I was incredibly late, but naturally I had to go to school. There were remaining classes afterward and I had to go to the used bookstore with Bryan.
As soon as I got to school, I was called by a teacher and got an earful. I made a huge fuss about feeling unwell and being late, apologized, and they let it slide.
Thanks to the greeting quest, I had acquaintances here and there, so fortunately I was able to get notes for the classes I missed. The messy handwriting wasn’t very satisfying, but this was better than nothing.
I had ruined the start of the day by oversleeping from morning, but I wanted to finish the day properly. Today I would definitely go to the used bookstore and excavate treasure. I had properly brought a dust mask and gloves too. I even wore clothes that could get dirty with dust (a skull t-shirt that July wore when he was EMO).
It would be hard to find the first edition of ‘One-Eyed Jack’ #1. But if I found something decent, I could build up quite a bit of affection. Or he might be moved by seeing me work hard.
“Bryan!”
My class ended first, so I waited in front of the classroom where Bryan’s class was. As soon as Bryan made eye contact with me, he was startled a bit too excessively.
“Uh, huh?”
“We agreed to go to the used bookstore together!”
“Ah, yeah……. It’s just that when someone calls my name at school…… it almost never happens……. Most of the time…….”
Bryan muttered with his head slightly bowed. As if recalling unpleasant memories, he even painfully grimaced. That twisted attitude he had shown me was nowhere to be found; he seemed completely deflated. ……When his name was called, it was probably only when someone was bullying him. It was obvious from how he flinched, flinched whenever a big kid passed by.
Anyway, whether America or Korea, school violence is a huge problem. I grabbed Bryan’s wrist, who was standing in the middle of the doorway blocking the passage, and pulled him.
“Let’s go.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s go to the used bookstore together.”
When I grinned, Bryan’s eyes widened slightly, then lowered.
NEW!
‘Bryan Roberts” affection has increased by 1!
Ah! His affection went up! Feeling good, an even deeper smile spread across my face. But thud! Someone roughly pushed my shoulder as if my whole body would be shoved away.
“Ah!”
Startled, I turned my head and saw Joel standing with a vicious expression. Joel tilted his head crookedly, and with his hands in his pockets, looked back and forth between me and Bryan, and my hand grabbing Bryan’s wrist. At the same time, his lips twisted strangely.
“……I thought you were just fucking into faces, but turns out your taste is just fucking weird?”
Leaving behind incomprehensible words, Joel turned around abruptly and walked away with loud footsteps—stomp, stomp, stomp! Looking at that direction dazedly, I carefully asked Bryan.
“Did you take a class with that bastard?”
“That bastard…… Ah, Joel Gomez? Yeah.”
“……Don’t get close to him. Never.”
I looked into Bryan’s eyes and said firmly. You must never get close to Joel Gomez. Stay away, forever. Don’t do something like killing Joel. Don’t kill Joel.
Bryan, thinking it was advice for his own sake, nodded with a somewhat stiff face.
“You promise? From now on, if you see Joel Gomez, run away immediately. Never get close.”
“Huh? Yeah…….”
Only after getting Bryan to promise twice did I let go of his wrist. I must have been gripping too tightly during that time, because on Bryan’s pale white wrist, red finger marks had formed.
* * *
“Where are we going today?”
“Bluedale Old Books.”
“Very intuitive naming.”
Since Bryan didn’t have a car either, we rode bicycles together. It was the used bookstore we had saved for last, said to be the biggest and oldest in Bluedale. Since it was a place with active used book trading, we might be able to find good books, or it might be difficult to find them.
“We might not be able to see it all in one day. It’s supposed to be huge.”
Bryan said while looking up the location on his smartphone map app. Those two small used bookstores were hard enough to search through, and this place is so big we can’t see it all in one day? I was a bit scared.
Following Bryan’s lead on my bicycle,
“Wow…….”
A really huge bookstore stood in a remote location. I didn’t even know such a place existed in this neighborhood. A used bookstore this big. The fact that I had to search through all of this was frightening, yet as someone who loves books, I couldn’t help my heart beating by nature.
Thump, thump, thump. Clutching my chest that pounded like a drum, I swallowed and rummaged through my bag. I put on both the dust mask and thick gloves I had prepared for today.
Yesterday I had a hard time washing off the dust stuck everywhere and coughing—cough, cough. Worried I might be suffering from pneumoconiosis, I even made a fuss searching for things like “pneumoconiosis symptoms.”
“Come on, let’s go in.”
When I nodded resolutely with my mask on, Bryan looked at me with a slightly dumbfounded gaze. What! You searched through a bookstore alone with a mask and gloves, so you don’t know my suffering! You don’t know! Of course, I think bringing a mask used at construction sites is a bit much……! But excessive is better!
When I quietly gestured, Bryan pushed open the used bookstore door. Creeeak—a slightly rusty heavy door opened, revealing a glimpse of the dimly lit interior. They must have covered all the windows darkly since sunlight ruins books. For some reason overwhelmed by that large scale and dark interior, I entered tensely and carefully.
“Hello.”
Like a Korean from the Eastern land of courtesy, I greeted the employee sitting behind the counter. The employee was sitting crookedly in a chair with his considerably large build hunched over, reading a book. The book he was reading was ‘Blackout’ by SF writer Connie Willis.
Despite it being quite a thick book, the employee used his large hands to hold the book with just one hand. The employee didn’t show his face covered by the book, even though a customer had arrived. When I greeted him, he just shook the book once.
As someone born in Korea, a service powerhouse, I couldn’t understand this unfriendly attitude, but what did it matter? He didn’t curse at me and he did acknowledge my greeting, didn’t he? And my business wasn’t with the employee anyway.
“You search from over there. I’ll search from here.”
Not wanting to disturb the employee reading, I whispered to Bryan in a small voice. Bryan nodded and walked in the direction I pointed.
I properly adjusted my gloves, then started searching systematically from the outer side of the bookshelf. Novels, humanities books, philosophy books, etc. were irregularly mixed together. I couldn’t expect it to be well-organized like a library with call numbers. That meant I had to search through all of this.
“Not this one. This one…… oh.”
Even though I wasn’t short, the bookshelf was quite high, so I pulled over a nearby movable ladder and searched from the very top. And how long had I been searching when I discovered a quite interesting-looking book and ended up sitting down and starting to read it. And only when I passed 30 pages did I finally come to my senses.
It was a strange book whose pages turned smoothly, so I almost forgot to do my work and just read. Really regretfully, I put the book back in its place and started looking for ‘One-Eyed Jack’ again.
There were several comic books mixed in, but they weren’t ‘One-Eyed Jack.’ Still, just in case Bryan might like them, I gathered them to the side and searched the bookshelf again. And for some reason, deep in the bookshelf, I discovered a book with a familiar grip and grabbed it as if possessed.
“……Sat-chan.”
I see you here too, Sat-chan……. Your big breasts are still the same. This time it was volume 3. I had no idea what kind of sense of mission an otaku living in this neighborhood had to split and sell this book to exactly three used bookstores. Sat-chan on the cover of volume 3 was in a pose that put relatively less strain on her back compared to volumes 1 and 2.
I definitely thought I had expelled her from my heart along with my boiling anti-Japanese spirit, but perhaps I had grown attached in the meantime, as I stroked Sat-chan’s welcome face.
“You’ve been through a lot too…….”
What hardship is an adult manga protagonist in Japanese going through in this American used bookstore? Is she waiting for one of the few readers who can speak Japanese?
Thinking about her rolling around in this dust pit made me feel sorry and want to buy it, but if I brought this home…… Mom, Dad, and hyung would be shocked. I didn’t get in trouble for being gay, but I might get in trouble for this.
Since it came to this, wanting to at least know Sat-chan’s name properly, I opened the book. Sat-chan’s name was ‘Yamashiro Sachi.’ And…….
“Love Love!! ♥I Want to Do H Things with Busty Sat-chan!!♥?”
“…….”
For some reason, I heard a familiar voice. Anxiety crept in. Slowly shifting my gaze, I saw someone tilting their head crookedly. Standing with their back to the light, they looked just like a shadow, but it was a familiar silhouette. I had already seen it several times. People with such a big build weren’t common. Right, they’re really not common, so why didn’t I notice?
“For a gay guy, you had that kind of taste?”
“……Why are you here?”
“While you were excavating that perverted manga, I was making money, why.”
The unfriendly bookstore employee was none other than Joel Gomez. No wonder he had such fucking shitty manners…….
“Pervert bastard.”
Joel, who had somehow snatched the book I was holding, flipped through the pages. Just looking at his frowning expression, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. And Joel, who stopped at a certain page, looked back and forth between me and the book with that vicious face, then twisted his lips.
“For a fucking guy……. You like this kind of thing?”
“Ack, Sat-chan!”
As soon as I saw the round large breasts and spread legs, I quickly covered my eyes. Even if it’s only two days, I couldn’t disgrace our friendship that transcended borders and dimensions. But not knowing my feelings, Joel grabbed me by the collar, pulled me, and shoved the book in front of my eyes.
