Chapter 805

Chapter 805: Chapter 805

Several books Shiina Hiyori had ordered from the bookstore arrived that morning, and the good news immediately put her in a cheerful mood.

Naturally, she decided to take them to the library.

Compared with reading alone in her dorm room, Hiyori preferred the quiet atmosphere there. Rows upon rows of bookshelves always reminded her of her father’s study, carrying the same familiar feeling that made it easy for her to relax.

Perhaps because it was Saturday, the library was relatively empty.

Hiyori quickly found her usual seat in a secluded corner where almost nobody ever disturbed her. Kaoru had once called it her "fixed spawn point."

Hiyori still didn’t completely understand what he meant.

She was simply always here.

Thinking about that strange description, Hiyori happened to notice Kaoru sitting beside her usual seat.

She paused in surprise.

Then, clutching her bag against herself, she quietly approached from behind.

Kaoru hadn’t noticed her.

Curious, Hiyori leaned slightly around his shoulder to see what he was doing.

He wasn’t reading.

Instead, he was writing on sheets of staff paper. Beside them sat a notebook covered in messy handwriting that looked suspiciously like lyrics.

Every now and then, as though testing something in his head, Kaoru quietly hummed a melody Hiyori had never heard before.

It sounded pleasant.

Hiyori didn’t know anything about Kaoru’s actual identity outside the school, so she found the scene rather strange. She couldn’t understand exactly what he was doing, but even she could guess that he seemed to be composing a song.

After hesitating for a moment, she gently tapped his shoulder.

"Good morning, Mitoma-kun."

Kaoru jumped and spun around.

The moment he saw Hiyori, his shoulders relaxed.

"Sorry."

Hiyori quickly withdrew her hand.

"I didn’t mean to scare you. I saw you here, so I thought I should say hello."

"I thought I came pretty early."

Kaoru shifted aside slightly.

"I didn’t expect Shiina-san to be here at this hour too. What a coincidence. If you don’t mind, you can sit here."

Hiyori puffed out her cheeks.

This was her seat.

Why was he acting as though he were generously inviting her to use it?

Still, she was already accustomed to Kaoru’s shamelessness. They often sat together anyway, so there was little point complaining.

She did, however, exercise a little caution.

Instead of sitting beside him, Hiyori took the seat directly across the table and placed her bag on the chair next to her, conveniently preventing Kaoru from finding an excuse to migrate to her side later.

Kaoru noticed several brand-new books emerging from her bag, their protective wrapping still intact.

Apparently, the books she had ordered recently had arrived.

That explained why she had come to the library so early.

Hiyori carefully removed the wrapping from the first book.

The moment she opened it, a faint scent of fresh paper rose from the pages.

She loved that smell.

With obvious anticipation, she immediately began reading.

Kaoru said nothing.

Neither did Hiyori.

For a long while, only the faint scratch of Kaoru’s pen and the occasional turning of pages disturbed the silence between them. Every so often, footsteps passed somewhere among the shelves as another student searched for a book.

That was simply what libraries were like.

During exam season, the entire building would probably be filled with nothing but pages turning.

Kaoru lowered his head again and continued working on the new song.

He had already exhausted most of the existing songs he could conveniently reproduce from memory, which meant that now he genuinely had to create music from scratch.

Fortunately, rewards such as [Vocal Master], [Beethoven’s Sorrow], and several others had given him more than enough musical foundation to avoid stumbling around blindly.

Besides, during the later period of his career at 283 Production, Kaoru had completed most albums largely by himself anyway.

Now that he was composing again, the process gradually began to feel familiar.

The biggest problem was the location.

A library demanded silence, so he couldn’t sing sections aloud whenever he wanted to test them. He would have to wait until the idols performed the song before he could properly judge how everything worked together.

Which raised an obvious question.

Why not write in his dorm or at the agency?

Because writing in his dorm was impossible.

Kei and Kikyō were far too distracting.

At first, Kaoru could still sit there composing while one or both girls leaned against him.

Eventually, however, the music always stopped getting written and the situation somehow turned into cuddling, teasing, and wasting the entire afternoon together.

At this rate, Kaoru had no idea whether the new song would ever be finished.

He did know that those girls were dangerously soft, warm, and addictive.

One day, he was probably going to drown in that comfortable life and never escape.

That was why Kaoru had come to the library first thing in the morning.

He intended to finish the song before returning.

No more delays.

By the time Hiyori finished her first new book and finally looked up to rest her eyes, Kaoru was still writing.

She glanced at the pages curiously.

"Mitoma-kun, what are you writing?"

She already suspected it was music, but she deliberately pretended not to know and waited to hear his answer.

"Not notes for school."

Kaoru looked up.

"More like a personal hobby... and work."

Then he smiled.

"If Shiina-san listens to much music lately, you’ll probably find out pretty soon."

That was practically a confession.

Hiyori became faintly embarrassed.

Apparently he had noticed her peeking earlier.

Still, her curiosity only increased.

Was he genuinely writing music?

Kaoru sounded strangely confident, as though whatever he was composing might actually be released before long.

Hiyori wondered whether it was electronic music or some simple online track.

It wasn’t that she doubted him personally.

Songwriting simply had an absurdly broad range. These days, any student could upload a melody they made on a computer and call it an original song.

"If Mitoma-kun wants to keep it a secret, I won’t pry."

Hiyori made a small cheering gesture with one fist.

"But do your best. And please tell me when you release it."

She rarely listened to much music, but if Kaoru genuinely published something, she would happily save it.

At the very least, she didn’t want him to end up with no listeners at all.

Kaoru blinked before smiling.

"Sure. When the time comes, I’ll invite Shiina-san to hear it live."

Hiyori quietly decided that she shouldn’t discourage him.

Kaoru had encouraged her often enough in the past.

It was only fair that she support him too.

Even if she ended up being the only person in the audience, she would clap properly.

Kaoru had absolutely no idea that Hiyori’s expectations for his music were that low.

He was already imagining how surprised she would be once she finally learned what he actually did for a living.

Then an excited voice suddenly interrupted them.

"Mitoma-kun! So this is where you were today."

The voice was familiar.

Kaoru turned and saw a relatively young female teacher approaching.

His expression immediately became uneasy.

"Long time no see, Asahizawa-sensei."

Asahizawa was one of the library staff members as well as a third-year homeroom teacher. Kaoru had heard that she was a few years older than Chabashira Sae and the others, making her something of a senior among the faculty.

"Oh?"

Asahizawa noticed Hiyori and immediately grinned.

"Hiyori-chan is here too. Did I interrupt your little date?"

Hiyori’s face stiffened.

"Asahizawa-sensei, we’re not on a date."

Because Hiyori frequently visited the library and Kaoru was Student Council president, Asahizawa knew both of them quite well.

"Really?"

The teacher looked dramatically surprised.

"But everyone says Mitoma-kun is some kind of legendary pervert. I see you two together so often that I assumed you were dating too."

"No."

Hiyori hurriedly waved her hands.

"You misunderstood."

She had never even held hands romantically with a boy before.

Her entire experience in that area was practically nonexistent.

"Well, that’s a relief."

Asahizawa looked toward Kaoru.

"If even Hiyori-chan falls victim to you, I might actually have to intervene."

She lightly tapped the top of his head as though warning a troublesome child.

"Asahizawa-sensei, please don’t lead the bullying against students."

Kaoru looked exasperated.

"Hmph. If you were in my class, I’d keep you under control."

Asahizawa waved one hand dismissively.

"Anyway, since the Student Council president happens to be here, the library received a new shipment. Come help."

Kaoru sighed.

He had known there was no chance she had approached him merely to say hello.

As a teacher, Asahizawa saw absolutely nothing wrong with putting the Student Council president to work.

Wasn’t that what student councils were for?

"Relax, relax. I’m not asking you to work for free."

She patted his shoulder.

"There’ll be a reward afterward. A respectable Student Council president should know how to help hardworking teachers."

"How many books?"

Kaoru ignored the sales pitch.

"Not that many. I’m just alone today and can’t handle everything."

Asahizawa considered it.

"Including entering them into the system and putting them on the shelves... probably the rest of the morning."

Kaoru glanced at his nearly completed sheet music.

Only a few minor details remained.

He could revise those later and finish the lyrics in the afternoon.

At this rate, the entire song should be done by tomorrow.

"Um... can I help too?"

Hiyori raised her hand.

Her eyes had lit up the moment Asahizawa mentioned new books.

"Of course."

Asahizawa smiled warmly.

"But Hiyori-chan should leave anything heavy to this guy."

The difference between how she treated the two students could not have been more obvious.

Kaoru was used to it.

As Student Council president, nearly every teacher recognized him.

Unfortunately, that also meant nearly every teacher knew his reputation.

Compared with some of them, Asahizawa was actually being friendly.

Hiyori looked expectantly toward Kaoru.

He sighed.

"Fine. Where are the books?"

...

Kaoru had expected work.

He had not expected this much work.

From the morning until nearly noon, they barely stopped moving. Entering the new titles into the library system alone consumed a surprising amount of time, and Asahizawa then assigned them the additional task of sorting and shelving everything.

Hiyori, however, looked delighted throughout the entire process.

Kaoru pushed a small cart piled high with books while she walked beside him carrying several volumes of her own. Together, they sorted them according to category and placed them onto the appropriate shelves.

"Oh."

Hiyori paused over one title.

"This is Virginia Woolf’s The Waves."

She looked reluctant to put it away.

"I haven’t read this yet. I didn’t know the library had ordered it."

"Then borrow it."

Kaoru shrugged.

Virginia Woolf was famous for stream-of-consciousness writing, a style Kaoru had never particularly enjoyed.

"But there are too many books I want to read."

Hiyori looked genuinely troubled.

She couldn’t possibly carry all of them back.

Kaoru pictured her small bag.

Three or four books were probably the practical limit.

"Hmm... I’ll leave this one for another time."

Hiyori reluctantly slid The Waves onto the shelf.

Then, as she looked at the long rows of books surrounding them, her expression became thoughtful.

"Mitoma-kun, how many books have you read?"

"I’ve never counted."

Kaoru shook his head.

"I only remember that I started reading regularly around third grade and kept doing it every year after that."

"I started once I learned how to read."

Hiyori smiled somewhat shyly.

"I haven’t really stopped since then."

She glanced along the shelves.

"But even after all that, there are still so many books I’ve never read."

Her fingers lightly brushed across a row of spines.

"I heard the Library of Congress in America is the largest library in the world, with more than 173 million items in its collections."

Her voice softened.

"When I first learned that, I remember wondering whether anyone could actually read all of them."

"With a library that large, they could probably lose one book and nobody would notice."

Kaoru looked around.

"Reading every single thing in it sounds like something only an AI could manage."

Hiyori gave a small laugh.

"That wasn’t what I thought back then."

She raised a tiny fist.

"I thought that if nobody had ever read all of them, I would become the first."

She immediately became embarrassed.

"Looking back, that was really childish."

"Shiina-san is still trying, though."

"I am."

Hiyori nodded.

"But I changed my goal."

She smiled faintly.

"My father told me that if reading everything was impossible, I should at least learn how libraries organize knowledge. If I see a book description, I should be able to guess what field it belongs to and where it would probably be shelved."

Kaoru was genuinely impressed.

The idea sounded simple until one remembered just how many kinds of books existed.

Human publishing wasn’t limited to novels and popular nonfiction.

There were countless specialized academic works whose titles alone could be incomprehensible without years of study.

"Even that simple goal turned out to be impossible for me."

Hiyori looked slightly disappointed.

"Even if I somehow read ten books every day, I might finish only a single row of shelves in a month. And there are thousands and thousands of shelves like these."

Of course it was impossible.

The human brain wasn’t a hard drive where information could simply be dumped indefinitely.

Kaoru placed another book onto the shelf.

"Isn’t that a pretty nice problem to have?"

Hiyori looked at him.

"It means you’ll never run out of something to look forward to."

Kaoru continued shelving books as he spoke.

"Every day, there’ll still be another story waiting for you. Some author spent years—maybe decades—creating it, and then handed it to the world so somebody like you could eventually find it."

He glanced toward her.

"If you think about it that way, you’ll never really be alone. There’ll always be another person waiting inside a book to tell you something."

To Kaoru, Hiyori’s problem sounded like a wealthy person complaining that there were too many things worth buying.

Should she get the yacht today or the private jet tomorrow?

A wonderfully luxurious dilemma.

"So read whatever you want today."

Kaoru pulled The Waves back off the shelf and placed it into Hiyori’s hands.

"The books will still be here tomorrow."

Hiyori blinked.

Then her cheeks puffed slightly.

She had only been sharing a passing thought.

It wasn’t as though she genuinely believed she needed to read every book in existence.

Still, the fact that Kaoru had listened so seriously touched her more than she expected.

Perhaps this was what having a close friend felt like.

"You’re right."

Hiyori hugged The Waves carefully against herself.

"I was thinking too much. Thank you, Mitoma-kun."

Her gratitude was so sincere that Kaoru suddenly felt embarrassed.

He looked away.

Not long afterward, their work was almost finished.

Kaoru returned the book cart to its proper place and decided they might as well go to the cafeteria together afterward.

When he came back, however, he found Hiyori standing on a library ladder with several books gathered in one arm.

She was stretching upward, trying to reach a title on the highest shelf.

Kaoru immediately noticed something dangerous about the situation.

Hiyori was wearing a skirt.

Standing that high on a ladder while reaching overhead left her balance precarious, and the fact that she had taken off her shoes for some reason made the situation even worse.

Kaoru quickly looked away before his gaze could wander somewhere it shouldn’t.

Then Hiyori turned.

"Mi-Mitoma-kun?!"

She startled so badly that she instinctively moved backward.

Unfortunately, she forgot that she was standing on a ladder.

"Wah!"

The ladder shifted.

Hiyori panicked and tried to catch herself, but her footing slipped.

Kaoru reacted instantly.

He lunged forward and caught her arm just as she fell.

The problem was that Hiyori had already lost all balance.

She toppled directly into him.

Thud!

Kaoru caught her instinctively, but his own back slammed painfully against the floor.

He grimaced.

How many times had he ended up underneath a falling girl by now?

Ignoring the pain, Kaoru immediately looked down.

Hiyori was lying against his chest.

She didn’t appear injured.

He let out a breath of relief.

Then he realized that one of his hands had landed somewhere far more awkward than intended.

Both of them froze.

Hiyori’s entire face turned red.

Kaoru quickly shifted his hand away.

"Sorry."

His heartbeat had sped up despite himself.

Hiyori was smaller than many of the girls Kaoru spent time with, and the way she had landed against him made her feel unexpectedly light and soft.

More dangerous was her expression.

Her cheeks were bright red, her lashes trembling, and her lips were pressed tightly together as she stared at him without knowing what to do.

Kaoru instinctively placed an arm around her waist to help steady her.

Hiyori shivered.

She looked at him with wide, nervous eyes, like a rabbit that had suddenly realized it had been caught.

That helpless expression made Kaoru hesitate.

Then, almost without consciously deciding to, he leaned slightly closer.

Hiyori’s eyes widened further.

Her mind seemed to go completely blank.

She didn’t pull away.

Their faces drew closer.

Just before their lips could meet—

"Mitoma-kun, are you two finished with—"

Asahizawa’s voice stopped.

She stared.

Hiyori was lying across Kaoru.

Kaoru had one arm around her.

Their faces were only inches apart.

The teacher remained silent for several seconds.

Then she sighed.

"I understand that a library has a certain atmosphere, but there are too many people around. If you insist on doing this, at least use the infirmary. It’s quieter."

"Asahizawa-sensei!"

Kaoru immediately protested.

The teacher calmly placed two movie tickets on a nearby surface and walked away.

Kaoru and Hiyori looked at each other.

Hiyori’s face became even redder.

She hurriedly scrambled off him, but her legs were still unsteady from the fall, so she ended up sitting on the floor beside him instead.

Realizing how awkward her posture was, she immediately straightened her skirt and pressed her knees together.

Kaoru stood up and deliberately acted as though nothing unusual had happened.

"Next time, keep your shoes on when you use the ladder."

He glanced toward her.

"That was actually dangerous."

He was also privately criticizing himself.

His self-control had clearly deteriorated lately.

For a moment, he had genuinely almost kissed Hiyori simply because the situation presented itself.

"I-I know."

Hiyori lowered her head.

She had removed her shoes because she worried about dirtying the ladder.

Looking back, that had been incredibly stupid.

Her heart was still pounding.

More importantly, her mind refused to stop replaying what had nearly happened.

’What if Mitoma-kun really kissed me?’

That would have been her first kiss.

And they weren’t even dating.

Worse, he had accidentally touched her in an extremely embarrassing place.

"I really didn’t mean to."

Kaoru looked away.

The explanation somehow made him sound even guiltier.

Hiyori’s embarrassment intensified.

"Mm."

That was all she managed.

Kaoru gathered the books scattered across the floor and glanced at their titles.

"Are these the ones you’re borrowing today?"

"Mm-hmm."

Hiyori nodded.

"I saw My Name Is Red earlier and realized I still hadn’t read it, so I thought..."

Her thoughts were still completely disorganized.

"Just be careful next time."

Kaoru handed the books back.

"It’s almost lunchtime. Want to go eat together?"

Still dazed, Hiyori hugged the books against her chest and followed him.

Then she noticed Kaoru pick up the two movie tickets Asahizawa had left behind.

Her face heated all over again.

This was strange.

A boy had touched her somewhere embarrassing.

Shouldn’t she have been angry?

Why was she only flustered?

And frightened?

And strangely unable to stop thinking about it?

Hiyori remembered Asahizawa’s expression and wanted to disappear.

Now she couldn’t even bring herself to look directly at Kaoru.

’Does Mitoma-kun actually like me?’

He had teased her before.

He frequently appeared beside her.

And he already had an absurd number of girlfriends.

Could she even deal with someone like him?

Hiyori wanted to reject the entire possibility.

Yet when she imagined Kaoru no longer sitting beside her in the library, no longer talking about books with her, no longer appearing in her quiet routine...

She didn’t like that either.

’Maybe I should just pretend nothing happened.’

Like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, Hiyori quietly followed Kaoru.

As long as he didn’t force her into anything she wasn’t ready for, she could keep walking beside him.

"Shiina-san."

Kaoru suddenly remembered something.

"What do you want to do after graduation? University, or start working?"

Hiyori didn’t know why he was asking, but she answered honestly.

"I think I’ll continue studying. My father says university opens up a much wider world."

"I see."

Hiyori waited.

No follow-up came.

She was just beginning to wonder why he had asked when Kaoru reached over and lightly patted her head.

"I’m suddenly looking forward to seeing university-student Shiina-san."

He smiled.

"You might be even cuter than you are now."

Hiyori puffed out her cheeks.

He was taking liberties again.

Then another thought occurred to her, and her irritation softened into embarrassment.

"I’m... a little curious about what Mitoma-kun will be like in the future too."

Her voice became quiet.

"Even after we graduate, we should stay friends."

Kaoru paused.

Then a smile slowly appeared.

"Of course."

He nodded.

"We’ll be friends for the rest of our lives."

Privately, Kaoru had already decided that once graduation arrived, he was absolutely going to find some way to lure Hiyori into his agency.

----

The end.

Well not the end tbh there is 3 Chapters left but it locked behind a paywall and i cant access that particular site.