Volume 3 - CH extra

It was an afternoon during summer break. I was enjoying a cup of coffee in the living room when Ayase-san approached me.

“Asamura-kun, do you have a moment? I’d like to borrow a book for my modern Japanese studies.”

So she said, which left me thinking. I have a lot more than two hundred books laying around at my disposal, but lending her one out of those… I wouldn’t know where to start.

“So what kind of book would you prefer?”

“What kinds of books do you have?”

Well, I should have expected as much. And that wasn’t the end of my troubles. I only saw one plausible way out of this predicament.

“…Wanna take a look at my bookshelves?”

“I can choose?”

“If anything, it’d be best if you chose, yeah.”

In order to gain something from a book you’re about to read, you first have to have some kind of interest in it. That’s what’s most crucial. That’s why I believe the quickest way to resolve this would be to have her look at my collection herself.

“Come on in.”

“Thanks. You keep it surprisingly clean, huh?”

Upon entering the room, Ayase-san commented as she looked around…… For a split second her gaze wandered towards an odd place, no?

“The bookshelves are over here.” I pointed at two bookshelves, each with two vertical separations.

“Huh? That’s not as many as I expected.”

“The books I rarely reread I put in a cardboard box and stuff into my drawer—”

…As well as books that’d be bad to be seen in my possession. Ever since Akiko-san and Ayase-san moved in, I’ve been much more careful about those ticking timebombs.

“It might not seem like much, but one of these shelves can hold around two hundred paperback books.”

“Two…You’re joking, right?!”

“You can count them if you’d like. Each divider is 25 books, so if you do top and bottom, front and back, it’s one hundred per divider, and there’s two for each shelf.”

“So there are at least 400 books here?!”

“Roughly.”

“Is the floor not giving in?”

“This isn’t a cheap wooden flat that was built in the 30s. Well, these are carefully handpicked. An average guy like me can’t store all of the books he’s ever read.”

Stacked on top of each other, books can become extraordinarily heavy quite quickly. To an avid book reader like me, an endless admiration would be to one day own a home library or a book storage, with large bookshelves covering the walls, and an endless ocean of back covers. Amidst the faint light entering the room through the curtains, I’d take a sip of coffee and sit down on my chair to read books. Albeit being used to this kind of lifestyle, it’s a dream far in the future for the high school student that I am.

“These are light novels that are easy to read, and famous ones that you won’t regret reading. These are science-fiction novels, and a lot of practical ones.”

And since she’s already asked me, I might as well.

“It doesn’t matter right now, but these are manga. I’ve mostly moved to digital ones lately. Or rather, I had to, because I really can’t afford to buy more physical books.”

“Being an avid reader as a hobby sounds rough…”

“I’m happy you understand, Ayase-san.”

Huh? It happened again. While she was looking through my books, her gaze wandered around in odd fashion. Reaching the corner of my shelf, she frantically turned it back to the beginning, repeating that same action. It felt like she was oddly restless. The only thing next to my two shelves is the bed—Wait, the bed?

Reaching that thought, I remembered what had happened during that fateful night two months ago. Wearing nothing but her underwear, Ayase-san approached me laying on the bed. Coming up with the idea of a relatively safe but quick way to earn lots of cash, she came to the room of her step-brother for a nightly raid—Such a light novel title came to mind, so I quickly shook my head. I definitely can’t dwell in the memories of her white skin illuminated by the faint room light. If I had to guess, the reason she’s been trying so hard not to look at the bed is because she remembered the same thing.

“I’ll be borrowing this one, then.”

“Y-Yeah, go ahead.”

She vanished from the room as quickly as she came, allowing me to sigh in relief. However, that’s when I realized—I had no idea what book she even borrowed.