The Cat Who Saved Books(31)

“You might want to rethink the decor of your office.”

“Decor?” the president asked. When he’d said “wild ravings,” he hadn’t expected cutting remarks.

“Is this an office or a penthouse?” Rintaro continued. “These chandeliers are so glittery they’d give anyone a headache, and this carpet is so plush it’s ridiculous. Such bad taste. Unless you’re doing it for a joke, I’d suggest redecorating as soon as possible.”

The president’s eyebrows moved slightly, but his smile didn’t falter.

Rintaro wasn’t finished.

“I’m sorry if I sound rude, but my grandfather always taught me that it’s a kindness to let someone know when their behavior’s off, even if you antagonize them by doing so. And this room is so ugly I can’t bear to look at it.”

“Hey, Natsuki—”

Sayo hurriedly intervened. Rintaro finally stopped talking, wondering what he had just gotten himself into. This aggressiveness was out of character for him. He much preferred a careful, reasoned approach, even if that meant playing it safe. Above all, he valued moderate, constructive criticism. But the reason was clear to him. This time Natsuki Books—the shop itself—was being ridiculed.

The elderly president didn’t move for a moment, and then finally let out a small sigh.

“Well, it seems I misjudged you. I had no idea there was a boy with such strong spirit at Natsuki Books.”

“I don’t know anything about spirit. I just love books.”

“I see.”

The president nodded generously, then seemed to think better of it. He shook his head instead.

“Love books?” he muttered to himself. “That’s a problem.”

He reached out a skinny arm toward a large button on his desk. He clicked it, and all at once the red curtains on three sides of the office began to open. Bright sunlight streamed into the room.

It took a while for Rintaro’s eyes to adjust to the glare, so he didn’t fully grasp the situation right off. Eventually he could see that they were in a room at the top of a skyscraper with windows on three sides. Beyond the windows there was a view of several other similar skyscrapers. Something white was pouring from the windows of the surrounding buildings and fluttering to the ground like snowflakes.

As Rintaro’s eyes adjusted to the light, he heard Sayo give a small shriek. Then as he, too, realized what he was looking at, he gulped. The stuff that looked like snow—cascading from all the windows, hovering for a moment in the air, and then tumbling to the ground below—each and every piece was a book.

Someone was throwing books from the windows. They were caught by the wind and scattered far and wide. The buildings looked as if they were caught in a blizzard.

But it wasn’t just the sky that was filled with books. When Rintaro and Sayo looked down from the window, the view was staggering. There on the ground were tens of, hundreds of thousands of books piled up—a veritable print wasteland.

As they looked on, stunned, they realized that some of the books were passing so close to the window that if they’d reached out, they could have touched them. That was when they realized that some of the books were being thrown from the same building they were standing in.

“Do you know what that is?” asked the president, with a smirk.

“Not exactly, but I know I don’t like the sight of it,” replied Rintaro.

“That’s the new reality.”

Rintaro’s heart dropped.

“This building houses one of the largest publishing companies of our time. Every day we publish as many books as there are stars in the sky. For the people down there.”

“But that’s as if you’re just spewing out wads of paper for no reason other than to increase the amount of waste.”

“That’s just how it goes,” said the president nonchalantly. “We’re a huge international publisher. Every day we produce mountains of books and sell them all over the world. With the profits we make from those sales, we fund the production of more books, which we then sell. We sell more and more, and our profits steadily increase.”

The president fluttered his hand in a movement that mirrored the books passing the window. The gold rings adorning his fingers flashed in the sunlight.

Rintaro tried his best to comprehend the situation that the president was explaining, but it wasn’t an easy task. Then he recalled the messy, disorganized piles of books they’d seen on their way. That bizarre landscape, and the sight of thousands of books falling through the sky before his eyes, coupled with the president’s smooth voice—it all seemed to tie up his thoughts and drag him into a swamp of confusion. Now he understood why the woman at the reception desk had been so concerned about the danger of walking outside, he thought bitterly.

“You’ve got to be joking,” he said. “Books aren’t meant to be thrown. They’re made to be read.”

“You are so naive.”

The president picked up a book at random from his desk.

“Books are expendable goods. It’s my job to make sure they are consumed in the most efficient way possible. I couldn’t do this job if I was some bookworm. Anyhow—”

He abruptly spun his black desk chair around, pushed open the window closest to him, and tossed the book he was holding straight out of the window. The book hung in the air for a moment as if there were something it had suddenly remembered, but then quickly disappeared out of view.