I've Come to the Bookstore

"Haa... I'm so bored."

Lying on the bed, I was profoundly, magnificently idle.

Home, the convenience store, home, the convenience store...

A month had passed since I came to this world. It wasn't a short time, and yet the radius of my life stayed pitifully small: home, the park, the convenience store.

"Oh, right. I went to the cosmetics shop, too..."

Not that I'd gone to put on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠makeup. I didn't know the first thing about it. The toiletries in the house had simply run out, and the shop sat about a five-minute walk past the convenience store, so I'd gone once and brought some back. That was all.

There wasn't even lotion at home. Nothing like lip balm, either.

The problem was that I'd all but dragged the bags home, grunting the whole way. If I hadn't run into Han Soyeon partway there, they would have torn clean through before I ever got them back.

"Even the game isn't fun."

Boing. Boing. It was a simple game: get the pudding to the finish line. The pudding only ran. Jumping, sliding, and triggering abilities were all left to me.

Boiing— boing. The pudding sprang high and cleared a rising spike.

Psshk! It couldn't dodge the poison dart that came flying at it in midair, and burst on the spot.

...The difficulty on this thing is absolute garbage.

I'd cleared everything through stage eleven ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠easily enough, but stage twelve—the one labeled the boss stage—had been chewing on me for a full hour, and I still couldn't beat it.

"...So in the end they just want my money."

It was a game full of puddings with all kinds of abilities. Buy the paid one that came with Invincibility, and I'd clear it without any trouble.

Click.

"Hnyaaaahm..."

I shut the game off, yawned long and loud, and got to my feet. By now I'd more or less grown used to this cute little voice of mine.

Sitting on the bed, I looked at the bookshelf.

A major textbook, classic literature, books on law. The shelf was crowded with volumes far too difficult to belong to a girl this age.

I wonder if she ever actually read those.

"...Are there no novels?"

One of my hobbies, back when I was a man, had been reading contemporary literary fiction. I hadn't liked it from the start. The director had hounded me into it until, somehow, the habit stuck. And then I fell headfirst into webtoons and web novels in the army. Those existed here, too. I'd looked through a few, and plenty of them were genuinely good.

Even so, reading them, I couldn't feel that old catharsis.

"...It feels like I'm watching my own story."

The people in web novels and webtoons mostly got dragged through the dirt. Regressor or possessor, the moment anything happened, it happened to the protagonist. They were also showered with every grade of heaven-sent opportunity, but either way, the protagonist suffered.

Once, I would have enjoyed that. Now that the things meant to stay inside a story had become reality, I couldn't find them fun. I was afraid the things that happened to protagonists might happen to me.

So... I'll just look at recent literary books. That seemed better, for now.

"...The bookstore is pretty far."

I opened a map app and searched for a bookstore nearby. If I caught a bus at the stop, it said, I'd be there in about thirty minutes.

It should be all right to go a little farther, shouldn't it? The thought of traveling that far made me faintly anxious, but—

"I can't stay shut up in the house forever."

Things had been peaceful lately. It would be fine.

"Nngh...!"

I stretched my arms high overhead and headed for the bathroom to wash up.

My first time properly outside the apartment.

Strange. Looking out the bus window, I saw a Seoul completely unlike the one I knew.

Is that the Hero Association? A massive building, crowned with a handsomely worked H logo. The place was enormous, and quite a crowd had gathered around it.

"It's closer than I thought..."

Home and the Hero Association building weren't far apart.

Figures. That's why Soyeon comes by the apartment every day. I hadn't seen her today. Something must have come up.

And so, not long after we passed the Association—

Beep—

We'd reached the stop I wanted. I pressed the bell and got off.

Following the map a short way, I came to a street lined with shops.

There's a clothing store right beside it. I'll buy a book, then pick up some clothes. The shop next to the bookstore carried a brand I'd never seen, but the storefront was large enough that it had to be fairly well known.

Ding— The bookstore was quite big. There were fewer people inside than I'd expected, though.

"Welcome."

A woman with her hair tied up looked at me and greeted me brightly.

"Hello."

"...Oh. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Yes."

I smiled a little as I answered, and the woman who'd been looking at me went rigid.

What's with her? I couldn't tell. I just needed to look around at the books...

It's huge...! I'd wanted a small bookstore. This place was far too big. Maybe that was what you got in a hero-story world—the scale was ridiculous.

"Um... where would the recent literary bestsellers be?"

"Ahem— khm... uh, if you go up th-those stairs over there, it's w-written upstairs."

She looked flustered just from seeing me. ...Why?

I found out soon enough, on my way up the stairs.

"What are you spacing out for?"

"...Dude, are you crazy? Did you just see that girl?"

"No? I didn't."

"A girl so fucking pretty it isn't even fair just walked in. She smiled and said hi to me, and I thought my heart was gonna stop..."

"Kids are cute and that's the end of it. Quit the fuss..."

A man's voice and a woman's, faint.

...So this unrealistic face of mine isn't average, after all. Everyone I'd met in person had looks that could crush the celebrities on TV, so I'd started to wonder whether my own face counted as ordinary. Even here, though, this appearance was unrealistic. That much was clear.

"...Not that that's a good thing."

Being pretty was nice, but in a world where villains ran rampant, all it did was raise the odds of getting kidnapped.

And so I climbed the stairs and reached the latest-bestsellers corner.

"Inside Your Heart, 97, Why Is Your Life So Sad..."

Titles I'd never seen once.

Classical literature was the same. I'm not sure about the modern era... Did things diverge after this became a society of abilities? As far as I knew, abilities had appeared in this world only about eighty years ago. Until then, its history was nearly identical to Earth's.

"...Hmm. Not really."

I opened a few books, read a little, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and set them back down, over and over. They were labeled bestsellers, but they weren't to my taste, and they weren't much fun.

I was still walking along, looking, when—

Thud—

"Ow!"

"Ugh!"

I'd collided with someone. When we hit, I could have sworn I felt something soft...

"A-are you okay?"

A high, fragile woman's voice.

"...Yes, I'm fine."

"You're not hurt anywhere?"

A brown-haired woman, bent at the waist so her eyes met mine. Her outfit was more than a little suspicious: sunglasses, a mask, a trench coat buttoned all the way to the throat, and... a beret? Spring or not, that getup looked awfully warm.

"I'm sorry... I wasn't watching where I was going."

"It's all right. I was looking somewhere else, too."

I'd been lost in the books when we collided, so we were even. But why was this woman just standing there?

"......Cute."

"Pardon?"

"Ah— n-no! I just... when I see something cute, I... um, never mind... sorry!"

Flustered, she babbled, then apologized at full volume.

"...You're loud."

Good thing there was hardly anyone around.

"Ah... sorry..."

At the remark, she dropped to a whisper. An awkward silence settled between us. It didn't last long, and I was the one who broke it. I didn't say anything more to her. I dipped my head in a small bow and started away.

"...Wait!"

Or I tried to.

"I said you're loud...!"

"Ah... s-sorry..."

This woman, again!

"It's just... do you like books, by any chance? I feel bad, so... I'll recommend a few. I'll b-buy them for you, too."

She pressed right up against me and whispered it into my ear.

"......!"

"W-what's wrong?"

"...It's nothing."

She'd startled me. A soft, sweetly lilting voice murmuring straight into my ear—I flinched before I knew it.

"And I'm all right. I—"

"Oh, Big Sis isn't a suspicious person. Umm... do you like heroes?"

...? What was that, out of nowhere?

"...Yes."

"Ah, thank goodness."

Tuk. Tuk. Without warning, she undid the buttons of her trench coat in front of me.

What, all of a sudden? For a split second I thought she might be one of those women who flash people from under a trench coat, but what she revealed inside was pretty shocking.

Brown, spandex-like fabric, and at the center of it, a small star.

"...Starlight?"

That outfit, and the star fixed over the chest, belonged to Starlight—the S-Rank hero, the association's standard-bearer.

"Yeah, um... keep it a secret that Big Sis is Starlight, okay?"

Somewhere in there she had taken off the sunglasses and the mask, and she was, without a doubt, the Starlight I had seen on the news.