Reading is Love, Reading is Peace

Friday, June 28. 11:02 am.

‘Leaving now,’ Yan calls out as he steps out the door, his drawstring bag over his back. ‘Bye-bye.’

‘Tell us when you’re coming back!’ his mother responds from the kitchen.

For someone who usually spends his holiday hiding in his room, stepping outside is something quite extraordinary for Yan and his family. His brother congratulated him earlier for finally touching some grass on a weekday, his sister just looked at him in surprise, and his mother kept telling him to hurry despite the bookstore being within walking distance. His father is, of course, at work. Where else can he be? The gym? Even the thought of that makes Yan laugh a little on the inside.

It’s not like it’s something important. He’s just going out to meet up with a classmate… at least that’s what he told his parents the night before.

He looks at his Whatsup chat history with Crystal. Other than their midnight conversation from last Sunday, there’s just a couple of messages between them.

Yesterday:

- THE BOOKSTORE JUST GOT THE NEW VOLUME OF JNK

- yea?

- I READ IT AND ITS SO GOOD

- oh i read it online

- is the physical copy any different

- no. but STILL READ IT

- r u just trying to get me to buy the volume at the bookstore

- its a COMPLETELY different vibe

- i dont have any tankobon volumes of it in my home

- then just come over to the bookstore and read it

- i promise i wont get u to buy it

- ok

- wanna come at 11 am then?

- uh sure

And now, roughly thirteen hours later, he enters the bookstore again like he usually does, except a whole day earlier than usual. Not suspicious at all. Definitely. He just needs to push open the door like usual, not attract any attention, go to the manga section, and—

‘Yo,’ the clerk (he’s Crystal’s cousin, isn’t he?) greets with a hint of shock on his face. ‘Didn’t expect to see you today.’

‘Yo…’ Yan reacts with a nod before shuffling quickly away.

‘Manga section’s the other way, bro!’

‘A-Ah! Sorry.’ Avoiding the glances of other customers, he turns around, and after a bit more eye-contact-avoiding, he finally finds the familiar corner of the bookstore. There, scanning the shelves, is Crystal, wearing her crocs again, the plastic squeaking a little with every step. Noticing his presence, her eyes light up a little before she waves at him, her bright expression a stark contrast to his nervousness.

‘Took you a while,’ she greets, laughing a little. ‘Don’t you live nearby?’

‘Well, I’m sorry.’

Crystal quickly grabs the volume and sits down in a corner. Yan’s usual corner.

‘Sit down,’ she nonchalantly says.

Sighing, Yan carefully sits beside her, placing his drawstring bag by his side. Who would’ve thought his usual quiet routine has already been broken by one of the loudest people in his grade?

But it’s fine. He hasn’t gone outside to meet someone in a while, so in a way, it is sort of exciting. Sort of. Maybe he would’ve still been better off alone.

‘You already saw the cover, right?’ she asks while nearly shoving the book in his face.

‘Yeah, it’s really pretty.’ He must admit the author has a way with drawing the heroine. The latest cover preserves her elegant and sexy image, but adds a little bit more flair to her clothing, popping out with bright colours and a sleek shape.

‘But you’ve only seen it online. Having it in person feels more… real, doesn’t it?’

‘I guess…?’ He doesn’t really understand what she means by that, but as he touches the book, there is some sort of mysterious connection that makes his fingers tingle a little.

‘Anyway, how was it?’ Crystal looks at him with a wide anticipating smile.

‘How was what?’

‘The volume, stupid.’ Her face falls flat in disappointment.

‘I binged the story online, so I didn’t really keep track of what chapters are in each volume.’

‘... Jesus christ,’ she grumbles, slapping the book onto his chest. ‘Just read it and tell me. I’ll grab something else in the meantime. Oh, and don’t just read it. Feel it.’

‘You don’t have to be so violent, though…’ Mumbling under his breath, Yan begins reading the volume, going through the chapters he read online just a few days ago.

Although the content is basically identical, there does seem to be something different reading a physical book than scrolling through pages online. He smells the aroma of the paper, his fingers feeling the rough texture as he flips through every page. Even if it doesn’t add anything to the plot, the atmosphere, the vibe just all changes.

He should’ve known about this the first time he picked up a manga volume at the bookstore. Instead, he just quickly skimmed through that story, absorbing little inside his mind. Heck, he’s now even forgotten the title of that manga, with the only memory being a terrible ending of reincarnation, resurrection, or something. Even when he immersed himself in an amazing story a few weeks ago, the feeling quickly vanished, leaving only vague praises for a story he had already forgotten much of. Same for many other stories he read Well, there are a few exceptions, but those are exceptions. They don’t really count.

He hasn’t truly felt a story before, he realises. At least not until now.

The beauty, the reality of the story wraps around him. He begins to see the world in the artstyle of the manga. He once again immerses himself into the beauty of the manga, but he hopes the feeling will remain when he is inevitably pulled back into the real world. The feelings of a fictional past, carved into words and drawings, printed onto blank pages with black ink, all for him to absorb, to accept, to accompany, to marry, to unite, to— ehem.

‘You see what I mean now?’ Crystal’s voice brings him back, but unfortunately, the feeling earlier has become dreamlike, hazy as he gradually adjusts back to the boring reality.

‘I guess, yeah. Maybe. Perhaps.’

‘You wanna read more? Just grab whatever you like. I’ll sit around.’ She flops back on the ground, a thick manga volume in her hand.

‘Uh yeah sure—’ Wait.

She’s already reading, but it’s so… quiet. Unlike her vibrant, jittery enthusiasm on text, on the call last Sunday, or even just now, she’s just silently reading now, engrossed in her book. Her eyes are fixated on the pages, her fingers quickly yet also so delicately flipping the pages. If he didn’t know her, and she’s wearing something else other than her current outfit, he might’ve thought of her as a cultured, well-mannered individual.

Needless to say, Yan’s image of her is completely shattered before his eyes.

The gap moe’s too real…

He takes a thick book off the shelf: a compilation of the first three volumes of Equivalent Exchange, one of the most classic manga in recent times. Hopefully that should be able to last a while.

As the two of them get sucked into their respective worlds, both do not realise they are starting to shuffle closer to each other. With every adjustment of their sitting position, their bodies lean closer… until the inevitable contact happens, yet there is no reaction. They are diving into different fictional realities, after all.

For the next hour and a half, the two young students lean against each other’s backs, flipping over page after page, their eyes not once straying away from their books.

‘It’s hard to believe they were arguing like little children there just a week ago,’ the store owner mutters to himself. ‘Reading really does some magnificent things, doesn’t it?’