleased with the hideout he had found for himself. But as minutes passed, the impatient boy swept his curls behind his ears and crossed his arms, starting to tap with his foot to the floor impatiently. The shop was entirely silent and he sneezed from the thick and damp air, sweeping some dust from some of the books in the case, picking up one randomly and quickly flipping the pages to go through it.
It was an old and slim book with a brown leather cover and yellowed, stainless pages. There was no title and no pictures in the book. He laughed to himself as he eyed the small, handwritten text on the first page, the introduction to the book. Who the hell wrote books by hands anymore?
Each book has a heart and soul,
it’s just up for the reader to bring them to life.
Kamenashi Kazuya
He put the book back in the case and tip toed to the window, moving the curtain to peek to the streets, eyeing for his friends. Pi was dragging a pissed Ryo by his sleeve to a CD store on the other side of the street. Ha, he wasn’t caught first!
A loud thump cut the air and he quickly turned around in shock, losing his footing in the way and starting to fall but someone grasped him from the back of his shirt and pulled him up. It was a short man. For Jin he looked like a fish with his plump lips and dark eyes that didn’t seem to entirely be there. The man swept some dust from his hair silently and Jin took a few steps back, heart pounding.
The man walked to the slim, leather covered book he had earlier eyed but what had dropped to the floor and skimmed through it with a ghost of a smile on his lips. Jin remained in place, considering leaving to find a new hideout for himself to avoid the tension in the air.
“While you’re here, you might as well read,” the man said and put the book in Jin’s hands and he looked up at him in wonder, but the man just hummed quietly to himself and walked away, disappearing between the tall bookcases. Jin looked down at the book and ran his fingers on the leather, the memory of how it felt under his fingertips burning in his memory.
He put the book back in the shelf and rushed out the store, getting caught by his friends and complaining loudly how slow they were at finding him, keeping his head high and arms crossed, a playful pout on his face.
For the following six years he didn’t bother visiting the bookstore again, but he could still feel the soft leather in his fingertips.
***
When Jin was fourteen years old, his life hadn’t changed. He was as perfect as ever except for his tainted soul, the black heart pumping oil into his veins. He had had his first girlfriends, girls that were beautiful and looked up to, the perfect matches made in heaven he never believed into. It was a cold autumn evening and he was shivering as he pulled his coat better on, cursing at his cold fingers. Without a second thought once he had had enough of it, he slipped in the nearest store, the smell of dust filling his nose.
Nostalgia urged him to stay, to walk through the bookcases, running his hands on the surface of the old and damp wood. He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, deep and lost in thoughts. The place hadn’t changed at all and Jin could’ve sworn that not even one book was missing nor replaced. He slipped through the familiar passages and pulled out a thin book with a leather cover, the one with no title, and opened it, finally skimming through the entire book.
His eyes widened as he realised that most of the book seemed to be unwritten - the first several chapters were written neatly but the rest of the pages were blank. He skimmed through it just to make sure he wasn’t really mistaken and snorted quietly, realising he wasn’t surprised why the bookstore didn’t seem too popular.
Kamenashi Kazuya. He wondered if it was the author’s name.
Well, apparently he was quite pathetic if he couldn’t even finish the book he was writing. Jin sat down to the floor and flipped the pages to the beginning of the first chapter, running his fingers on the handwritten text on it.
This is the story of a boy trapped between the covers of a book that’s been long forgotten and lost as years have passed. His tired and lonely existence lingers on the pages of this book and his heart beats in the rhythm of the letters, waiting for a friend that would have the courage to break the spell cast upon him.
Jin jumped in the air as he felt someone placing a soft blanket on his shoulders and he could hear his neck crack awfully as his head snapped upwards to look at the store owner, smiling to himself as he tapped the covers of the books on the shelf.
“It’s an old book,” he said to himself with a soft tone. “It could use a friend.”
And again he walked away, holding a small book to his own chest with a warm smile on his lips. It was the smile of a wise man, someone who knew something most people would never be able to understand. Jin swallowed hard and glanced back at the book.
“I’ll read you,” he said to it and pouted. “But I won’t be your friend. I don’t need books as friends.”
His grip of the covers tightened as he started reading. Yet the book was left unfinished as he left, put back on the shelf to wait for the dust to gather again.
But as the months passed by, when Jin was having a fight with someone or he was tired of his life, he returned to pull out the book from the shelf and caress it with his hands, lying on the floor and drinking tea as he read several pages at a time, afraid it would end too soon if he gave into reading more of it at a time.
And sometimes he could swear he heard a small heartbeat as he sat there alone in the silence, but he couldn’t tell if it was the book’s or his.
***
When Jin was twenty years old, he was betrayed for the first time.
His friends had ganged up on him and called him off, fed up with his manipulation and cold personality. It was a chilly March morning when he received the first hit to his face from a fist for stealing his friend’s girlfriend and simply playing with her before leaving her, ‘ruining her life’ as the others put it. He would’ve defended himself, but he had no explanation for it. He had done it just because he had felt like it at the time.
He didn’t care about what happened to people around him, not really. He got what he wanted and if his way crossed with someone else’s that someone was meant to step down from his way and he was making sure it also happened. It was the way things had always been and would always be for him.
There was no reason to give into something as pointless as emotions. For him they were pointless, pointless and locked away in time. Feelings made people miserable. Survival came from the numbness, the overtaking nothingness.
He was feeling sick to his stomach as he walked in the bookstore and made his way to the small leather book, pulling it out of the shelf and sitting on the floor, back leaning to the shelf and its books. He sighed deep and held the book strongly in his hands, holding it against his knees as he put his forehead on it.
He was so tired. He was so sick of everything.
And all he had was the stupid book. And he was almost finished with it anyway. Even the book was about to betray him. Nowadays he didn’t dare reading more than a few lines at a time, the ending creeping closer and closer astonishingly.
“Why are you all doing this to me?” he complained to himself as he raised his head again. “Why do you have to do this to me? What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
The book didn’t answer, just lied there on his hands, the covers feeling soft and warm against his cool hands. He rubbed the front cover with his thumb, afraid to open it.
Just one more page. That was all that was left. One more page.
…Was he really getting that worked up over a mere book? It was ridiculous. Whenever he ran away from the reality he had created around him, he found himself holding the book. Through the worst times and sometimes on rare occasions even during the best ones. The book held so many memories, so many feelings. Feelings he didn’t feel like he had anywhere else.
He pressed his forehead against the book once more and sighed deep, his fingers curling around it as he felt a tremble shaking his form.
“Please don’t leave me. Don’t end just yet,” he whimpered and bit his lip. It was ridiculous, the way he expected something to miraculously happen. It was against common sense, but he couldn’t help feeling like he would’ve been sucked into some ridiculous fairy tale in the old store. But the book he held in his hands didn’t even have an ending.
He had always gotten his way. He had always gotten everything he ever wanted, but this was something out of his control and he had known it from the very beginning. He couldn’t control the book, he couldn’t make it write more to itself. He couldn’t ask it to do anything for him, be anything to him.
It was just a book. Yet at the moment, it felt like it was all he had.
He smiled sadly and leaned his head back, sighing out deeply, pressing the book to his chest.
He opened the book and looked at the page before his eyes.
Kazuya stood in the cold rain and held the book in his hands, the ink forming the letters stained by the droplets. He sighed and looked at the sky, no one seeing him as they passed him by. No one saw the way he stood still, the way raindrops served as the tears he couldn’t shed. And he wished that he could live in another time and place, sitting down to the cold and wet asphalt and closing his eyes, holding the book in his hands.
The rain in his world never stopped and the cold froze him to the core. He never opened his eyes anymore.
“If we would’ve just lived in the same time,” Jin said, listening to his own beating heart as he lied down on the floor and closed his eyes, holding the book to his chest. “Maybe we wouldn’t have had to be all alone.”
He fell asleep, hearing the rain drumming a steady rhythm to the roof and dreamed of ink-stained wet streets and a young man holding a book in his hands, looking at him and saying “me too”.
***
When Jin woke up, he was unusually warm.
A blanket had been placed on him while he had been sleeping and several books had been placed under his head to serve as pillows. He yawned and sat up, rubbing his eyes.
Something was on his lap. And it was definitely not a book.
His eyes snapped open as the fact registered in his brains and he was faced with the sight of a young man, probably around seventeen years old, sleeping with his head on his lap. The boy was beautiful and lithe, having a very different build than Jin himself. His face wasn’t as soft and flawless; it had quirky and sharp bits, shapes not considered quite attractive. He pushed the man’s head from his lap in disgust and the man’s eyes snapped open and he sat up quickly, looking at Jin in silence with widened eyes.
“What are you staring at,” Jin snapped in disgust and stood up, grabbing the book from his side with him. The other man blinked and took the book from his hands.
“Thanks,” he said dumbly and stood up by himself as well. Jin took the book back in annoyance. The man’s eyes narrowed.
“Give me back my book,” he said and took a hold of it again and tried to pull it back but Jin refused to let go, laughing at the man mockingly.
“You must be mistaken. It’s my book,” he snapped back at him. It wasn’t really true since he had never actually bought it, hell, he didn’t even know its value, but it had always felt like his own book. He doubted anyone else had ever even read it!
“I know my book!” the man shot back, the volume of his voice rising. “You must’ve mixed yours with one of these other ones!”
Jin pulled harder and the younger one lost his grasp. He raised the book as high as he could, not letting the other one get a hold of it again.
“I’m leaving,” he said and left the store with a moment’s hesitation, leaving some money on the floor before the door.
Only when he got home, he realised that the book consisted only of blank pages anymore.
***
It took Jin a year to return to the bookstore.
He stepped in, closed his eyes and breathed in the dusky scent, enjoying the silence. Only that the silence didn’t last for long this time, a young and familiar man stepping from between the bookcases.
“How can I help you?” he said and bowed politely. Jin blinked. Shop assistant..? This place didn’t even need any of those, not with the lack of customers…
“Don’t,” Jin answered simply and walked past him.
He wasn’t sure why he was in here anymore. Maybe because even though the book was gone now, the memory of it lingered in this shop, the feelings awakened by it. It and only it. It was ridiculous, but that book had become the only thing he truly cared for in the world around him as time had passed.
The young man followed him stubbornly, committed to his task.
“I can navigate my way around here quite well and tell where you can find different kinds of books or about the books we have in here in general,” he said. “This is - “
“Why is there a shop assistant in here?” Jin snapped at the young man, turning to take a better look at him. The man crossed his arms.
“I live in here. I and Ueda-san both take care of the business in here,” he answered. “Kamenashi Kazuya,” he continued, offering his hand. Jin snorted.
“Customers that don’t even exist... And wait, what?” he said and his eyes widened as he looked at the man before him. “K-Kazuya?”
“…Kamenashi…” the man muttered back, clearly taken back by the use of his first name. “And it’s a small shop but it’s still standing. Mostly we get orders from collectors or people specialized in older literature but we do get living customers every once in a while as well. It’s a small shop and people rarely think much of it but…” he said with his voice fading towards the end as he ran his hand on the dark wood of the shelves. Jin stared at him, only managing to nod awkwardly.
…Why was his heart suddenly beating so fast?
“Why do you live in this shop?” he stuttered out, trying to get a hold of himself. He was being ridiculous…
“Buy a book and I’ll answer,” Kame said. “There are many books in here in need of friends.”
Jin grabbed the closest book he could reach. “Fine!”
Kame blinked, clearly not expecting the outcome of his request. “…I wasn’t really serious about that,” he muttered, putting the book back to the shelf. “Not to mention that doesn’t seem like a book for you. Here, come…” he said starting to lead way to Jin through the shelves, reaching out to pull out a small but thick book from one of the upper shelves. “This one could be more like it.”
“Have you read it? Do you like it? And you didn’t answer my question?” Jin said as he took the book from Kame’s hands, eyes never leaving him. His eyes narrowed and shoulders tensed.
“One answer per one book. And I live in here because I have nowhere else to go and Ueda took me in,” he answered. “But I won’t let you buy new books before you’ve read that one or they’ll just pile up on you and end up forgotten at your place. So go and read it.”
Jin nodded and paid for the book. His head was spinning.
And for the first time after he had left the shop, he actually looked back.
( PART II )
Author: prologuesized
Pairing(s): Akame
Rating: PG-13
Genre: fairytale, au, romance, fantasy
Beta by: -
Disclaimer: not mine
Summary: "I'll read you," he said to it and pouted. "But I won't be your friend. I don't need books as friends."
Author Note: I like some of the ideas I had for this... but writing a fic with a plot is so hard.. Some of my ideas didn't come out as nicely as they could've because I fail with these kinds of fics :( But it entertained me while writing so...
Of books and tales
Once upon a time there was a dusty and old bookstore for ancient and forgotten books. It was located in the very heart of the city, yet it was so small and build from dark wood that people often failed to even acknowledge it. The windows were covered with thick and dark curtains.
In the city lived a small boy. In the beginning of this story he was only eight years old, carefree and impulsive. He had friends and he was active, a smiling and handsome boy with dark curls that everyone adored, a smile that melted frozen hearts and eyes that burned with an uncontrollable flame.
The boy had everything, for no one ever managed to say no to him. He knew what strings to pull and what to do to get his way. His mother and father were rich and granted him with everything he ever could’ve wanted, he was the centre of attention at school with a large group of friends and he was talented in many things. But the boy was never happy - inside he was cocky and cold, a person who had nothing to achieve except for the control he had over others.
One day while playing hide-and-seek with his friends, he slipped in from the old wooden door to the dimmed bookshop. He hid himself between the bookcases and panted, leaning to his aching knees, pleased with the hideout he had found for himself. But as minutes passed, the impatient boy swept his curls behind his ears and crossed his arms, starting to tap with his foot to the floor impatiently. The shop was entirely silent and he sneezed from the thick and damp air, sweeping some dust from some of the books in the case, picking up one randomly and quickly flipping the pages to go through it.
It was an old and slim book with a brown leather cover and yellowed, stainless pages. There was no title and no pictures in the book. He laughed to himself as he eyed the small, handwritten text on the first page, the introduction to the book. Who the hell wrote books by hands anymore?
Each book has a heart and soul,
it’s just up for the reader to bring them to life.
Kamenashi Kazuya
He put the book back in the case and tip toed to the window, moving the curtain to peek to the streets, eyeing for his friends. Pi was dragging a pissed Ryo by his sleeve to a CD store on the other side of the street. Ha, he wasn’t caught first!
A loud thump cut the air and he quickly turned around in shock, losing his footing in the way and starting to fall but someone grasped him from the back of his shirt and pulled him up. It was a short man. For Jin he looked like a fish with his plump lips and dark eyes that didn’t seem to entirely be there. The man swept some dust from his hair silently and Jin took a few steps back, heart pounding.
The man walked to the slim, leather covered book he had earlier eyed but what had dropped to the floor and skimmed through it with a ghost of a smile on his lips. Jin remained in place, considering leaving to find a new hideout for himself to avoid the tension in the air.
“While you’re here, you might as well read,” the man said and put the book in Jin’s hands and he looked up at him in wonder, but the man just hummed quietly to himself and walked away, disappearing between the tall bookcases. Jin looked down at the book and ran his fingers on the leather, the memory of how it felt under his fingertips burning in his memory.
He put the book back in the shelf and rushed out the store, getting caught by his friends and complaining loudly how slow they were at finding him, keeping his head high and arms crossed, a playful pout on his face.
For the following six years he didn’t bother visiting the bookstore again, but he could still feel the soft leather in his fingertips.
***
When Jin was fourteen years old, his life hadn’t changed. He was as perfect as ever except for his tainted soul, the black heart pumping oil into his veins. He had had his first girlfriends, girls that were beautiful and looked up to, the perfect matches made in heaven he never believed into. It was a cold autumn evening and he was shivering as he pulled his coat better on, cursing at his cold fingers. Without a second thought once he had had enough of it, he slipped in the nearest store, the smell of dust filling his nose.
Nostalgia urged him to stay, to walk through the bookcases, running his hands on the surface of the old and damp wood. He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, deep and lost in thoughts. The place hadn’t changed at all and Jin could’ve sworn that not even one book was missing nor replaced. He slipped through the familiar passages and pulled out a thin book with a leather cover, the one with no title, and opened it, finally skimming through the entire book.
His eyes widened as he realised that most of the book seemed to be unwritten - the first several chapters were written neatly but the rest of the pages were blank. He skimmed through it just to make sure he wasn’t really mistaken and snorted quietly, realising he wasn’t surprised why the bookstore didn’t seem too popular.
Kamenashi Kazuya. He wondered if it was the author’s name.
Well, apparently he was quite pathetic if he couldn’t even finish the book he was writing. Jin sat down to the floor and flipped the pages to the beginning of the first chapter, running his fingers on the handwritten text on it.
This is the story of a boy trapped between the covers of a book that’s been long forgotten and lost as years have passed. His tired and lonely existence lingers on the pages of this book and his heart beats in the rhythm of the letters, waiting for a friend that would have the courage to break the spell cast upon him.
Jin jumped in the air as he felt someone placing a soft blanket on his shoulders and he could hear his neck crack awfully as his head snapped upwards to look at the store owner, smiling to himself as he tapped the covers of the books on the shelf.
“It’s an old book,” he said to himself with a soft tone. “It could use a friend.”
And again he walked away, holding a small book to his own chest with a warm smile on his lips. It was the smile of a wise man, someone who knew something most people would never be able to understand. Jin swallowed hard and glanced back at the book.
“I’ll read you,” he said to it and pouted. “But I won’t be your friend. I don’t need books as friends.”
His grip of the covers tightened as he started reading. Yet the book was left unfinished as he left, put back on the shelf to wait for the dust to gather again.
But as the months passed by, when Jin was having a fight with someone or he was tired of his life, he returned to pull out the book from the shelf and caress it with his hands, lying on the floor and drinking tea as he read several pages at a time, afraid it would end too soon if he gave into reading more of it at a time.
And sometimes he could swear he heard a small heartbeat as he sat there alone in the silence, but he couldn’t tell if it was the book’s or his.
***
When Jin was twenty years old, he was betrayed for the first time.
His friends had ganged up on him and called him off, fed up with his manipulation and cold personality. It was a chilly March morning when he received the first hit to his face from a fist for stealing his friend’s girlfriend and simply playing with her before leaving her, ‘ruining her life’ as the others put it. He would’ve defended himself, but he had no explanation for it. He had done it just because he had felt like it at the time.
He didn’t care about what happened to people around him, not really. He got what he wanted and if his way crossed with someone else’s that someone was meant to step down from his way and he was making sure it also happened. It was the way things had always been and would always be for him.
There was no reason to give into something as pointless as emotions. For him they were pointless, pointless and locked away in time. Feelings made people miserable. Survival came from the numbness, the overtaking nothingness.
He was feeling sick to his stomach as he walked in the bookstore and made his way to the small leather book, pulling it out of the shelf and sitting on the floor, back leaning to the shelf and its books. He sighed deep and held the book strongly in his hands, holding it against his knees as he put his forehead on it.
He was so tired. He was so sick of everything.
And all he had was the stupid book. And he was almost finished with it anyway. Even the book was about to betray him. Nowadays he didn’t dare reading more than a few lines at a time, the ending creeping closer and closer astonishingly.
“Why are you all doing this to me?” he complained to himself as he raised his head again. “Why do you have to do this to me? What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
The book didn’t answer, just lied there on his hands, the covers feeling soft and warm against his cool hands. He rubbed the front cover with his thumb, afraid to open it.
Just one more page. That was all that was left. One more page.
…Was he really getting that worked up over a mere book? It was ridiculous. Whenever he ran away from the reality he had created around him, he found himself holding the book. Through the worst times and sometimes on rare occasions even during the best ones. The book held so many memories, so many feelings. Feelings he didn’t feel like he had anywhere else.
He pressed his forehead against the book once more and sighed deep, his fingers curling around it as he felt a tremble shaking his form.
“Please don’t leave me. Don’t end just yet,” he whimpered and bit his lip. It was ridiculous, the way he expected something to miraculously happen. It was against common sense, but he couldn’t help feeling like he would’ve been sucked into some ridiculous fairy tale in the old store. But the book he held in his hands didn’t even have an ending.
He had always gotten his way. He had always gotten everything he ever wanted, but this was something out of his control and he had known it from the very beginning. He couldn’t control the book, he couldn’t make it write more to itself. He couldn’t ask it to do anything for him, be anything to him.
It was just a book. Yet at the moment, it felt like it was all he had.
He smiled sadly and leaned his head back, sighing out deeply, pressing the book to his chest.
He opened the book and looked at the page before his eyes.
Kazuya stood in the cold rain and held the book in his hands, the ink forming the letters stained by the droplets. He sighed and looked at the sky, no one seeing him as they passed him by. No one saw the way he stood still, the way raindrops served as the tears he couldn’t shed. And he wished that he could live in another time and place, sitting down to the cold and wet asphalt and closing his eyes, holding the book in his hands.
The rain in his world never stopped and the cold froze him to the core. He never opened his eyes anymore.
“If we would’ve just lived in the same time,” Jin said, listening to his own beating heart as he lied down on the floor and closed his eyes, holding the book to his chest. “Maybe we wouldn’t have had to be all alone.”
He fell asleep, hearing the rain drumming a steady rhythm to the roof and dreamed of ink-stained wet streets and a young man holding a book in his hands, looking at him and saying “me too”.
***
When Jin woke up, he was unusually warm.
A blanket had been placed on him while he had been sleeping and several books had been placed under his head to serve as pillows. He yawned and sat up, rubbing his eyes.
Something was on his lap. And it was definitely not a book.
His eyes snapped open as the fact registered in his brains and he was faced with the sight of a young man, probably around seventeen years old, sleeping with his head on his lap. The boy was beautiful and lithe, having a very different build than Jin himself. His face wasn’t as soft and flawless; it had quirky and sharp bits, shapes not considered quite attractive. He pushed the man’s head from his lap in disgust and the man’s eyes snapped open and he sat up quickly, looking at Jin in silence with widened eyes.
“What are you staring at,” Jin snapped in disgust and stood up, grabbing the book from his side with him. The other man blinked and took the book from his hands.
“Thanks,” he said dumbly and stood up by himself as well. Jin took the book back in annoyance. The man’s eyes narrowed.
“Give me back my book,” he said and took a hold of it again and tried to pull it back but Jin refused to let go, laughing at the man mockingly.
“You must be mistaken. It’s my book,” he snapped back at him. It wasn’t really true since he had never actually bought it, hell, he didn’t even know its value, but it had always felt like his own book. He doubted anyone else had ever even read it!
“I know my book!” the man shot back, the volume of his voice rising. “You must’ve mixed yours with one of these other ones!”
Jin pulled harder and the younger one lost his grasp. He raised the book as high as he could, not letting the other one get a hold of it again.
“I’m leaving,” he said and left the store with a moment’s hesitation, leaving some money on the floor before the door.
Only when he got home, he realised that the book consisted only of blank pages anymore.
***
It took Jin a year to return to the bookstore.
He stepped in, closed his eyes and breathed in the dusky scent, enjoying the silence. Only that the silence didn’t last for long this time, a young and familiar man stepping from between the bookcases.
“How can I help you?” he said and bowed politely. Jin blinked. Shop assistant..? This place didn’t even need any of those, not with the lack of customers…
“Don’t,” Jin answered simply and walked past him.
He wasn’t sure why he was in here anymore. Maybe because even though the book was gone now, the memory of it lingered in this shop, the feelings awakened by it. It and only it. It was ridiculous, but that book had become the only thing he truly cared for in the world around him as time had passed.
The young man followed him stubbornly, committed to his task.
“I can navigate my way around here quite well and tell where you can find different kinds of books or about the books we have in here in general,” he said. “This is - “
“Why is there a shop assistant in here?” Jin snapped at the young man, turning to take a better look at him. The man crossed his arms.
“I live in here. I and Ueda-san both take care of the business in here,” he answered. “Kamenashi Kazuya,” he continued, offering his hand. Jin snorted.
“Customers that don’t even exist... And wait, what?” he said and his eyes widened as he looked at the man before him. “K-Kazuya?”
“…Kamenashi…” the man muttered back, clearly taken back by the use of his first name. “And it’s a small shop but it’s still standing. Mostly we get orders from collectors or people specialized in older literature but we do get living customers every once in a while as well. It’s a small shop and people rarely think much of it but…” he said with his voice fading towards the end as he ran his hand on the dark wood of the shelves. Jin stared at him, only managing to nod awkwardly.
…Why was his heart suddenly beating so fast?
“Why do you live in this shop?” he stuttered out, trying to get a hold of himself. He was being ridiculous…
“Buy a book and I’ll answer,” Kame said. “There are many books in here in need of friends.”
Jin grabbed the closest book he could reach. “Fine!”
Kame blinked, clearly not expecting the outcome of his request. “…I wasn’t really serious about that,” he muttered, putting the book back to the shelf. “Not to mention that doesn’t seem like a book for you. Here, come…” he said starting to lead way to Jin through the shelves, reaching out to pull out a small but thick book from one of the upper shelves. “This one could be more like it.”
“Have you read it? Do you like it? And you didn’t answer my question?” Jin said as he took the book from Kame’s hands, eyes never leaving him. His eyes narrowed and shoulders tensed.
“One answer per one book. And I live in here because I have nowhere else to go and Ueda took me in,” he answered. “But I won’t let you buy new books before you’ve read that one or they’ll just pile up on you and end up forgotten at your place. So go and read it.”
Jin nodded and paid for the book. His head was spinning.
And for the first time after he had left the shop, he actually looked back.
( PART II )