Pronouncing ‘kiss’ particularly clearly and distinctly made my eardrums tingle. And after finishing speaking, he pulled his body back slightly and smiled subtly, and damn it, he was too handsome.
“Anyway, let’s hang out together again later.”
“If you’re not planning to abandon me again at a party where you don’t know anyone, I’ll consider it.”
When I spoke in a nonchalant tone with some bite to my words, Dave laughed lightly with a “Haha.”
“Sorry about that too. But I didn’t abandon you on purpose. Like I said then, I looked for you too. The place was just too big.”
Dave shrugged his shoulders, then put his arm around a nearby football team teammate who was walking by. Then he moved away while chatting with loud “Wahaha!” laughter.
I let out a sigh while standing limply with my shoulders drooped in the crowded hallway.
Why are the guys with favorability high enough to easily complete quests those bastards? Perhaps this quest chose people I have grudges with. Of course, favorability is literally the degree of favorability, so that hypothesis didn’t make much sense. It was absolutely incomprehensible why those bastards had such high favorability toward me.
* * *
Regardless of the quest, there was someone else whose favorability I needed to raise first.
“Hi, Bryan.”
“……Hi.”
It was Bryan Roberts. I needed to raise this kid’s favorability as much as possible. That way he won’t think about committing something like a shooting terror attack.
“Want to go somewhere after school today? You said you had time yesterday.”
I asked triumphantly while sitting in the seat next to Bryan. I studied 『One-Eyed Jack』 perfectly by gathering all the books in the bookstore and all the information on the internet yesterday! I’m confident I can continue the conversation no matter what topic comes up!
But I must have been too confident. Bryan, as if burdened, pulled his body back slightly and rolled his eyes.
“After school today? Hmm…….”
“Why? Do you have something going on?”
“Well, I was thinking of going to used bookstores.”
“Used bookstores?”
“Yeah. I saw a post on a community about someone discovering and purchasing a first edition of One-Eyed Jack issue 12 from 1943 at a used bookstore……. I was thinking of searching around this neighborhood too. Even in the neighborhood I lived in before, I got some pretty good books at used bookstores.”
Bryan looked around embarrassed, then leaned forward toward me and whispered. In short, he meant he’d go around putting in legwork since he might find treasure at used bookstores.
“Ah, then should we go together?”
“With you?”
“Yeah! It’s better to search with two people than alone.”
I nodded while trying my best to look reliable.
I like books, but I wasn’t too keen on going around dusty used bookstores. I’d never wanted anything that badly either. But what couldn’t I do to save this world and me? Going around used bookstores was an easy thing.
“Then, then…… I hope we can find a first edition of One-Eyed Jack issue 1 from 1939…….”
NEW!
‘Bryan Roberts’s’ favorability has increased by 5!
Bryan said shyly while blushing his cheeks. Looking at things like this, even with peculiar and twisted aspects, he just seemed like an ordinary boy, so I don’t know what thoughts led him to commit such an act in the original drama.
But how would I know a terrorist’s thoughts? What I needed to do was raise Bryan Roberts’s favorability as much as possible for now.
* * *
There were a total of three used bookstores in Bluedale, two of which were somewhat small in scale, and one was quite large. Bryan and I decided to start by stopping at the two smaller ones first and searching through them. The used bookstore, with books packed full in a narrow space, reeked of dust.
“Cough, cough!”
It was enough to make me burst out coughing. While I was coughing with my palm covering my mouth, Bryan, who was standing next to me, rummaged in his bag and took something out, then started putting it on by hanging it on his ears. It was a mask.
“…….”
“…….”
I stared silently, meaning did you only bring one, don’t you have one for me? Bryan only slightly frowned his eyebrows with a look that said why are you looking like that? Anyway, both this guy and that guy are all selfish and only know themselves. I was wrong to expect anything.
“Let’s start searching now.”
Bryan, who only took out his own pair of gloves from his bag and put them on, said heroically, and I nodded. And as I rolled around in the dust pit, I quickly realized that it would be hard to find even a proper book here, let alone treasure.
The bookstore owner sitting at the register dozing off didn’t seem particularly motivated in business, and even books that looked fine on the outside had torn pages or graffiti when opened.
The comic book I managed to find was an adult manga that came from Japan, rated 19+. I opened it and was shocked, gasping “Huk!” and dropped it, but Bryan, who had been carefully examining the pages, glanced at me and picked up that book. And I noticed him switching the cover of that book with another book’s cover, and I was debating whether to tell the owner honestly but kept my mouth firmly shut.
I’m sorry, bookstore owner. But stopping a shooting terror attack is a more urgent matter! I need to build that bastard’s favorability! And because I pretended not to see him discovering the 19+ adult manga I dropped and switching book covers, his favorability quickly rose.
NEW!
‘Bryan Roberts’s’ favorability has increased by 10!
……It went up by 10. That adult manga must have been quite to his taste. I worked harder to excavate adult manga to raise favorability more. And I found a twin-tailed girl with incredibly large breasts and eyes and smiled brightly, then made eye contact with Bryan.
“…….”
“…….”
“……Can you read Japanese?”
“No…….”
Bryan shook his head at my question. I’m glad I’m the only one who can read the Japanese title 『Love Love!! ♥I Want to Do H Things with Busty Sat-chan!!♥』. I felt a strange sense of self-loathing that I ended up using the Japanese I chose as a second language in middle school like this.
Bryan quickly turned his head away as if ‘Busty Sat-chan’ wasn’t his taste at all. I inserted the book deep in the bookshelf where no one would be able to discover Sat-chan for several years. I hope you’re reborn as a character in a Japanese textbook in your next life. Sat-chan, ganbatte.
* * *
We diligently searched through the used bookstore but couldn’t find a book as impactful as Sat-chan. I only inhaled an incredible amount of dust. While coughing “cough cough,” I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand that was relatively less dusty and asked Bryan.
“Did you find anything good?”
“No…….”
Bryan only shook his head after purchasing a Japanese adult manga with Virginia Woolf’s 『A Room of One’s Own』 cover on it. Of all things, even when putting on a cover, it’s Virginia Woolf’s book……. As expected, he was a bastard with no conscience at all. Befitting a future terrorist.
Because I kept making eye contact with Virginia Woolf on the back of the cover, I clutched my heart and turned my head with difficulty. I’m sorry. Please forgive me since it’s to save people……. Ugh, conscience, ugh…….
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. My chest just aches…….”
I smiled with effort and shook my head. Bryan, without taking off his gloves and mask, shouted grandly.
“Then let’s go to the next place.”
“……Okay.”
I thought we’d go to the other store tomorrow……. Since you’re wearing a mask alone, you don’t know the hardship of inhaling dust into my bronchial tubes. You don’t know the suffering of dust getting under my nails either……. But what can I do? I have to follow. I shuffled my feet to the other used bookstore.
I coughed “cough cough!” continuously while searching for books. I couldn’t see who it was because of the tall bookshelf packed full of books, but I kept hearing someone shouting “Bless you!” It was directed at me. It originated from the old days when there was the Black Death, and when someone coughed, people would say this meaning they hoped the person would survive by receiving God’s blessing, and it continues to this day.
“Cough, cough!”
“Bless you!”
“Cough, cough!”
“Bless you!”
But hearing it repeatedly made it sound like telling me to stop coughing so much. While holding back sneezing as much as possible and searching through the bookshelf with my mouth tightly shut, I discovered a familiar face.
“……Sat-chan?”
I see you here too, Sat-chan……. The one I found this time was volume 2, so she was striking a different pose from volume 1. The emphasis on her breasts was still the same. I couldn’t help but recognize those breasts, so characteristic in ignoring the great universal law of gravity all by themselves.
As someone who likes men, I couldn’t understand the appeal of these giant breasts that looked back-breaking. I could only hope she wouldn’t suffer from a herniated disc. Did she come to achieve the American Dream or something? How did she end up all the way in this distant foreign country suffering at this used bookstore? Is it too much to feel camaraderie as a fellow Asian? I might have gone crazy being in this dust pit. No, I think I actually have gone crazy.
“Sat-chan, help me out a bit……. Do you know a comic called One-Eyed Jack by any chance? Where would that be, huh?”
Unlike her bright smiling expression, Sat-chan was too taciturn and chic. She didn’t give any answer.
“Sat-chan……. That’s too much. Fellow Asians should help each other and live.”
Sat-chan still wasn’t cooperative. Were the historical problems and emotional rift between Korea and Japan also at work between us? One thing was certain—it was definitely at work immensely in my heart right now.
