Fumiko Yamaguchi did not invite Tooshiro Senda to Jimbocho because she wanted to spend a Saturday afternoon with him.
That would have been too simple, too direct, and far too honest for a woman who had spent most of her adult life turning feelings into manageable tasks.
She invited him because Shin Kaidou needed a website.
That was the official reason.
A mysterious independent fantasy author needed a proper profile, better reference material, a clear sense of the market, and perhaps a short list of comparable titles. Jimbocho had bookstores. Bookstores had fantasy sections. Fantasy sections had covers, blurbs, pricing, author notes, and all the things an author who had nearly chosen red text on a black background clearly needed help understanding before he damaged his own future.
It was practical research. So practical that Fumiko had written it in her notebook at 7:10 on Thursday morning before work.
Jimbocho research outing, for Shin Kaidou website.
Then she had stared at it for twelve seconds and added, in smaller letters:
Not a date.
She tore that page out. Then she rewrote the first line on a new page and did not add the second one. By Friday night, she had already checked train routes twice. From her place, she could take the Chuo Line and transfer to the Sobu Line, or use the Marunouchi Line and change near Ochanomizu depending on timing. None of that mattered because she knew how to get to Jimbocho. Everyone who liked books in Tokyo eventually found their way there.
Still, she checked again. This is research. People check routes for research. Responsible adult people.
Her phone sat on the dining table beside a bowl of curry leftovers and her notebook. The curry had improved overnight, which was one of the few reliable laws of the universe. The notebook, unfortunately, had not. It still contained too many questions about Shin Kaidou, too many notes about Selena, and one page near the back where she had accidentally written Senda-san understands the story like someone who has lived inside it. She had crossed that out so hard the pen nearly tore through the paper.
Her phone buzzed.
Senda Tooshiro: Shin Kaidou has survived the website intervention. Barely.
Fumiko smiled before she could stop herself.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Barely is better than the original black and red concept.
Senda Tooshiro: He says his artistic vision has been bullied.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: His artistic vision was unreadable.
Senda Tooshiro: Strong words.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Accurate words.
She paused, then typed the message she had revised in her head six times and still somehow made it sound like office correspondence.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: If he wants a better sense of how fantasy novels present themselves, Jimbocho might help. There are several stores with used fantasy, older editions, and imported books. I was thinking of going tomorrow.
The typing bubble appeared, then stopped. Appeared again, but stopped once more. Fumiko put her phone face down. Then immediately turned it back over.
Senda Tooshiro: That sounds useful.
She waited, but nothing else came as she stared at the screen. Useful… He said useful? What a ridiculous man. I gave him a path wide enough for that delivery van of his. Then another message appeared.
Senda Tooshiro: Should I come too? For research. Since I’m the author liaison.
Fumiko’s shoulders loosened.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: If you’re free.
Senda Tooshiro: I am free after 1. Got the morning shift today.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Then 2 at Jimbocho Station? Exit A7 is near several bookstores.
Senda Tooshiro: Got it. Should I bring anything?
She looked at her notebook.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Comfortable shoes.
Senda Tooshiro: That sounds ominous.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: It is.
Tooshiro arrived at Jimbocho Station at 1:47 that Saturday afternoon. He stood near Exit A7 with his hands in the pockets of his light jacket, pretending he had not come early, though there was nobody nearby who cared enough to accuse him.
Tooshiro had changed three times. The first outfit looked like he had tried, while the second looked like he had tried not to try, which was worse, and the third was safe: black T-shirt, gray overshirt, dark jeans, sneakers, and a shoulder bag with a notebook inside.
He had almost brought the pudding. That thought had lasted two seconds before he imagined himself standing in a book district handing Fumiko a convenience store pudding from his bag like a weird attempt at courtship through food, and decided he still wanted a future. So, the pudding remained in his fridge, alive and symbolic.
Jimbocho in the daylight felt different from Nakano and different from Shinjuku. Nakano had the comfort of being unfinished. Shinjuku had the pressure of being watched. Jimbocho felt like a neighborhood built by people who thought time should be stacked on shelves. Bookstores lined the streets, some narrow and old, some clean and modern, with outdoor carts full of discounted paperbacks and faded spines. Posters sat in windows. Handwritten signs advertised rare finds. The air smelled faintly of paper, dust, coffee, and street traffic. Tooshiro liked it immediately.
At 1:58, Fumiko appeared from the station stairs. She wore a soft beige jacket over a pale blouse, dark wide-leg pants, and comfortable flats that suggested she had meant the warning about shoes. Her tote bag hung from one shoulder, and her hair was partly clipped back, which made her look more relaxed than her office self, but more deliberate than the supermarket version. She carried herself carefully, but when she saw him, her face brightened before she folded the expression into something smaller.
But it was too late. Tooshiro saw it. His chest did the thing again. Control yourself. She smiled. People smile. Society would collapse if every smile became a crisis.
“Senda-san,” she greeted with a nod.
“Yamaguchi-san. You made it.”
“I invited you.”
“Right. That does increase the odds.”
She looked at him for a moment, then her eyes dropped briefly to his shoes, “Good choice.”
“My shoes?”
“You listened.”
“I feared the ominous warning.”
“As you should.”
They started walking along the street, and for a minute, neither of them quite knew how to begin. It was not like the café, where the table had given them a frame. It was not like the supermarket, where karaage had forced their hands. Here, they were just two people walking through Jimbocho on a Saturday afternoon, surrounded by bookshops and other pairs of people who had either called this a date or had the courage not to call it anything at all.
Fumiko saved them with a notebook, “I made a list,” she stated.
“Of course you did.”
She looked at him, “That sounded affectionate and insulting.”
“It was… balanced.”
She pulled the notebook from her tote and opened it to a page with neat handwriting and three small tabs, “I thought we could look at a few types of books. Recent fantasy releases, older editions, independent or small-press books, and maybe some translated works. Shin Kaidou’s site should not look like everyone else’s, but it also should not frighten readers.”
“The red text was one time.”
“It was almost a crime scene of words.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
“Please do.”
They entered the first bookstore, a narrow shop with shelves packed so tightly that turning around felt impossible. The owner sat behind a small counter reading a newspaper, barely looking up as they came in. The smell of old paper filled the air. Fumiko went quiet at once, but not in her office way. This silence was different. Reverent, almost. Her fingers hovered near the spines without touching them at first, as if she needed to earn the right.
Tooshiro watched her and she noticed.
“What?” she whispered.
“Nothing. You just… look happy.”
Her hand stopped near a row of fantasy paperbacks, “Well, it is a bookstore.”
“Right.”
“People are happy in bookstores.”
“I wouldn’t say all people.”
“Those people are wrong.”
He smiled, “Yeah.”
She turned back to the shelf, and after a moment, he followed. They moved slowly through the aisle, reading titles, pulling out books, and comparing covers. Fumiko had strong opinions about fonts. Tooshiro learned this quickly and with some fear.
“No,” she said, holding one book up.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“The title is hiding from the reader.”
“It’s atmospheric.”
“It’s gray on darker gray.”
“So moody?”
“No. Invisible,” she noted as she slid it back and pulled out another, “This one is better. The art gives tone without explaining the entire plot, and the subtitle doesn’t sound like a government document.”
Tooshiro leaned closer, “A government document?”
“Some fantasy subtitles are crimes. The Blade of Eternal Dawn, Volume One of the Seraphic Bloodline Testament.”
“That sounds fake.”
“It is not fake enough.”
He laughed quietly, and the owner glanced over the newspaper. Fumiko lowered her voice, but she was smiling now.
In the second shop, they found a shelf of older translated fantasy novels, some with worn covers and yellowing pages. Fumiko picked up one with careful hands, “Oh, I read this in high school!”
“Was it good?”
“I thought it was life-changing at sixteen.”
“And now?”
“Still good, but in a different way. At sixteen, I thought the heroine was brave because she left home. Now I think she was brave because she came back and apologized.”
Tooshiro looked at her thoughtfully, trying to understand.
She turned the book over, reading the back cover though she clearly remembered it, “When I was younger, I liked stories where people escaped. I still do. But lately I think I care more about what they do after. Where they sleep. Who they trust. Whether they can eat dinner without flinching after the adventure. A such thing as ‘happy ever after’ and all that.”
“That sounds like what you said about The Kingslayer King.”
“It’s one of the reasons I liked it.”
He felt the praise, but it left quickly. Maybe because she had said it enough now that some part of him was finally beginning to believe she meant it.
“Johanus,” she continued, “trying to farm after being a weapon. Quintin trying to become something after the world breaks open. Selena not knowing if closeness is safety or danger. Those parts stayed with me.”
Tooshiro looked down at the old book in her hands.
She says it like it matters. Not the plot. Not the twist. The after. I don't think authors think that way much. More about the journey.
He wanted to tell her that the whole story had started with that exact feeling. Not with kings or gods, though those had come early, but rather, it had started with a man standing in a field after everything had ended, unable to understand why peace felt like punishment. He wanted to tell her that Johanus had become the center of the story before Tooshiro knew what the story was. He wanted to tell her that Selena scared him to write because every lie she told had to be protecting something real.
Instead, he said, “My friend would probably be happy you noticed that.”
Fumiko looked up. There was no suspicion in her face this time. A look that felt worse to Tooshiro now that he is familiar with Fumiko, trust.
“Then tell him,” she said, pointing at Tooshiro in jest as he nodded.
By the third shop, they had fallen into a rhythm. Fumiko would find a book and explain why the cover worked or failed. Tooshiro would argue some strange point on behalf of dramatic authors everywhere. She would correct him. He would accept defeat with varying degrees of dignity.
They stood in front of a shelf of light novels for longer than planned, partly because Fumiko had opinions there too.
“Some titles are too long,” she said.
Tooshiro slowly turned his head. She looked back at him, but he said nothing.
She narrowed her eyes, “What?”
“My Biggest Fan Thinks I’m Just the Delivery Guy is not short.”
“That is different.”
“How?”
“It has an immediate hook.”
“It is practically a sentence.”
“A good sentence.”
“A sentence with a job.”
“Exactly.”
“Then long titles are fine?”
“Not all. Some are trying to be the entire back cover, the synopsis, and the first therapy session at once.”
He nodded, "It's just the modern standard since some people can't make it to the blurb or the first page anymore. It is wild to think about sometimes.”
“I can see that actually. Guess there is a logistics side to all too. And I myself, never claimed to be easy to please.”
“I noticed.”
She looked at him as he realized how that sounded just one second too late.
“I mean with books,” he said quickly.
“With books.”
“Yes.”
“Good recovery.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
They both laughed, and a woman browsing nearby glanced at them with the faint smile of someone recognizing a scene from the outside. Fumiko noticed and immediately became interested in the bottom shelf. Tooshiro pretended to read a title upside down.
Around four, they left the shops and found an old kissaten on a side street, the kind of place with dark wood tables, brass lamps, and a bell over the door that sounded like it had been ringing since the Showa era. The air smelled like strong coffee and toast. A jazz record played softly under the murmur of customers. The menu was laminated, slightly worn at the corners, and full of items that looked unchanged for decades.
They sat at a small table by the wall. Fumiko ordered hot coffee and pudding. Tooshiro ordered iced coffee, then added toast after seeing a plate pass by.
Fumiko looked at him, “You trust the toast here?”
“Yeah, I trust old cafés with toast. It feels like their ancient pact.”
“With… bread?”
“With society.”
“That sounds like something Shin Kaidou would write if he were hungry.”
Tooshiro nearly choked on nothing.
She tilted her head, “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“You reacted strangely.”
“I imagined him writing about toast.”
“You know him well enough to imagine that?”
“Close-ish.”
She gave him the same questioning look she had given him in the hallway weeks ago.
The pudding arrived first, which felt targeted. It was firm and glossy, with a dark caramel sauce pooling at the bottom of the glass dish. A small spoon rested beside it. Fumiko looked at the spoon, then at him. Tooshiro looked at the spoon too, but neither spoke.
Instead, Fumiko pushed the dish slightly toward the center of the table.
“For continuity,” she said.
His face warmed, “Continuity matters a lot.”
“It does.”
“I thought technically mattered a lot.”
“Both can matter.”
He took one bite. The pudding was dense, eggy, and bitter-sweet from the caramel. Much better than convenience store pudding, though he would never say that in front of the one waiting in his fridge. Loyalty had layers.
Fumiko took the next bite and closed her eyes for half a second. He looked away fast, because that felt like something he should not stare at.
It is just pudding! Again. Pudding is somehow ruining my life.
Their coffee arrived. His toast followed, thick-cut, buttered, and sliced into rectangles. He offered some to her. She accepted one piece with no resistance, which he counted as progress. For a while, they talked about books again. Then the conversation wandered.
Fumiko told him she used to come to Jimbocho alone when work became too much. She would tell herself she was only browsing, then buy three books and carry them home like contraband. In her first year at Sakura Capital, she once spent two hours in a used bookstore after making a mistake in a report, not even reading anything, just standing between shelves until she felt like a person again.
“I thought if I went home right away, I would only replay the mistake,” she reminisced, “So I came here and looked at spines until my brain became bored with punishing me.”
“And that really works?”
“Sometimes. Not always.”
“What happened with the report?”
“I fixed it the next morning. Nobody died.”
“Good.”
“I cried in the bathroom first.”
The confession was so plain that Tooshiro did not know how to react. Fumiko stirred her coffee once, though it was black and needed no stirring.
“I don’t cry easily,” she said, “That sounds like a brag. It isn’t. It means when I do, I’m usually already past the point where I should have noticed something was wrong.”
Tooshiro looked at her hands around the cup, “And your work does that to you?”
“Work. Expectations. Even myself. The usual suspects.”
“The usual suspects sound like dicks.”
“They can be.”
He leaned back, “When I dropped out, I told everyone I was bored.”
“Were you?”
“Yes. But that wasn’t all.”
She waited patiently. He had not planned to say this. The café was warm. The books were in a paper bag by their feet. The pudding dish sat between them, half-finished. Somehow that made it easier, or harder.
“I was scared,” he admitted, “Not of classes. Not exactly. I was scared that if I kept going, I would graduate, get a job I didn’t care about, and wake up ten years later with a life that made sense to everyone else, except me.”
Fumiko’s expression softened, but she did not rush to comfort him. He liked that. It gave the words room to stand.
“So I quit,” he continued, “Which sounds brave if you tell it right. It was also selfish, messy, and financially stupid. My parents didn’t know what to do with me for a while. I didn’t know what to do with myself either. Delivery work was supposed to be temporary.”
“Is it still?”
He looked into his iced coffee, where the ice had already melted too much, “I really don’t know.”
That was the truth. It surprised him by how easy it came out.
“I do like parts of it,” he paused as he thought of what and why, “I like moving. I like knowing the streets. I like that work ends when the route ends, most days. I like seeing little pieces of people’s lives. But sometimes I wonder if I chose it because it gave me time to write, or because it gave me an excuse not to try anything else.”
Fumiko looked at him carefully, “Can it be both?”
He laughed faintly, “You and Nana would definitely get along.”
“Your sister?”
“She says things like that.”
“Then she sounds smart.”
“She would become unbearable if she heard that.”
“She already sounds unbearable.”
“She is.”
“But you love her?”
“Unfortunately.”
Fumiko smiled into her coffee, “That sounds like family indeed.”
He nodded, “Yeah, I suppose so.”
She picked up the spoon again, then paused, “But I think choosing a stable path can also be an excuse.”
He looked at her.
“I knew what I wanted before graduating,” she noted, “A business degree in finance. A clean career path at a good company. Salary enough to live on my own. A respectable adult where no one would be worrying I was lost.” She set the spoon down without taking a bite, “And I do like parts of it. I like competence. I like being trusted. I like having my own money and my own apartment and my matching food containers.”
“I knew it.”
She pointed at him, “Do not.”
“Sorry.”
“But sometimes I wonder if I chose something… easy? Because I was afraid of wanting something harder to explain.”
Tooshiro did not know what she meant exactly, and maybe she did not either. That made it feel more honest, not less.
“What did you want?” he asked.
Fumiko looked out the window at the narrow street beyond the glass. A man walked past carrying a stack of books tied with string. Two students stopped in front of a shop window, pointing at a poster.
“I don’t know,” she pondered, “That’s the embarrassing part.”
“It is?”
“I spent so long being someone with a plan. Admitting there were blank spaces felt like failure.”
He understood that too well.
“Blank spaces can be useful,” he said with a smile as she looked at him, “For writing, at least,” he added quickly, “Maybe life too. I don’t know. I’m not really qualified on the matter.”
“Oh no?”
“I apologized to a mailbox remember.”
“That does affect your credentials.”
They smiled at each other, then Fumiko launched an attack, “What kind of woman does Shin Kaidou like?”
Tooshiro’s hand slipped on the glass. The iced coffee wobbled. He grabbed it before it spilled, but not with dignity.
Fumiko straightened, “Sorry. That came out strange.”
“What do you mean?”
“I meant… as a writer.”
“As a writer?”
“Yes. Heroines. Female characters. Romantic dynamics. Since The Kingslayer King has that thread between Quintin and Selena, even though it is not fully romantic yet,” she paused, “Maybe. It feels like it could become that. Unless I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong,” Fumiko's eyes brightened as he realized the danger while continuing, “I mean, probably. From what my friend has said in the past.”
“Such a close-ish friend.”
“Yes.”
She rested her chin lightly on one hand, “So? What kind of woman does he write best?”
There were many safe answers as strong women, complicated women. And women with sharp edges but soft centers came to mind. Women who swing swords. Women who have trauma and good hair.
Instead, Tooshiro thought of Fumiko in the hallway, trying to hide how much she had read. Fumiko at the café, saying being open felt precarious. Fumiko in the supermarket, dividing karaage like a treaty. Fumiko now, asking about an author she did not know sat across from her with butter on his fingers.
“Women who think they have to be composed,” he said, “because they’re afraid of being too much.”
Fumiko went still. The kissaten did not. Cups clinked. The bell over the door rang. The record kept playing. The world, rudely, continued around the thing he had just said. Tooshiro wished he could pull the sentence back and sand it down.
Fumiko looked at her coffee, “That is a pretty specific answer.”
“Well, writer types overthink, you know.”
“Do they?”
“Yes. Terrible habit.”
“Does Shin Kaidou think that? Or do you?”
Or do you? The question was right there. A segway? He could start the truth here and now. Tooshiro looked at her and there it was again. Not suspicion exactly. Something closer to curiosity, but his phone buzzed on the table before he could answer and both of them looked at it.
Nana: Did you eat the cabbage?
Tooshiro stared at the screen. Fumiko read the preview upside down and blinked. Then she covered her mouth.
“Is that your sister?”
Tooshiro closed his eyes,“Yes.”
“She is persistent.”
“She is a public menace.”
“She cares about that cabbage.”
“She cares about bullying me through cabbage.”
Fumiko’s shoulders shook slightly as she tried not to laugh. The tension cracked and Tooshiro should have felt saved. He did, partly. The other part of him felt like the moment had been interrupted by a vegetable with legal representation. He typed back.
Senda Tooshiro: I am in Jimbocho. The cabbage is at home.
Nana: With her?
He froze as Fumiko tilted her head, “What did she say?”
“Oh, nothing.”
His phone buzzed again.
Nana: Silence means yes. Be normal. Do not mention pudding unless she does first.
Tooshiro flipped the phone face down so fast the table made a small sound. Fumiko had looked at it, then at him.
Then, very slowly, she said, “Pudding?”
He considered walking directly into traffic, “Nana has… theories.”
“About pudding?”
“Among other things.”
Fumiko’s face turned pink, “I-I see.”
“You do?”
“I think I might? Did she know we saved them?”
“She discovered… mine.”
“She discovered yours?”
“In the fridge.”
“You kept it?”
“You told me to.”
Fumiko looked down so quickly that her hair fell slightly forward, hiding her face, “I said save it for next time.”
“You did.”
“I did not think you would take that literally.”
“Well, I’m a delivery worker. Instructions matter.”
She laughed then. Not loudly, but enough that the elderly woman two tables over glanced at them with a small, fond smile. Fumiko tried to recover by taking a dignified sip of coffee, but it was too hot. She winced.
Tooshiro leaned forward, “Are you okay?”
She nodded with great seriousness, eyes slightly watery, “Yes.”
“You burned your tongue.”
“A little.”
“Well, you stayed quite composed.”
She paused, then smiled, “Thank you.”
Tooshiro’s heart kicked once, hard. Either overwhelmed by Fumiko's cuteness or from hearing someone say ‘Thank You’ to him. He wasn't quite sure which was affecting him more.
They left the kissaten around five-thirty with two bags of books between them. Fumiko had bought the old fantasy novel from high school, a used collection of essays on mythology, and one light novel she insisted was “for market comparison,” though Tooshiro had seen the way she looked at the cover. Tooshiro had bought a worn paperback about medieval trade routes because he thought it might help with worldbuilding, and because Fumiko had said, “That seems like something Shin Kaidou would find useful,” which made him pick it up before his brain could intervene.
Outside, the light had begun to soften. Jimbocho’s signs glowed against the evening, and the sidewalks had thinned a little. They walked toward the station without hurry, passing carts of old books now being covered for the night.
Fumiko held her bag with both hands, “This was helpful.”
“Figuring out things to help the website?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Me too.”
“And for other things.”
He glanced at her, “Oh? What other things?”
She looked ahead, “I remembered I like this.”
“Bookstores or shopping?”
“Being the version of myself that likes bookstores enough to forget time and a schedule.”
“That version sounds important to me.”
“She’s too inconvenient most days.”
“The most important things are inconvenient, but often fun or mysterious. Adventurous even.”
Fumiko gave him a small smile, “That sounds like a Shin Kaidou line.”
“Oh? Then maybe I’ll donate it.”
“Does he pay royalties?”
“Emotionally? Very poorly.”
Fumiko laughed.
They were almost at the station entrance when a voice called from behind them, “Yamaguchi-san?”
Fumiko stopped. Tooshiro stopped half a second after her and turned.
Mizuki Arai stood near the corner outside a stationery shop, holding a small paper bag and wearing a fitted black top under a loose green jacket that matched her dark forest green hair. She had sunglasses perched on her head, though the sun was nearly gone, and an expression that moved from surprise to interest to wicked understanding in the time it took Tooshiro to recognize the danger ahead.
Beside her stood another woman, probably a friend, who looked between the three of them and wisely pretended to examine the shop window. Mizuki’s eyes landed on Fumiko’s book bag and then on Tooshiro.
“Oh, well hello there,” Mizuki said with a grin as she turned back to Fumiko.
Fumiko’s posture changed at once. Not stiff exactly, but controlled. Her office self arrived like a curtain dropping.
“Arai-san,” she spoke up, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I could say the same,” Mizuki smiled, “Book shopping are we?”
“Yes.”
“With your delivery guy?”
Tooshiro felt his body attempt to leave without moving.
Fumiko’s face warmed, “Senda-san is helping with research.”
“Research for what?”
“For a website.”
“Really? What website?”
“It's for an author.”
Mizuki’s smile did not change, but somehow became louder.
Tooshiro bowed because bowing was the only skill left to him, “Senda Tooshiro. Nice to meet you.”
“I know,” Mizuki quickly said, but Tooshiro did not find that comforting as Fumiko looked at her with wide eyes.
Mizuki extended her hand, then seemed to remember they were in Japan and shifted into a small bow instead, smiling through the awkward transition with terrifying confidence. “Arai Mizuki. I work with Yamaguchi-san. I protect her from expense reports, bad coffee, and suspicious men who corner women into accepting unwanted packages.”
“Mizuki it's not like that,” Fumiko quickly pleaded.
“What? I said suspicious. Not guilty.”
Tooshiro bowed again, “I understand the concern.”
Mizuki blinked, apparently not expecting that. Fumiko looked at him too.
He kept his hands at his sides and met Mizuki’s gaze as best he could, “The way we met was strange. I know that. Yamaguchi-san had every reason to be annoyed, and she was. Correctly.”
Mizuki studied him as the playful edge in her face softened by one degree. Not gone. Never gone. But recalibrated, “At least you know that.”
“I’ve been informed by multiple people.”
“Good. Keep listening to them.”
“I’ll try.”
Fumiko’s expression had shifted again. Not the office, nor the café self. Something in between. She looked at him like he had surprised her, and that made his face warm in the worst possible way. Mizuki seemed to have noticed that too.
“Well,” she said, bright again, “I won’t interrupt your research.”
“It’s not,” Fumiko started, then stopped because the denial had no safe ending.
Mizuki’s smile turned merciless as Fumiko closed her mouth. Tooshiro looked at a nearby vending machine as if it had a way out of the conversation.
Mizuki stepped closer to Fumiko and lowered her voice just enough that Tooshiro could still hear, which meant she wanted him to, “Text me when you get home.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Then Mizuki looked at Tooshiro, “You too.”
He blinked and pointed at himself, “Me?”
“Text someone when you get home. Family, coworker, whoever supervises your continued existence.”
“That surprisingly, would be several people.”
Mizuki nodded with a grin, satisfied, then walked away with her friend, who waited until they were several steps off before whispering something that made Mizuki laugh.
Fumiko and Tooshiro stood near the station entrance, silent.
“So… that was Mizuki,” Fumiko said eventually.
“I gathered.”
“She is not always like that.”
“She seems like she might always be exactly like that.”
Fumiko sighed, “Yeah...”
“I like her though.”
Fumiko looked at him. “You do?”
“She’s scary, but strong and unrelenting.”
“That is also her work style,” Fumiko joked as her hand tightened around her book bag, “She just worries.”
“About you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“But it can be embarrassing at times.”
“I'd rather have a friend willing to embarrass me to show they care, than to have no friend at all. Wait… I think I do too.”
She looked at him again with a small chuckle, and the evening seemed to settle quietly around them. People moved past them into the station. Announcements echoed from below. Somewhere nearby, a shopkeeper slid a cart of books inside and pulled the door shut.
“Thank you,” Fumiko said.
“For what?”
“For not making that worse.”
“I considered several other options for such situations.”
“I believe you.”
“One involved pretending to be lost and asking for directions.”
“That would have been hard beside the station sign.”
She smiled and pointed at it right behind him. Tooshiro looked at it, but found her expression catching his attention more in a way that made him forget the noise of the street for a second.
“I had fun today,” she said.
He held onto the strap of his bag, “Me too.”
“For research,” she added.
He looked at her and she looked back. Then both of them laughed because the excuse had become too thin to stand on its own.
“For research,” he said anyway.
At the ticket gates, they separated toward different train lines. Fumiko turned once before going through, lifting her hand in a small wave.
Tooshiro lifted his too, and this time it did not feel like a delivery worker’s polite farewell. It felt like something the two had made together.
On the train home, Fumiko stood near the door with her book bag held against her side. Her phone buzzed before she reached Ochanomizu.
Mizuki: Research?
Fumiko closed her eyes and sighed. Another message came.
Mizuki: He’s cute.
Mizuki: Also weirdly sincere. That's annoying. Harder to judge.
Fumiko decided to type back.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Please stop evaluating him like a client risk profile.
Mizuki: I do what I must.
Fumiko looked at the darkening window, where her reflection hovered over the lights outside. Her cheeks were still a little warm. Then another message appeared.
Senda Tooshiro: Home. Reporting as instructed by Arai-san.
She smiled.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: I’m still on the train. Reporting will follow.
Senda Tooshiro: Understood.
Senda Tooshiro: Today was a lot of fun.
Fumiko stared at the message long enough for the train to sway and a man beside her to grab the strap overhead. Then she typed back.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Yes. It was.
She hesitated. Then, because she was tired of pretending every ‘honest’ thing needed permission, she added:
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Not only for research.
At home in Nakano, Tooshiro stood in the middle of his apartment with his bag still on his shoulder and read the message three times. Not only for research. He looked at the fridge where the pudding waited.
He opened the fridge, took it out, placed it on the table, then got the clean spoon. For a second, he considered waiting. Next time meant next time. Then his phone buzzed again.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Also, please tell Nana-san I ate cabbage today by choice. I don’t know why I feel she should know this.
Tooshiro laughed so hard he had to sit down as he opened Nana’s chat.
Tooshiro: Yamaguchi-san says she ate cabbage by choice.
The reply came almost instantly.
Nana: Marry her.
Tooshiro nearly dropped the phone.
Tooshiro: Stop.
Nana: Fine. Tell the truth first. Then marry her someday if she doesn’t throw you into traffic.
Tooshiro stared at the message. The pudding sat unopened beside his hand.
He looked over at the Shin Kaidou website draft still open on his laptop. The author profile waited, white background, black text, simple enough to be honest, if he ever learned how to finish it.
He typed one new line beneath the bio.
For now, Shin Kaidou prefers to remain private, but he hopes to meet his readers honestly one day.
He read it once, then twice, and then he saved the draft. It was not a confession. Not really.
But it was a promise aimed in the right direction, and for that night, with the taste of kissaten pudding still in his memory and Fumiko’s message glowing on his phone, Tooshiro let that be enough.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLgcbHx9rys
and then Add to home screen.