Chapter 28.1 – Bookstore

A few years ago, in a winter where sleet scattered with the biting wind.

Nils Thüringen had shaken off his escorts and arrived in the capital from a stifling countryside. Passing the splendid buildings, the noble carriages, and the eye-catching people, he headed for a small bookstore in the shopping district.

He forced open the door that had long been locked, and the creaking sound echoed loudly. Anticipating the musty smell of books, he covered his nose and mouth.

‘Still, for being left alone so long, it’s not in bad shape.’

After neglecting it for about a month, there was dust here and there, but the store wasn’t as terrible as when he’d first come.

He closed the door to block out the cold wind and lit the lamp.

‘Where should I start cleaning?’

First, he grabbed an old, worn cloth and dusted the book spines. He carefully wiped the small sofa and the floor until the place finally looked decent.

On 12th Avenue in the capital, the small bookstore restored by Nils was the only property left to him by his father.

His father, who’d struggled financially and even sold his noble title, had used his hard-earned savings to buy this little bookstore.

<Your grandfather scolded me so much for buying a bookstore we’d hardly ever visit.>

As the adults had worried, Nils had only visited the store five times in seven years.

But his father said he didn’t regret it. He’d sit young Nils on his knee and often talk about the bookstore.

How he’d met his wife by chance at a bookstore while visiting relatives in the capital. How they’d instantly known they were meant for each other.

<It would be nice if the three of us could go there together and read books someday.>

The two who met by fate were so similar—even in their frailty and sensitivity—that they quickly fell in love and married. Sadly.

The miracle of their love was also a sign of a sad fate.

<Nils, I’m sorry. Please take care of Julia… your mother.>

Even though he’d sworn eternal love, Nils’s father died of illness, and with his passing, his mother’s sickness worsened.

So Nils’s mother, the youngest daughter of the Thüringen family, was confined to bed.

Even after the eldest daughter of Thüringen became Empress and tried all kinds of precious medicines, it was only a relief that her condition didn’t worsen further.

<Nils. Please take care of your mother.>

His late father, his aunt who’d risen so high—they all left Nils with the request to care for his sick mother.

But Nils found it hard to breathe in the villa where he stayed with his mother.

There were shadows everywhere, and death lurked among them, always ready to take his mother away.

‘Maybe… it would be better if she found peace while I’m away from the mansion.’

As a foolish child, he’d sometimes thought so. He wondered if it would be happier for her to find peace, rather than suffer every day swallowing bitter medicine.

But of course, whenever he was away from his mother, instead of relief, anxiety tormented Nils.

He hadn’t even managed a kind word before leaving. What if she left for a place without pain?

Even if she was suffering, even if it was so hard, couldn’t she stay just a little longer with her young son?

The child was healthy, but inside, he became sick every day just like his mother.

<Nils, may I go to the capital for a while?>

Ironically, the first to notice Nils’s frustration was his mother, who spent every day staring at the bedroom ceiling.

<What’s this?>

One day, she called him over and showed him a small envelope with a tiny key from her vanity. She wanted to set free the child who was always tied to her sickbed, so she made up an excuse and told it to him.

<It’s the bookstore your father bought in the capital. I’d forgotten about it… but it appeared in my dream yesterday. Books go bad if left too long; I’m worried. Would you go and check on it?>

Nils promised not to do anything dangerous and, avoiding the eyes of the escorts his aunt had sent, headed to the capital.

There was no way he’d get caught. He’d been sneaking out to explore nearby cities since he was young.

‘Everyone just turns a blind eye when I slip away anyway.’

At fifteen or so, he was big enough to handle himself, and there was the complacency that no one would dare harm the Empress’s nephew, so Nils easily made his way to the capital.

After that, once a month, or sometimes skipping a few months, Nils visited the bookstore.

Since it was in a deserted area, Nils could read books as much as he wanted and spend quiet time alone before returning to the mansion.

‘What was I reading last time?’

Nils lit the fireplace and carefully looked over the bookshelf. It had been so long that he couldn’t remember the last book he’d read and left.

He searched the shelf filled with novels, then, with nothing else to do, picked up whatever book he grabbed.

‘What’s this?’

When he pulled out a book from the corner, something fell with a thud. It was a faded, old envelope.

Inside was a letter, written in winding script.

<To Julia.>

It was a letter from his father, whose face was now only a faint memory.

‘A letter to Mother. Should I read it? Eh, if it’s weird, I’ll just stop.’

Nils read through his father’s letter, which still carried traces of him.

‘Beloved’, ‘I miss you’… Amidst the endless repetition of such cliché words, the letter conveyed the feelings people of the past must have cherished.

The obvious feelings of loving and desperately missing someone.

* * *

Nils was still absorbed in the single page of the letter when a loud banging on the door startled him. He slipped the letter between the books and was about to stand when, with a big crash, the door swung open.

With the swirling sleet dancing in the wind, a girl entered. Her face was tightly wrapped up, but her figure and the lines visible beneath her thick clothes made it clear she was a girl.

“Hoo.”

The girl glanced at Nils, who was frozen in surprise, then shut the door she’d struggled to open.

The wind outside stopped, and only the sound of burning wood and Nils’s pounding heart echoed loudly.

‘Who on earth is she?’

Nils was so surprised he couldn’t even ask who she was, just stared at the intruder. So the first to speak was the girl, who met his gaze from across the room.

“…Why are you crying?”

“What?”

“You. You’re crying.”

Nils belatedly realized his face was covered with tears. He hadn’t noticed while reading the letter.

He quickly wiped his eyes, and as he did, the girl calmly loosened the cloth she’d wrapped around herself.

In the sight of her snow-white hair fluttering, the wind stopped, and the girl’s face was revealed.

Nils was captivated.

Delicate features. Big light brown eyes. Lips tinged with cold. She looked like she’d stepped out of a painting.

“What book is it? Why is it so sad?”

“…It’s not a book.”

“Then?”

It was strange. Even though they’d just met, Nils found himself chatting with the girl as if it were nothing.

As if they’d met yesterday, their conversation was casual and mundane. So, without filtering what he should or shouldn’t say, Nils answered the girl honestly.

“It was my father’s letter. He passed away…”

“I see.”

Even when Nils said his father had died, she didn’t offer pity or awkward comfort. She didn’t tease him for crying.

Just a calm gaze. Even though she’d invaded his cozy space, Nils wasn’t annoyed—probably because of her indifferent attitude.

“I lost my parents too.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. No one ever told me.”

“That must be hard.”

“Yeah, it’s so hard I feel like I could die.”

Saying both parents had died. Saying it’s suffocating, or just habitually saying she felt like dying.

It was odd to hear such words from a girl whose name he didn’t even know. He couldn’t explain it, but it felt heavy… and intense.

‘It’s like she’s saying she wants to die.’

Nils felt he needed to say something. But he had no idea what to say.

He’d always been the pitiful child with a sick mother and a dead father. So Nils Thüringen was always treated as the most unfortunate child, and had never had to comfort anyone else.

No one tried to take away even the sympathy given to a pitiful child.

In the end, Nils could only offer some clumsy words. With those awkward words, he tried to pull the girl, who seemed so close to death, toward him.

“It’d be unfair to die.”

“Why?”

“Even if you die, the dead won’t return. You’d just make more people sad.”

“Is that so? Yeah…”

Whether she understood Nils’s odd earnestness or not, the girl blandly stepped closer to him. Like a child pretending death was no big deal.

“If I disappear, it’s just me, but there’d be two people left to be sad. So I’d only lose out.”

“Only two? No friends or anything?”

“I have a fiancé, but I don’t think he’d be sad if I died.”

“Hm. So your fiancé’s indifferent, and you have no friends?”

Nils couldn’t understand why he’d suddenly snapped at the sad-looking girl.

He didn’t realize at the time that his heart had stuttered at the mention of a fiancé.

“What, you don’t seem like you have many friends either.”

The girl replied curtly, then turned her gaze to the bookshelf behind Nils, as if it didn’t matter.

“You sell books, right? Can I look?”

Nils answered absentmindedly, and the girl immediately walked over and started looking through the shelves.

‘What’s this? She just comes in and ignores me…’

Only then did Nils recognize her as an intruder. Who was she to come in so confidently, and how did she know this was a bookstore and that someone was here?

‘She looks well-dressed and acts like a noble’s child. She seems about my age.’

She didn’t seem like someone who’d harm Nils, so he didn’t feel wary. Rather, he was annoyed at being ignored.

He should chase her out, but he didn’t want to. He’d always chased out anyone who came by mistake, and that had always felt normal.

“Need help?”

At some point, Nils started acting like the owner, as if he’d sell the girl a book.

Technically, he was the owner, but only in terms of property, not operation. Still, Nils treated the girl as a customer, reaching for the high shelf she was looking at.

“Can you reach up there?”

“Just tell me which book you want.”

After handing her the book she named, he rummaged through his father’s old ledger and set a price.

“43 pence.”

Only after naming a price less than a gold coin did he realize he didn’t have small change, but luckily the girl had enough 1 pence coins to pay.

The sound of coins clinking in Nils’s hand carried her warmth.

“Do you buy books back?”

“What?”

“If I bring back a book I bought here, will you buy it as a used book? Then I’ll come again.”

“I’ll see what condition it’s in.”

Nils had never thought about buying back a read book. But when the girl said, “If you buy it back, I’ll come again,” he was so taken in that he agreed.

The girl wrapped herself up again just as she had when she arrived, clutching the cheap book and heading for the door.

Nils hurried to stop her as she tried to leave without a second thought.

“When will you come next?”

“Do I have to tell you now?”

“I have days off, so… If you don’t want to come and find the store closed, don’t tell me.”

“Then I’ll come this time next month, same time.”

“Second Tuesday?”

“Yeah. Second Tuesday.”

From then on, Nils’s second Tuesdays belonged to the girl.

No, all his time was sold off to her without her even realizing, for a pittance.

* * *

At eighteen, Nils took out a book hidden in the corner of the shelf. It was the one Elia had taken on her first visit, then brought back and sold to him on the second Tuesday of the next month.

<What? You want me to buy back the book you got for 43 pence, for 40 pence?>

<It was terribly boring. And it already had a scratch when I bought it. So buy it for 40 pence.>

Nils became stubborn, spending the whole month studying bookstore business, and met Elia again on the next Tuesday.

And the next month, and the next second Tuesday…

At first, the bookstore was only open for the one day a month Elia came, but gradually, the lights stayed on longer and longer.

Her name. Her hobbies. Her favorite authors. The face she made when she frowned. Her clear laughter.

As he learned more about her, he stayed longer, and eventually Nils found himself waiting for her every day.

Once he realized it was love, there wasn’t a day he didn’t wait. He always waited for her at the bookstore.

Because he loved her.

‘It was a love that came to me without warning.’

In the small, old bookstore—a sanctuary that sparkled only on the one day a month when the Roang girl visited—Nils packed a single book and locked the door.

Leaving behind only a confession of love that had become a thing of the past.

After that, the small bookstore on 12th Avenue never opened again.