いとしいこと

Previous   TOC   Next The next day dawned bright and clear, with not the slightest trace of the previous day’s rain. Yawning from lack of sleep, Omiya arrived at work just as the morning shipment of books came in. He quickly tied on the store apron and began checking the invoices against the quantities. Most of what came in during the morning were weekly magazines, and with these, even a thirty-minute delay in putting them out on the shelves could have an immediate impact on sales. He loaded the new issues onto a cart, set them in their respective spots, and quietly collected the week-old ones for return. By nine-thirty, he was glancing at the clock, expecting the staff to start arriving soon, when the store phone rang. It was Kobashi, one of the employees, saying she wasn’t feeling well due to a cold and wanted the day off. The store was small, so on weekdays, three people could just barely manage. From four in the afternoon until closing, when things got busier, they had one...

Previous   TOC   Next By the time the long holidays of Golden Week had passed, May was already halfway over. Today, the midday heat had been high enough that, even for a short time, the store’s air conditioning was switched on. If it was already like this now, the electricity bill was going to be no joke, he thought. But around six o’clock, when the sun went down, it cooled considerably. And then, instead of the temperature itself, it was the density of people that raised the warmth inside the store. From here on out, the Kouchido Bookstore, Ikenami branch, a nationwide chain, would be busy. In the daytime, the place was so empty it almost felt lonely, but after school let out, students, and after work office workers, crowded the aisles. Although the branch was small in scale, it was located in an area densely packed with junior highs and high schools, so sales were decent enough. Yusuke Omiya, manager of the Ikenami branch, was thirty-three this year. Five years ago, he had q...