Book 6: Chapter 7: December 20th (Sunday) – Asamura Yuuta
I felt restless all day. The moment I got up, I was feeling a mixture of nervousness and excitement. This feeling didn’t go away even during my shift at work. And it didn’t take long for the promised time to arrive. It was currently 6 pm. Just thirty more minutes. With Christmas right around the corner, the streets grew more crowded by the day. It didn’t quite feel right to leave work early during such a storm. Especially during the latter half of December, since working in a bookstore was always pure hell.
As delivery halts over the New Year’s, the schedule for releases is always pushed forward, forcing new releases out sooner than usual. This in return meant we had to pack the shelves with them. This is what we call ‘preemptive stocking.’ It’s basically the result of the authors and editorial departments apologizing with tears in their eyes as they send us all the releases early and force this hellish schedule upon us. If we get twenty copies of a release that we usually would only get about ten of per week, then we’ll start running out of space on the flat displays, forcing us to get creative in book placement, and we need to create more displays for each series, too.
And since the customers don’t know that all of this is happening behind the scenes, they end up getting confused and ask us employees for help. When someone is lost in this world, there are others who have to work their butts off. That is how this world continues to turn. Honestly, I have nothing but gratitude. I just hope I can help someone when they’re feeling lost.
Oh yeah, Yomiuri-senpai will be coming in for a shift today when Ayase-san and I are leaving. Before leaving, I worked on organizing the shelves some more. I want to at least lessen the workload for my other colleagues. Once my shift was over, I headed over to the office.
“Huh?”
I opened the door and was surprised to see that Yomiuri-senpai was sitting there. Since my other colleagues from the 6 pm shift were already walking around inside the store, I didn’t expect to see her still in here this close to work.
“What a rare sight.”
“Are you accusing me of skipping work, by any chance?”
“Not at all. I would never.”