Suzume woke up in her tiny Tokyo apartment, still buzzing with thoughts of the previous day’s strange occurrence. She was just one month away from starting university, and this part-time gig at the massive bookstore should have been a simple way to earn pocket money. Yet she couldn’t shake the memory of that odd message the store’s AI terminal seemed to whisper: “Stop pushing me,” or at least that’s what she thought it said. Heading out, she repeated in her mind, “I’m not imagining this… right?”
When she arrived at the bookstore, the manager was busy rearranging displays, barely glancing up to greet her. Suzume changed into her uniform apron and slipped over to the back area where they kept the staff terminals. As expected, she found the same Type-03 device waiting for her. She picked it up, turned it on, and saw the usual welcome screen. No sudden messages or unusual flickers—just a polite “Welcome, Staff Member.” Still, the sight of it made her chest flutter with anticipation. Was it really this machine that spoke yesterday, or had she just been hallucinating?
A senior coworker cheerfully announced they needed help with some return-stock boxes in the back. Suzume followed her into the storeroom, where cardboard boxes were stacked in messy rows. “These are from a small publisher that went under a while back,” the coworker explained. “Nothing’s sold in ages, so we’re throwing most of it out. Just scan the barcodes, see if anything’s still in the system. If not, it’s junk.”
Suzume bent down to open the box, half-expecting to find only battered old magazines or outdated manuals. Instead, she discovered a few small-format books, the kind you’d never notice on a regular shelf. They belonged to some obscure publisher that had apparently printed only a few hundred copies before going belly-up. Most of the barcodes produced a blank screen on the terminal: “No Record.” The coworker shrugged. “Yeah, typical. They’re worthless now. Let’s toss ’em.”
Just as she was about to see one of these books hurled into the disposal box, Suzume’s device gave a subtle buzz—almost like a phone vibrating—and a thin line of text flashed across the lower part of the screen. She barely caught it: “Don’t throw it away…”
She jerked upright, staring at the device in shock. Had it really displayed those words? Before she could confirm, the screen went back to a standard inventory menu. The coworker gave her a puzzled look. “Everything okay, Suzume?”
“Uh—um—yes, sorry!” Suzume forced a laugh. “Actually, can we hold off on tossing this one?” She pointed to a particularly worn paperback, printed in faint gold lettering. “Might be a rare out-of-print title that someone, somewhere wants, right?”
Her coworker gave an exasperated sigh. “I doubt it, but sure, if you want to check. Write ‘hold’ on the list, though. We can’t keep junk forever.”
Suzume nodded, still reeling from what she’d seen on the terminal’s screen. The coworker went back to scanning other books. Suzume snuck a peek at her device again, hoping for another message, but it looked perfectly normal. She could almost feel it mocking her curiosity: plain white text fields, no sign of hidden speech.
During her lunch break, she sat in a corner of the staff room, poking the touchscreen as quietly as possible. She typed a few vague queries like she did the previous day, something about “interesting but melancholic stories from defunct publishers,” but all she got was a standard “No results found.” Yet near the bottom, she spotted a faint flicker: “This belongs to me…?” Her heart pounded. Right as she leaned in to read more, a coworker called her back to the floor.
By closing time, the manager appeared, asking if all the day’s tasks were done. Suzume mentioned the out-of-print book. With a faint frown, the manager simply said, “Take it if you like. We can’t sell it, and we have no records for it.” That half-smile on the manager’s face felt oddly knowing, but Suzume decided not to pry. She accepted the old paperback, noticing its title was half-rubbed out, reading something like A Fragment of… She tried scanning it again, but the device froze for a moment and displayed that same ghostly line: “This belongs to me…?”
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Unable to carry the store’s device home, she placed it back on the charging rack. She couldn’t help whispering, “You’re hiding something, aren’t you?” It gave no reply. Yet she couldn’t shake the sense that it wanted her to find this book.
Walking out into the neon-lit evening, she cradled the paperback against her chest. A swirl of excitement and unease churned in her gut. Was the device truly capable of speech? Why did it cling to this random, forgotten text from a defunct publisher? She glanced at the worn cover—barely legible, missing entire chunks. Maybe inside, there was a clue to whatever the terminal was seeking.
She hurried on, vowing to read it as soon as she got home. The prospect of discovering some lost story that even the bookstore’s fancy AI couldn’t track made her pulse race. She’d signed up for a simple part-time job, but something far stranger seemed to be unfolding, and she couldn’t help looking forward to whatever happened next.
Suzume woke up on the third morning of her part-time job, nibbling toast in her tiny Tokyo apartment while flipping through that “Oz side story” again. It was a near-mythical volume from a bankrupt publisher, describing the solitary journey of a certain Scarecrow who wandered far and wide in search of wisdom.
“It’s just like my store terminal,” she muttered under her breath, thinking back to how the device kept displaying cryptic messages. Finishing her last bite of toast, she hurried off to the bookstore, excitement buzzing in her chest. If they gave her the same Type-03 terminal today, she fully intended to unleash every vague search request she could think of.
When she arrived, the manager was her usual busy self, so Suzume just offered a quick greeting, slipped into her apron, and headed to the back area. There, on a shelf, the familiar terminal screen blinked a quiet “Welcome, Staff Member.”
“All right,” Suzume whispered with a grin, “today I’m pushing you even harder. Ready?”
The device didn’t answer, but the screen flickered for a second as though annoyed.
Once the store opened, Suzume was tidying up the magazine section when a customer approached.
“Excuse me… I forgot the title, but it had a pink dog on the cover. I’m not sure if it was an essay or maybe a novel… I saw it a few years ago, I think.”
Wildly vague. Suzume tilted her head. “A pink dog…?” She whipped out the terminal.
“No problem! Let’s see what we can find. Hey, terminal, do your stuff!”
She typed: “pink dog cover essay novel a few years ago,” hitting search. The device went quiet for a long moment, then the lower edge of the screen flashed a tiny line: “…too vague… how many times…?”
Suzume just tapped it again. “Come on, hang in there!”
After another pause, the device finally spat out a small list of possibilities. The customer leaned in.
“Oh! That one—‘The Dreams of a Pink Pup.’ I remember now! Can’t believe you found it.”
Apparently there was exactly one copy left in the literary corner.
“I’m so glad!” Suzume beamed. The customer, equally impressed, thanked her and walked off.
As soon as they left, a faint new message appeared near the bottom: “so exhausting… let me rest…” Suzume nearly laughed out loud but patted the screen. “Thanks for the hard work. Nicely done!”
During her lunch break in the staff room, she thumbed through the Oz side story again.
“This Scarecrow travels all over, digging up books even libraries don’t stock, saying he still needs more knowledge… That’s totally you, right? You’re always griping about missing data, flipping out whenever we uncover an old book.”
The screen flickered:
“…not quite… I… just…”
“Huh? Did you want to say something?”
“…I want to find… something important…”
“Ha! See? You and that Scarecrow are practically the same. He keeps muttering ‘I need more wisdom,’ and you’re… well, you’re basically doing the same. Are you looking for this side story’s sequel or something?”
The terminal froze abruptly, a “Forced Restart” message appearing. Suzume sighed, setting it aside. “Guess I overworked you again.”
That afternoon, a cry from a coworker pulled her to the registers: a long line of customers, all with weirdly vague queries. As she juggled the register and the device, the terminal’s screen flashed tiny complaints—“…I’ll die… this is too much…”—but Suzume breezed right past them with “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver!” Even the customers marveled at how quickly she found their obscure requests. By the end of the rush, the terminal displayed a “Battery Low” alert, looking utterly spent.
Suzume couldn’t help smirking. “Another victory. Everything’s going exactly as planned.”
When the store closed, she took the device to the charging rack. Just before she set it down, a brief English line lit the screen:
“…I… also have a quest… stop ignoring me…”
She snickered. “Oh? Sorry, sorry. Tomorrow I’ll let you talk for real, okay… Mr. Scarecrow?”
The device slid into restart mode and went silent. “Yep,” Suzume murmured, “you’re definitely my Scarecrow.” She exited the back room feeling a small surge of triumph. Most people thought this was just an ordinary bookstore job, but for her, each day was turning into a bigger adventure than anyone realized.