There Was a Used Bookstore on My Way Home from the Station

When I was an elementary school student—and all the way through high school—I commuted to a private school far away by train, so I didn't have a single friend in my local neighborhood. Both of my parents worked, so every day I would play alone at home until they got back. But I hardly had any toys to play with by myself, so you know what I did? I just read manga all the time. My parents had even banned the Famicom, and they rarely bought me manga. However, I got 500 yen a month for allowance, and since I'd been commuting for over an hour each way since the first grade, they gave me an extra 100 yen every day just in case I got thirsty and wanted to buy a juice. I used that money to buy manga like crazy.

Still, that only came out to about 3,000 yen a month. Not even ten books. I’d finish reading them in the blink of an eye. So I was always thinking, I want to buy more manga, I want to read more.

Then, I think it was around the fourth grade, I somehow learned that there were places called used bookstores in this world, where you could buy manga cheap. And as luck would have it, there was a used bookstore on my way home from the station. I was amazed the first time I nervously stepped inside. Various manga were selling for 100 yen or even less. From then on, I started visiting that shop every day with a 100-yen coin clutched in my hand. But after all, it was just a neighborhood used bookstore, so its inventory was limited. Sure, they got new stock occasionally, but if you buy one book a day, you eventually run out of things to buy. I'd force myself to buy books that looked completely uninteresting just to make it work—buying something like "Experimental Puppet Dummy Oscar" as an elementary schooler says a lot about me, but the store owner was just as bad—and eventually, I started feeling unsatisfied again.

So, since I was no longer satisfied with that shop, what did I do? I started looking for a new used bookstore. The place I lived back then wasn't really the countryside; if you went for a long ride on your bicycle, you could easily get to another town.

As a result, I unexpectedly found another used bookstore pretty close by, about a 15-minute bike ride away. It was down the road to the left from my house, in the opposite direction of the station, which was why I had never been anywhere near there since I was a kid. It was in a small shopping mall-like place—a single building with four or five shops inside, like a toy store, a candy shop, and a butcher—and right across the street was... well, explaining it probably pointless, but that's how clearly I remember the route and the scenery.

I was blown away by that store. It was lined with manga I had never seen before, yet looked incredibly interesting. Well, I could still only buy one or two books, so I would choose and choose as carefully as I could, buy them, and head home thrilled to read them, and as expected, they were genuinely amazing.

Only, I didn't go to that shop all that often. At most, just a few times. Part of the reason was that even though the shop was small, its selection was so incredible that every time I went, I’d end up thinking, I want this too, I want that too, and the agony of not being able to buy them all was almost too much to bear. But honestly, I don't really remember why I didn't go that often. Looking back now, I can't help but think that maybe it wasn't that I didn't go, but that I couldn't go.

Anyway, that's how my elementary school days went, visiting used bookstores and buying manga. But once I entered junior high, I got busy with club activities and started coming home late for various reasons, so I stopped going to used bookstores very much. I still managed to drop by the first shop on the way from the station sometimes, but the second shop was a bit of a hassle since I had to make a special trip out.

Then I reached high school and moved to where I still live now. This is where it gets strange. When you're in high school and studying for entrance exams, things get pretty tough, so naturally you find yourself feeling nostalgic for elementary school days, right? And for some reason, the place I always remembered was that second shop. Eventually, I even started seeing it in my dreams.

So I finally decided to go visit that shop again for the first time in years. I walked from the station along the road I had walked every day until just a few years ago, feeling nostalgic, and from there to that shop—maybe about a 30-minute walk? You go this way, turn here, and yep, this house right here used to keep a huge dog— And then, I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks.

(You can probably already guess.) That shop—or rather, the road leading to that shop—wasn't there. If I just turned one more corner, that mall building and the used bookstore across the street should have been there. I checked over and over again. I walked a little further and tried turning, or went back and started over. Even so, the corner where I was supposed to turn simply could not be found. Or rather, it was supposed to be a T-junction, but the right stem of the road wasn't there, leaving it as a reverse L-shape.

It was evening that day, so I thought maybe I had just made a mistake, and went back the following Sunday, but still, I couldn't find the turning corner no matter what.

Then, it suddenly dawned on me. As I mentioned earlier, I had an extremely strong attachment to manga, so I hadn't sold or thrown away a single book even when we moved. What's more, since I'd read every single one of them over and over again, I remembered all of them perfectly. Yet, I couldn't remember a single manga I had bought at that store. I was sure I had read them thinking they were amazing, but I couldn't remember what kind of manga they were at all.

Ever since I realized that, I started to feel like maybe I shouldn't try to force myself to look for it. I don't really know why, but I felt like it might be better to just leave it alone.

By the way, even now as an adult working in society, when things get tough, I still dream about that used bookstore. The content has been the exact same since high school: if I head left from the front of my house just as I remember, I can easily reach the shop. It's as small as ever, but with a great selection full of fascinating manga. And since I have way more money than I did as an elementary schooler, I try to buy out the whole store, but for some reason, I can never actually buy anything. Suddenly a crowd of people pours into the shop and pushes me out, or conversely, there's no one at the register and no matter how many times I call out, nobody comes.

Before long, I get the feeling of, "Ah well, I guess I need to head home soon," and I wake up. I'm actually looking forward to seeing when I'll finally be able to buy those books.