Disclaimer for all chapters: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Many thanks to my beta readers, Akuma-sama and Beatrice Lord. You've survived my commas, and improved this fic greatly.
Someday's Readers
When Sumiregawa Nenene woke up, her face was attached to a messy page that had once been covered in penned notes. She'd scribbled them down while out at lunch with the Paper Sisters, and had needed them to hand last night while writing. It was a good thing that she'd digitised her notes before falling asleep because she was pretty certain, knowing her luck in life, that the information would have been lost forever; transmuted into an inkish mess on her face, leaving the notepaper a smeary smudge of uselessness.
Downstairs, she could hear Michelle and Maggie talking about something. The pitch of Michelle's voice raised and lowered. She was waxing lyrical about some subject or another, probably something they'd both just read that day. Maggie agreed complicitly with nods and "Nhn"s where appropriate. There was no sign of the little bookish brat, but she was probably visiting Junior over at the apartment that Nancy had finally bought. Nancy had wanted to raise the boy as much as she could, and neither Nenene's apartment or Yomiko's firetrap were appropriate
It was overwhelming, just thinking of all the people that these kids would grow up into; the brat, Junior, Drake's daughter, and that was just for bloody starters. Then there was the Hishiishi girl and all those schoolkids. The annoying one and her woman-child sister, the one who made millions every year by spewing vapid sugar candy promises of plastic sparkling young men: hairless, shirtless, asexual and romantic; just what the teen idiots ordered.
Ah, hell. Nenene couldn't scorn that genre too much. She'd dabbled in it herself, when she was that age. Or about that age. Maybe a few years younger.
She could still taste that pragmatic first kiss with Yomiko, when she thought hard enough about it. Perhaps forcing the first kiss issue had made it into something bigger than it should be. She was certainly no closer at all to having any romantic relationships, and the way that women and children kept on intruding into her life, well... it was either like a bad American family sitcom, or a twisted Sapphic nightmare. Nenene wasn't too sure what was worse, but she damned well knew that she was unlikely to have any breakthroughs with her scene while Michelle was still worked up over whatever she was going on about.
Her voice was picking up frantic pace, through the floor beneath Nenene's feet. Half hysterical, almost, and blubbering. It was an obvious ploy, but Michelle had learnt to use that behaviour. Because it worked, goddamnit! There was no way Nenene would have peace until she went downstairs to sort it out. If she tried to out-stubborn the fool woman, then when she finally did risk a trip downstairs to use the bathroom or to get some coffee, she would only have the aftermath of one of Michelle's manipulative and stupid plots to resolve.
It was easier to sigh heavily, stretch her sore back, peel the paper off of her face, and warn Michelle that if she dared laugh at her ink-stained face, she would get no help at all.
On her way down, she realised that she'd sweated a lot, sometime during the humid summer night. Her feet stuck tackily to the stairs, and left behind little ghosts of footprints. She yawned at the bottom, and looked back up at them, dopily watching them fade. Michelle's voice hushed, but carried on in its' frantic pace. It seemed far more worried, and far less furious, than Nenene had guessed from what had reached her in her room.
"... I just can't help but feel that the poor girl needs guidance. So distressed by it all, she must have trouble sleeping at night! I..."
Maggie punctuated Michelle's stream of words with a nod an another grunt. Nenene paused, as her mind began waking up further, and recognised the setup for what it was. She padded into the living room, and stretched out lazily on the couch, wishing that Anita was around. The kid made good coffee. She wondered, as Michelle's voice rose and fell with a sly glance towards her, if the woman even realised that the jig was up. So to speak. That her attempts at subterfuge were so obvious that they wouldn't be able to convince anyone.
"Oh, for chrissake! Tell me straightly what the hell you are going on about, alright? Maybe then I won't kick you in the shins for it. I haven't had any caffeineyet, for..." She barely had the chance to start whining before Michelle stopped her spiel. Nenene trailed off, and the room lapsed into morning silence for a few moments. They could hear morning traffic outside, and housewives beginning to go about their day. Somewhere in the apartment complex, a vacuum cleaner began to whine.
"Er. Well, it's... Hisa-chan." Michelle said, a little lamely. And damn straight, too, Nenene thought, because a grown woman should be ashamed to carry on like that.
"Hishiishi? What's the matter with her?"
Maggie looked away, solemn. Michelle bit her lip, and wriggled a little, unsteady and uncertain. "We-ell, it's like this, I think... no. It's hard to say..."
Michelle threw her hands up, and let them fall heavily onto the kotatsu's surface. Two teacups – and who on earth had bought teacups – clinked together. Maggie cleared her throat, mumbled something about tea, and took the two cups through to the kitchen. Water rushed through the tap, and the kettle clunked into its' stand, full and ready to boil. It was a morning ritual that, no matter who performed it, Nenene could recognise by sound alone. The getting of happy wake-up caffeine drugs, be it in the form of tea or coffee.
"You have no idea," Nenene guessed flatly, "but she's got a contract to write a manuscript."
Maggie set cups and a teapot down on what sounded like a small tray, and a plate of what Nenene hoped was leftover dessert from the night before.
"She's a child author. I was a child author. You assume that whatever the problem is, I'll be able to fix it." Nenene finished with a final and glum tone, and sat up, crossing her legs beneath her bum on the couch. Maggie re-entered slowly, and the tea steeped silently in the pot as it was set down on the kotatsu table.
Nenene eyed the plate warily. It wasn't leftover dessert. It was new cheesecake. Probably bought from that fancy bakery that had opened in the local mall. She knew, without doubt, that there would be a cheesecake sized hole in the weekly food shopping envelope.
"Well, fine. Get me the phone number, I'll call her after I'm done with my breakfast." She agreed with a sigh, stabbing viciously into the sweet and doing her best to not grit her teeth against the overjoyous and put-on saccharine reaction that Michelle had. It wasn't that Nenene was soft, or pliable with age. It was just that she'd been a young author, had suffered similar pressures. That she'd gone through a stage of writer's block, under contract no less. Though nobody could have brought Yomiko back and lifted her from her funk, she would probably have had an easier time of it, if she had had someone to talk to. Someone who understood. It was just doing as you would be done by, basic karma, commonsense. It certainly wasn't because she had cake for breakfast, because that would be a childish and stupid justification.
In the end, they used Nenene's publishing house to meet. Her new editor secured a room for them, and would arrange for food and drink if they needed it. It seemed a better place to meet up than a public area, given that Hishiishi was shy at the best of times. Having a visit with an older, established author – technically Anita's guardian – would be intimidating and confusing enough without worrying about a public venue, or having access to whatever they might need.
Nenene had decided to try approaching the problem with sensitivity, instead of her usual no-nonsense take on problems. Hishiishi would be nervous, and since she had no idea whatsoever of what was affecting the girl, it would be better to have an ice-breaker. Something to justify the whole situation, and make the girl feel more at ease.
Hishiishi sat demurely in her chair, looking at Nenene expectantly. "Sumiregawa-sensei, you said that you wanted to talk to me about something?"
Nenene nodded. "Yes. I didn't want to say anything over the phone, you see, because of those two." She hoped that Hishiishi understood that she meant Michelle and Maggie. "I didn't want to get them too excited, or spoiling the surprise for Anita, until I'd had a chance to talk to you."
Hishiishi furrowed her brows together. "Anita-chan? But she's not even here...."
Nenene smiled. "No. But this project of mine, it'd be better if she didn't find out about it until it was all done. And it could take a little longer than her trip, I'm not sure. It depends on both of us."
Hishiishi inclined her head. "Us?"
Nenene nodded decisively. "Us. I've never worked with another author before. I want to try."
She sipped at her bottle of water while the girl absorbed that information. "You... want to collaborate... with me?"
"Yep. I'm not quite sure what, or how, but it's something that I've always wanted to do. I work at such a breakneck pace usually, that I type the words faster than I think them. I want to have a more thoughtful project for once, put a bit more effort into the initial drafts, and see if I can't spare my editor some grief."
Hishiishi laughed gently, eyes cast down at her own bottled water. She was probably remembering her own journeys through the pre-publishing process. "I'd be honoured, Sumiregawa-sensei, but I can't."
The girl's distress was plain on her face. She sat silently for a moment, and Nenene realised that no more information would be forthcoming without a prompt. "... Is there a reason why? I don't want to pry, Hishiishi. I'm just curious. If it's because you're friends with Anita, and you don't want to keep it secret, we can come clean..."
Hishiishi shook her head gently. "No, it's just... I can't... I...I'm sorry, Sumiregawa-sensei, you don't need to listen to my amateur complaints."
Nenene huffed herself up. "Bah. Drop the Sumiregawas... it's too much of a mouthful. Nenene. And you're hardly an amateur. You've got three books out, and you've been on several tours. You're in the biz, whether you like it or not."
Hishiishi blushed, and ducked her head. "Well, then... Nenene-sensei, you can call me Hisami."
Nenene restrained herself very carefully from pressing the matter. She could cope with the title from mad bibliophiles like Yomiko and Michelle, but coming from Hisami, it felt wrong. She let it slide, and focused more on the problem at hand.
"So, can you talk about it? If it's something I can help with, I will. I'd rather try working with you than any other author in Japan."
The girl blushed at the compliment, and Nenene found herself wondering if nine-tenths of their time spent together would be wasted on this stupid humility and hero worship trash. Luckily for her nerves, Hisami spoke.
"I've lost touch." She began, a little directionlessly. "I mean, before Anita, my life was books. I'd stored up all those years of thoughts and ideas, and then... it all just made sense. The words, the plot. I wanted to write a book for Anita, because she did read. Did enjoy it. But only for me, only books I'd asked her to."
The book report on Nenene's novel wasn't mentioned, but Nenene was certain that they were both thinking about that.
"But now," Hisami continued, "I can't. Nothing makes sense. I have an idea, and before it's all typed out, I get sick of it. Or it all seems pointless. I can't make scenes work, and my editor..."
She took a deep breath, wavering and shaking. She was obviously very upset. "Mrs. Ishii, she said that I should take a break. Maybe like you, come back after I'd had a few more years experience. Not rush things."
Nenene let out the breath she'd been holding. That was a blow. The editor had probably only said that to try and take the pressure off Hisami, make it easier for her to write without restriction. But it had punched a hole in the girl's self confidence as a writer.
"Would you believe it, but that's almost what happened to me?" She offered. "I couldn't do anything, after Yomiko disappeared, and it was clear she wasn't going to come back. My editor, hell, the whole board of the publishing department, they said I should take a holiday. Do some signings. See the world. They set me up with all sorts of contracts with international publishers, for translated versions. Anything to keep the money coming in for them, while I twiddled my thumbs."
Hisami nodded.
"To break something like that, you have to do a lot of work. Introspection. Figuring out whether it's because you've lost the plot, or you're writing the wrong things... not reading enough, if you're too upset with someone to focus properly. Everyone has barriers to work, and with writing, it's a little more sensitive than that. You can't just plough ahead regardless."
Nenene took a deep breath, a little embarrassed that her speech was dragging on so long.
"For me, it was about the audience. I wrote books first to write, as if I would ignite from all the energy, if I didn't type as fast as I could. But then, when I met Yomiko, that changed. I wrote books for her to read. I became a better author, I was proud of myself, and then... she vanished. I had no audience. At least, none that I cared about."
She took a sip of water.
"It wasn't until those three moved in, that it started to make sense to me. I finally got the guts to try writing something for them, and all of a sudden, everything was working again. As if a spigot had been turned inside my brain, letting it all flow out again."
Hisami nodded, and made a thoughtful sound. "So for you, it was the readers. You had someone to write for, and so it worked."
Nenene nodded. "Though I doubt that'll work for anyone, everyone. Or that it'll be true for my whole life. It's just that was the problem I was having. I'd lost sight of the readers."
Hisami made a frustrated noise. "I'd never be able to do that, not with Anita. She's too..."
"Noisy. The brat is a loudmouth, even now that she's a bookworm. No sense tiptoeing around it."
Hisami smiled in relief. "I think it's more than I'm sick of it. Anything I write. Anything I try, any genre."
Nenene frowned, thoughtfully. "Well, if you hate the sight of your own prose, why don't you work on something with me? Then you'll be too busy trying to get used to my style to possibly get sick of things. That, and it'll be a little harder to criticise something that I've half written than it will your own stuff."
Hisami deferred, turning her head to look out the window, and at the other buildings around them, all glimmering in afternoon sunlight. "I'll think about it," she allowed finally, hesitantly, "but I'm not sure. I'll think about it."
That was the best she'd get, Nenene reckoned, so she nodded her head once, heavily, and then stretched her arms above her head. "Come on, then. We'll be catching the same train home, anyway. Let's go."
Hisami was quiet all the way to the station in their suburb, where they parted. Nenene rode the lift up to her home thoughtfully. There was little she could do to help Hisami, if it was writer's block. It all depended so heavily on the individual; on their lives and their issues. It was something she'd have to work through. Though Nenene wanted to help, she ran the risk of being more harmful than anyone else; it's easier to say "just try harder" than it was to do so. It wasn't just something that you could chose to do, and just get done. Not like making dinner, or going out to buy a can of drink. It wasn't a matter of action and inaction.
She winced, and ignored the reading women in the living area, going straight upstairs to her study. She sat down, and booted up. Began to type. Not anything constructive, or in any way related to her current half-draft. Just thoughts, words, quarters of sentences. Some of it was hers, some addressed to Yomiko, Hisami, Nancy... anyone. Some was poisonous, for dear old Mr. Carpenter.
She hadn't meant to get so carried away, but typing stream-of-consciousness style vented tension from her bones that she hadn't known she'd had. A trip downstairs and a glass of water later, she felt more relieved and content with the day than when she'd first come home. Hisami still had her own issues, but Nenene no longer felt guilty or impotent, and that was something to be glad of.
The phone rang, probably Anita. Nenene watched Michelle and Maggie turn pages for a few moments, amused, before she sighed with a put-on weariness and drudged across the room.
"Hello, Sumiregawa here."
"Ah, Sum... I mean, Nenene-sensei."
It was Hisami. Nenene took the handset away, into the kitchen. She didn't want to invite scrutiny from Michelle, not when it might scare Hisami away, or make the girl feel ashamed. But the voice that finally spoke was solid, sure, and strong with a sense of determination that Nenene hadn't thought the girl capable of.
"I want to work with you, please."
"Wow. Great. Well, then. You're on holidays, right?" Oh what a stupid question. Junior and Anita were; of course Hisami was on holiday. "I'm free tomorrow. Do you want to meet somewhere?"
The girl paused, the phone rustled. "No." The girl had probably shaken her head. That had been the noise.
"No, I want to get started right away. Have you read my novels?"
"Yep. The brat, er, Anita, got a spare set for us. So that she didn't have to fight Maggie for a turn. I've read them, and I have copies to hand."
"Good." Hisami had obviously been thinking on her way home, perhaps all afternoon. She spoke quickly, as if she'd had everything planned days, not minutes, in advance of the call. "Before we meet to talk about anything, we should experiment. Comment on each others' work, and try writing in each others' style. Make lists of things we will and won't want to do. Brainstorm some ideas for setting, plot, characters. Then we can email those, and show up for our first meeting prepared."
Nenene had never heard so many words leave Hisami's mouth at once. When it came to writing, the girl was all business. "Yes ma'am! Roger that! I'll get to it, then. Do you have my address, for email?"
She juggled the handset as she found some paper that didn't have the rest of a book attached to it, and a pen. Took down Hisami's personal mail, and spelt out her own. "...So, we'll organise our next meeting through email?"
Hisami spoke with what sounded like relief now. Nenene liked to think that it was partly due to her attempts to help. "Yes. I'll see you online, Nenene-sensei."
She'd have to remember to train the kid out of that genuflecting epithet. It felt wrong, if they were going to be colleagues in this whole unstarted project. A story unborn. They were equals, despite the age difference.
"Hey, Maggie!"
Maggie emerged from beneath the kotatsu, and gave Nenene a silent, questioning look.
"Hisami's novels. Where have they ended up?"
The shuffled around, amongst several piles, looking. It was easy for one bibliophile to know where her books were; it was another thing entirely for a household of three, plus author, to possibly keep track of. Nenene knew she could have checked beside Anita's bed somewhere, and found a copy of each one easily, but those were special. Anita shared the gestalt of books in the house with everyone, but Hisami had given her a copy of each of the books she had written; signed, of course. They were special to Anita, in a way that made them almost sacred, in a world of books. Nenene didn't dare breach that.
Hisami's books were piled up between some translated copies of Diana Wynne Jones' novels – the Crestomanci series – and some light novels by Kurataka Hideyuki. Their dustcovers were intact, if a little bent. Maggie helped her pile the three together, though there was no need for any effort like that. They were hardly a pile, after all.
"Hey, why don't you and Michelle order something in for dinner. I'll be too busy to cook. You know the regular limit... and if she goes over this time, it'll come out of her reading pile. I'll price books equal to the amount she overspends, and hold them hostage until she's paid me back."
Maggie nodded. "Alright."
Nenene would have been more social on any other night, but she was already gearing up to start jotting down notes, for brainstorming a series with Hisami. Which was bad. She'd as good as promised that she'd reread the girl's books, make notes on her work not as a reader, but as a fellow writer.
Actually, damn, that would work better. She picked up the books again, and a notepad. It would be easier if she just sat between Michelle and Maggie, and let the bookishness sink in through osmosis. Read in good company.
In the end, they didn't meet. It was in the spirit of the thing. Nenene had been checking the mail, and Anita had come charging into the building past her, dragging a backpack full of library books behind her. The brat had stopped, stared at Nenene with the envelopes in her hand, and then nodded to herself decisively.
"Here." She pulled a book out of her pocket and shoved it towards Nenene. It was a translated one, from English, with katakana lettering across the front distorted into shapes that hinted at the Anglophilia that waxed and waned in popularity. Sorcery and Cecilia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. She turned it over in her hands, wondering why Anita had given it to her. But she was already in the lift, gangly as a fifteen year old usually is, and jiggling impatiently.
Nenene caught her up, and leant against the wall of the lift, looking over the cover and feeing exasperated at the lack of any summary to be found.
"It's a letter game," Anita explained, "the book is just this game between two authors; they both write to each other, telling the story of this fantasy Victorian world. The play between them as authors is just as interesting as the story itself."
"Oh. Hey, that sounds interesting." Nenene flicked through a few pages. "Can I read it?"
Anita shrugged. "Sure. I finished it on the way home. I'd just closed it, and then I walked in, you were holding the mail, and it just seemed... right."
Nenene smiled at that. "Well thanks, anyway. I'll enjoy reading this, I think."
Anita stuck her tongue out at Nenene, as the lift doors opened, and they headed down the hall to their front door. "You should read more, ne, Nenene-ne."
"Fine." She shouted after Anita, who was quickly disappearing into her bedroom. "You write the books, and I'll read. How's that for a deal?"
There wasn't any response. The brat was probably already dead to the world, immersed in whatever new releases had filtered through to the library shelves. It wouldn't surprise Nenene if the kid had everything on the reserve list by default. Sometimes, Anita outstripped her own sisters, in her voraciousness. She didn't read so much as swallow novels whole. Nenene half expected to come downstairs one morning to find Anita salivating over one of the older editions, as enraptured with the whole sensual experience of reading as Yomiko was.
She turned the book over in her hands, and hmmed in surprise. This one had been published in 1988 originally. Translated a decade or so later. It was old news, and there were probably multiple copies hiding somewhere at Yomiko's house, in various languages. The two female authors assumed the identities of two predetermined characters, and within an agreed world setting, wrote letters in character to each other. Part of the letter game, it seemed, and one of the amusing parts of the book itself, were the things left unsaid. Hints at things, suspicions, that were picked up by the other author, and then thrown back again. Nenene could almost see the plot like a needle with thread attached to it, being passed between two hands, and used to pull to separate pieces of fabric together.
She emailed Hisami, and then sat down to get to work on reading the book. It was light-hearted, and fun. But it was a translated novel, set in a different reality. Even just reading if took time and effort, and the anticipation of a response from Hisami was so strong that Nenene almost buzzed with nervous energy. She hadn't cared this much about any ideas she'd had in a long time. She hadn't exposed her ideas to anyone else so early on, either. It was new territory, unmapped.
After she'd read the first paragraph of the tenth page eight times, she couldn't help but check her inbox. Her mind wasn't in the right place for sitting back and following someone else's story. Waiting for her, right there beneath the short test passages they'd been exchanging already, and comments on their published novels, was a one-line email from Hisami.
Yes. I think that would work well.
Nenene resolved, then and there, to head out to Jinbouchou, ask around. The book was old, but if nowhere else, Toto books would be able to get their hands on a copy. She'd buy two, one for each of them, so that they had copies readily to hand. She'd do a bit of light research online, and see if there was much of a precedence in Japanese publications for epistolary stories. Now that they had a direction, a plan, it was much easier.
She daydreamed, a little, about themes and structure as she came back downstairs. The doorbell rung, and she sat distractedly at the kotatsu while the others paid for dinner, set out plates, and sat down around her.
She wanted to write something worth reading, after all. Something that would make Yomiko, Michelle, Maggie, Anita, and Nancy pleased. Hopefully, something that would be worth more to people out there than Nenene would ever know. That was what was best about writing; the potential for so much unintentional and unknown good to come from things. All those readers, each bringing their own lives and contexts to the manuscript. Even if Nenene never heard from most of them, just knowing that they were out there made it worth it. Just knowing that part of her brain was on paper was incredible. That her readers' minds were intermingling with the remnants of her own, to make countless individual and unique experiences. A thousand different worlds, each personal and magnificent.
You couldn't do that with TV. Or with a monopolistic network. That had been one of Nenene's main problems with The Joker's plan; by making everything open and accessible in the way that he wanted, it robbed the intimacy and humanity from it all. It took the thoughtful steps back and away from the world, into the world of reading, and warped them into a vision of flat and accessible information. Universal knowledge, but meaningless. Bland and tasteless.
Bah. She peeled a plastic lid off of a container slowly, as Maggie politely served everyone rice. Michelle opened all the other containers, and started serving herself. Anita arrived last, and was holding a book open with one hand as she picked up her chopsticks and tapped them absently against the table, lost to the world.
"I'm enjoying the book, brat." Nenene said, kicking Anita under the table. She grunted in response, and shifted out of Nenene's reach.
"I'm so proud of my Anita, finally one of us!" Michelle gushed, carefully hovering her own cutlery over the collection of containers, eyes scanning for the best pieces of meat, the nicest looking vegetables.
"I've always been proud of Anita." Maggie said quietly and matter-of-factly. Anita crossed her legs, marked her place in her book with a slip of paper, and turned to face the table.
"Thanks for nothing, Mi-nee. Your conditional love is nothing, compared to Ma-nee's decency and acceptance. At least one of you is supportive and caring."
Nenene took umbrage at that. "Hey, I bought the food. And put you up. And write books for you. How's that for devotion?"
Anita turned to Nenene, a very solemn look on her face. Slowly, and with great weight to her words, she said, "You don't write fast enough. If you loved me, you'd be finished by now."
Nenene froze. If she got caught up in this letter game project with Hisami, her next manuscript, a sequel to her last novel, would be even later. She hoped the guilt didn't show on her face, and that the letter game book would be enough compensation for her most loyal readers.
As she was occupied in her thoughts, Maggie pecked at some spring onions, and Michelle stole a lion's share of the beef strips. Anita cracked a large smile, and laughed generously at Nenene.
"You should see your face! I didn't mean it that seriously, stupid!"
Nenene waved a hand dismissively at her. "Don't provoke the author. Or I'll..."
"You'll what?"
Nenene waited, and didn't say a thing. Anita made a disgruntled face, and reached for a mushroom. As quick as she could – and certainly fast enough to beat Anita – she snapped her chopsticks out, grabbed it from beneath Anita's pair. Soft and salty and moist in her mouth, not bad for the cheap place they'd ordered from. Anita scowled, and she was tempted to keep it up for the whole meal; she knew she was fast enough for it. But she wasn't that mean-spirited, and it was all in the name of camaraderie. Good natured teasing.
"So there." She said, after swallowing her mushroom. Anita grumbled, and got on with her dinner. Reminded Nenene that she'd have to return the library book when she'd finished it. She left the table and Nenene sat back, slowly picking at the leftovers as Maggie collected plates for the washup. Michelle stretched out, flicked on the news, and settled back with a book to pay half attention to it.
Nenene rubbed her bare feet on the floor, tapped her fingers on the table, rolled over onto her belly and then gave up. She wasn't able to pay attention to the news at all. All she wanted to do was get started on the letter game, it was eating away under her skin. Itching to get out. Never mind that they hadn't defined a setting, or anything. She just wanted to get going, right now! She could sort out the smaller details later, and...
Damnit! That had been part of the excuse she'd given Hisami, but it had been half-true. Nenene needed to learn how to slow down a little, back off, take her time getting to the actual writing stage of the process. She always let her typing speed set the pace, rather than her mind. It wouldn't hurt to take her time with things. Especially not since the point of it all was to help Hisami resolve whatever it was that was bothering her.
But, wait, there was something she could do. She methodically collected a jacket, her keys, wallet and train pass, then strode past the kitchen to the door, calling out behind herself, "I'm going out."
The train to Jinbouchou was packed. Most were, at that time of night. Nenene emerged from the station a little more sweaty and exhausted. A little less eager to pound the pavement between the bookstores. She only gave a short, dismissive glance to Yomiko's apartment block. There were no lights on, and it was far too dark, even with streetlights, for anyone to read without some form of illuminatory assistance. No, Yomiko was probably visiting Nancy again.
Nenene refused to think about that. Absolutely refused. She just wasn't going to let it bother her. She had a mission to accomplish! A vital, and important objective.
Even though it had been two years since the inhuman burning of books, the book district still saw record crowds. Her new editor had said something along the lines of "perceived scarcity" and other market assessment jargon, but Nenene had just brushed it off. The booklover's community had received a stark and horrifying memento mori, a forced recognition of the mortality of books. The inevitability of entropy. When people see death, they often take refuge in sex, but when threatened with the death of a book, sales go crazy. Jinbouchou had joined as a collective of booksellers with the chain franchises like Book Off, and Borders and Kinokuniya. Late night opening hours, and a celebration of the customer.
It wasn't a bad thing, but it was a little more mercenary than Nenene felt comfortable with. She wasn't a fool, she knew that a lot of book production was about money. Hell, she'd lived off of overseas translation rights royalties for years. But that didn't make it any less dirty feeling. Knowing Yomiko, and now the others, too, she'd developed an unhealthily romantic view of literature.
She reasoned her best bet was Toto Books. Partly because its stock leant towards odd things, and partly out of loyalty. With restricted clientèle, though the old man surely never starved, he probably had a few lean weeks in every year. Or month. Nenene liked to give him her money when she could.
Descending into the shop, smelling a dryer and cleaner version of the must that enveloped Yomiko's rooms, hearing the soft noises the cat made as he prowled the shelves, it calmed Nenene a little. The soft light, the memories of all those years spent browsing, it sunk into your bones, like home.
"Hey, old man." She said fondly. He stirred, leathery skin and liver spots, and nodded.
"Hey, brat."
She would have bristled at that, but she probably still owed him one. Probably always would. "I'm looking for a copy of The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. Preferably in Japanese. If you have two, I'll take them both."
"Hmm. Chocolate Pot, you said?" He thought for a moment, and she browsed a pile on the counter while she waited.
"Down there, left, on the right. But I've only got the one, and it's in English. American edition."
It was a little sticky with sebum. The pages were of cheaper paper than Nenene was used to; somehow American books just managed to do that. Especially ones from the 80s. Rough and thick and pulpy, leaving a grimy and scraped sensation on the skin. You almost didn't want to turn the pages. But it was a reasonable price, for that. She took it to the counter, but found that he was on the phone. To the store across the road, from the sound of it.
"Good. Hold it." He hung up without any words of thanks. Nenene opened her mouth, to thank him and pay, but he was busy scribbling something down on an index card. The name of the place across the road, and another further down, closer to Yomiko's place. He thrust it across at Nenene, and took the note she'd had on the counter while she put together what he'd done.
"Oh, you didn't have to do that, I could have done my own legwork." It was rare that Nenene fell into polite apologetic language. She supposed that she just had learnt a level of respect for the old booksellers along the way somewhere.
He waved a hand dismissively, and counted some change out onto the counter. "I don't do this for normal customers. But since your lot have kept me in business, in various ways, I don't mind saving you a bit of hassle."
He coughed, and settled back down in his chair, a polite but silent dismissal. Nenene collected her things, and headed off to pick up two other copies of the book. She'd forgotten, since she hadn't visited the stores proper recently, that the genuflecting and generally obsequious behaviour of the vendors still grated on her nerves. It had been two years, after all. And all they'd done was try to not get killed horribly, or turned into a walking neuroscience experiment. Nenene, at least, didn't think she'd done anything to earn the recognition of a bunch of booksellers. She'd rather that they just kept their honorific terms and wide smiles for Yomiko. She seemed to like them.
Their well-meaning clamour was enough to exhaust Nenene. She'd worried, before she came out, that she wouldn't be able to sleep, she was so full of energy and excitement. But now that she'd survived the rigours of secondhand booksales, her eyes were drooping. Her brain was slowly, but surely, shutting down for the evening. She sighed heavily, and rested her forehead against the train window, watching the city lights smear into impressionistic blurs as her eyes unfocused behind her glasses, and the train itself began to speed up.
In the morning, when it was just gone 8am, barely after breakfast had been cleaned up, the phone rang. Nenene hurried to pick it up before it woke anyone, and she was glad that she had. Hisami's reedy young voice came as a surprise.
"Nenene-sensei?"
"Yep."
"Good. Have you ever read Sophie's World?"
Nenene sat down. She imagined the conversation might go on for a while, if it was shop talk. "No, but I think I've seen the TV series. It's about Sophie Amundsen, or something like that, right? And a philosopher?"
"Yes." The happiness in Hisami's voice was way too much positivity for Nenene's liking, that early in the morning, but she could bear it, for the sake of writing.
"Well, I was thinking, about the strange ways that the philosopher sends her mail How it shows up in her mailbox, and her garden, that sort of thing. Dead letters. Other ways of delivering letters than using a postal service."
Nenene nodded thoughtfully, letting the information sink in. She maybe wanted another coffee before she had a conversation like this. "Huh. Sounds like you've got an idea in your head."
Nenene let the white noise do the work while she re-boiled the kettle. She backed away from the kitchen, so that she could still hear Hisami while the water heated up.
"Well, I was wondering if we couldn't use something interesting, like parallel dimensions, or something that connects two points in time. That two entirely unanticipated people are able to communicate in a way that shouldn't be possible."
Nenene liked the idea, but there were some problems with it. "For starters, then, the first problem is that no matter how cool a concept it is, there's a limit to how much they can affect each other. If it's parallel dimensions, for example, can one action in one dimension have an affect in the other? If so, why, and how... that sort of thing. If it's time, that's easier, I suppose. But time paradoxes are confusing to plot, and with that UK show being re-released..."
"Dr. Who?"
"Yes, Dr. Who. With that being remade, the time thing will become overdone pretty soon. I heard that the Suzumiya series is going to get an animation contract soon, too. That's got enough time-traveling in it to saturate the whole market with clone novels and short stories."
"Hmm. So you think parallel dimensions?"
Nenene sucked a breath in through her teeth. "Ma-aybe. I don't know. Why don't we work with the idea that they're just communicating between two different realities, whether it's dimensional, or temporal, or spatial – like another planet or something – and work on how we want the dynamics of it to work. The way the dropoff works, that might give us some hints to how much we want to make the parallel realities a part of the plot."
Hisami made a thoughtful noise at the other end of the line. "That makes sense. So how do we want it to work, then? If we're not using the postal service, there's not many ways that letters can be transferred between two people..."
Nenene thought, hard. "It's ideally going to be something that the characters have exclusive access to, so that they don't spend their entire days checking back, just in case... Something convenient, and everyday, and that people can put letters into..."
"Ah!" Hisami exclaimed. Nenene waited for the explanation, patient, hopeful for a breakthrough. But nothing came of it.
"What is it?" Nenene didn't want to risk saying her name aloud, in case Anita came into the room. They still hadn't discussed just how secret they wanted everything to be.
"Oh, um, I just... nothing. I was remembering something. What about using a shoe locker? At a school?"
"That's perfect!"
She could tell the difference in the silence. Hisami was proud. Nenene tried to imagine how she'd have felt, herself, if she'd been having this conversation with one of her predecessors, and she couldn't. She had trouble enough wrapping her mind around the concept, and she assumed that Hisami was having similar difficulties.
Nenene heard some footsteps in the hallway, heading for the bathroom. She pressed closer to the phone, and lowered her voice, just in case. "Look, people are waking up here. Until we agree on our level of disclosure, we should probably keep things on a more private level."
"Oh, absolutely." Hisami agreed.
"So we should meet, now that we're plotting together. Are you free today?"
"No. I mean, don't you know? I'm meeting Anita, to lend her my copy of the last Harry Potter book... she says that Maggie is hogging your copy."
"Pah. Harry Potter. We could kick his arse any day."
Hisami giggled, and then said a quick farewell. Nenene reciprocated, and reminded her; "email me, we should meet outside somewhere in the next few days."
Just as she was putting the phone back in the receiver, Anita came rushing out, hair unbrushed and eyes bleary. She raised an eyebrow, and then settled down on the couch to watch Anita rush about, getting ready.
"Up late?"
Anita paused, looking at Nenene oddly. "I had to be, to get a look in."
"Ah. The new Potter book?"
Anita blushed. "Yeah. I'm borrowing a copy from Hisa-chan today," she paused to tug a sock on, "but I couldn't help myself. I had to know. I heard awful things about them, you see."
"... the books?"
Anita looked at her with a weird expression. "The twins. Fred and George."
Nenene hadn't read the books in ages, and she'd only really had a look-in at the first one, but she remembered the redheaded twins. They were the sort of character type that stood out, and appealed, even if you knew deep down in your heart that they were an overdone cliché. It worked, and even Nenene had found herself smiling at them as she read.
"Fair enough. Hope it wasn't anything too awful, then."
Anita's face sunk, and she pulled on her other sock. "I didn't get that far, I fell asleep."
The dismay was clear on her face. It was for that sad expression, really, that Nenene stood and retrieved Anita's wallet from the kitchen bench, handing it to the stricken girl, and shepherding her out the door. "Don't miss the train then, and I hope it works out well with those boys for you."
Anita had the presence of mind to scowl and poke out her tongue at the teasing, but then spun and rushed for the lifts without another word.
Nenene wished that she still had the energy of her youth, some days. Not usually, because she would be happy if there were no more library related days of peril in her future. But sometimes, when she saw how happy Hisami and Anita were, she felt a little jealous.
Perhaps she just wished that she'd had a chance at a laconic adolescence with Yomiko. Writing books, reading and going out for tea. It would be much nicer than being kidnapped by weirdo pervert fans, or witnessing her teacher, protector, strong-minded fan and bodyguard brought to her knees by a painful past that Nenene could never help her heal from.
Ah well. She had better get upstairs and make some notes. She hadn't had any concrete ideas, but the conversation with Anita had sparked something within Nenene's gut. She could feel something building up, being processed. Hopefully, by the time Anita was home, seeking closure for her twins...
Twins! That was it! Nenene rushed upstairs, and sent it as a one-word email to Hisami, not sure if the girl would open it until later in the afternoon, but certain that when she did, she would understand.
Within moments, there was a reply.
Twins! Of course!
Wait, aren't you meeting Anita nowish?
She's coming here. So I have a while, if she's just left your house. How about this? Twins born, and in different realities, different twins are stillborn. So they are different genders, or have different names, or something, but end up through their surname and suburb in the same school, with the same shoe locker?
I like that. Oh, sorry, I should have had Anita bring you a copy of the book. I'll drop it by later tonight, if you like. We can have tea, or something, and claim it against tax. Work expenses. How about this... other students put love letters into the shoe lockers, and the letters end up with the wrong twins. The book starts with one of them, someone who loves fantasy and supernatural stories or something like that – someone with an imagination – writing a letter to the intended recipient of the love letter, discussing string theory, with the original love letter enclosed, too. Then they begin to correspond, and learn more about each other. We'd need some sort of conflict for the plot to build towards, that can involve the dimensional thing or not, depending on how we feel. We don't want to plot it out too much in the start, just set out the basic rules, so that we can play. It will evolve and change, because we'll both have a hand in it.
That's alright, and tonight sounds fine. I'll email you when Anita leaves here; I don't know how long we'll be. I like the love letter idea. Not sure about the conflict, but like you said, that will evolve. I'd better go now.
And that was that, it seemed. Everything was set up and if they had wanted to, they could have started writing the letters that day, but they both wanted to secure it with a meeting. Nenene felt far more comfortable working with Hisami than she had expected to. Perhaps it was because they'd found a format that allowed them both to work at their own pace. She didn't want to question it too much, in case she triggered the same bad karma that had seen one of her recent drafts sprayed in battle – for a just cause, but still, completely ruined – and charred, shot at, and carried away by the four winds.
She'd already become too attached to this project to risk it like that. Instead, she spent the day looking up lists of names, male and female, trying to pair them together. She was half tempted to abuse that romance author's name, and have them related to a season. Could you make a masculine name related to a season? Nenene had honestly had next to no business with men that weren't British, Chinese, or otherwise spelt in katakana. She'd have to expand her knowledge.
Unless the characters were foreign, and then they could play around with a literary reference, or mythology...
She segued. It seemed the only appropriate word for it. She clicked and browsed and went in circles around Wikipedia. Before she knew it, she was gaping blearily at her inbox, and realising that Hisami had emailed her half an hour ago. She'd been sitting, hunched over, all day.
I'm free now. Whenever. Where should I meet you?
Sorry I'm late. Was looking something up. How about the cafe in central Kinokuniya? It's open late, it's quieter than other places at this time of day, and the trains back here are pretty reliable. That, and we're unlikely to run into the Paper Sisters there; they usually stick to Jinbouchou, when they have enough money to spare for books.
Alright. Half an hour?
I'll see you there.
They ran into each other on the train, which was unsurprising. They'd got on at the same stop, probably, though into different carriages. Nenene had seen her dark, beribbonned hair through the carriage door windows, and had thanked her lucky stars that this was a train that had connections between the carriages. She crossed, and sat down beside Hisami, who was so immersed in whatever she was reading that she didn't look up until the speakers chimed that they had reached their stop.
"Anything good?"
"Ah! Ah, Nenene! I'm sorry, I was... it's good, yes."
"Glad to hear it. Though you might want to dedicate some time to this one, instead." Nenene handed her a tight paper bag, that was wrapped around one of the Japanese secondhand copies of The Enchanted Chocolate Pot.
"It's a little different, being set in Europe, and mostly being about romance and magic, but it's still going to be useful to us."
Hisami nodded, and tucked both books under her arm as they followed the crowd out of the station. They made their way to the bookstore easily enough, and only detoured once on the way to the cafe. A quick pickup of something Nenene had ordered before she'd left the house. When they had picked out a table for themselves, Nenene put her wrapped book down on it and left to order a pot of tea and some cake. When she returned, Hisami had peeked inside the book she'd just bought, and was turned toward her with wide eyes.
"You bought a copy of Sophie's World?" Hisami seemed aghast at the thought.
"Sure, why not? I mean, it counts as a work expense now."
"You mean, we're going to publish this?"
Nenene shrugged. "If we get it done, sure. Why not. I think our idea's worth reading. Not that I want to push you into anything, of course. I mean, if you're still struggling, I don't want to put any pressure on you..."
"Oh, no, not at all." Hisami reassured her. "It's just... I think I figured it out."
"Figured what out?"
The girl stirred her tea, and a small smile found its way onto her face. "I was trying to think about books that Anita and her sisters would want to read. Books that my parents would be proud of, books that would be remembered for their content. But I'd never thought that I had to write a book that I wanted to read."
So, the kid had broken through her barrier. Nenene had honestly had such little time for books she didn't enjoy reading, that it had never been an issue with her. She'd established her style well before Yomiko had entered her life, too. But growing into the role of an author, surrounded by paper users... no wonder.
"Well, I'm glad that we've found an idea that you like, then. It's all uphill from here, kiddo."
Hisami nodded, and grinned wider than Nenene had ever seen the girl grin before. "But I'll be moving forwards, learning and writing, no matter how hard it gets."
Nenene didn't want to mention to the poor girl, that any writer worth their salt ends up fighting far more battles against their own barriers than one. She didn't want to spoil the happy and victorious mood. They still hadn't knuckled down to discussing Nenene's idea, of a Castor and Pollux style plot device for their twins.
Instead, she raised her teacup, and caught Hisami's eye. "To all of our readers, then."
Hisami nodded emphatically, and lifted her own cup, to bump it against Nenene's in a toast. "To all of our readers."
Endnote: To my knowledge, Sorcery and Cecilia isn't translated into Japanese, but I would rather pretend that it is than stretch the language skills of all the characters involved.