The weather was dismal with the wind biting and crisp from the smell of late winter, and Haruka stood outside by the door to the small bookstore with her shivering hands tucked into her sleeves.
It was nothing to look at—merely a battered wooden sign above the door with "Komorebi Books" on it and a display window packed with yellowed pages and a single wonky origami crane. But to Haruka, it was a cathedral.
This wasn't an escape.
This wasn't a hiding place.
This was the first step.
She'd passed by this shop several times, walking to the market with Kaito. It had always looked half-in-suspension, one of those businesses abandoned by the frenzy of modern life. That's why she'd found herself in front of it two days before, her heart pounding as she peered in through the windows. And now, she was here.
The old bell above the door let out a soft chime when she entered. The scent of dust and paper wrapped around her immediately, familiar and strangely soothing.
A woman behind the counter looked up from a stack of books, her silver-streaked hair tied into a bun and glasses perched low on her nose. She blinked, then smiled.
"You're early," the woman said. "I like that."
Haruka bowed hurriedly. "I—thank you for the chance."
The woman, Arai on her name tag, waved with one hand. "We're not a corporation, sweetie. You want to work around the store? You're in. That's it."
Haruka nodded, a hard knot dissolving in her chest.
Arai guided her through the aisles, referencing sections in low, drawling voices. "Literature that way. Non-fiction near the window. Poetry shelf, there. We never have rushes, so just maintain it. And if a customer is asking for a recommendation, go with your gut."
Haruka hesitated. "Even when I don't know the customer?"
"Particularly when you don't," Arai said, eyes glinting. "Books are introductions. Just like humans."
Haruka smiled. Barely.
By lunchtime, she'd restocked a shelf of historical novels, sorted the poetry shelf by author, and gently dusted away cobwebs from dusty titles. It was strange to move with purpose once more. Her limbs complained, unused, her mind still muddled—but her hands remembered how to minister.
One customer arrived around one. A thirty-year-old man with bloodshot eyes and paint-spattered arms. He walked over to the poetry section and just stayed there, not moving.
Haruka went in silently. "Uh… are you looking for something in specific?"
He blinked. "Not really. I just… didn't want something that makes me feel like wasting time."
Haruka paused, then picked up a dog-eared volume of Takashi Hiraide's The Guest Cat. "This isn't poetry, strictly speaking, but it's soft. Gentle. It doesn't ask much of you."
He accepted it in silence, his fingers brushing against hers. A minute or so later, he bought it wordlessly and left with a small nod.
Haruka lingered by the door long after it had slammed shut. That nod—so small, so insignificant—felt epochal.
The day passed like that. Slowly. Quietly. A mother is looking for a bedtime story. A student is asking about reference books. An elderly woman who didn't buy anything but sat in the corner reading Basho's haikus to herself.
Each of them kept reminding Haruka: the world was vast. Bigger than her father's domain. Bigger than her own fear. Bigger than everything that had hidden her.
As the sky darkened and Arai turned the sign to Closed, Haruka's legs hurt and her shoulders were sore, but her heart was. alive.
"Not bad for a first day," Arai wrote in a small notebook.
Haruka bowed slightly. "Thank you again for letting me. be here."
Arai smiled. "This is not a place about being perfect. It's a place about people who want to get back on the path to themselves."
The words sank deep. Maybe too deep. Haruka clutched the strap of her bag tightly and whispered, "I'll come again tomorrow."
"You'd better," Arai said. "That poetry shelf won't dust itself."
When Haruka returned to the apartment, Kaito looked up from the stove with wide eyes.
"You're back late."
"I… got the job," she said quietly, slipping off her shoes.
His face lit up with joy like the sun had just been switched on. "That's great, Haruka!"
She didn't grin big. Only a small curve of the lips. But it was real. "It's a small bookstore. Not busy. Just… quiet."
Kaito put down a hot bowl of stew next to the table. "Sounds like the place to take a breath."
She sat down across from him and nodded. "It is."
They dined in silence. And for the first time in weeks, Haruka finished her entire bowl.
Later that night, when she hugged under the blanket, she opened her notebook again—not to write poems, but just to hold it. Her fingers brushed over the first page, upon which she had jotted down ideas she was too afraid to speak out.
She didn't write anything new yet.
But she would.
Maybe tomorrow.
Haruka was still scared. Still frail. But as she lay in the soft glow of the lamp, the wind softly trembling against the window glass, she realized:
She was no longer afraid that she was running away from the world.
Today, she entered it.
And the world did not turn its back on her.
It simply… spread its arms to her. Quietly. Tenderly. Like the pages of an ancient book waiting to be opened.
And for the first time in years, Haruka permitted herself to hope.
Maybe she wasn't all that foreign after all.