“It depends.”
“You know…”
His annoyed face was so adorable, she could not help but grin.
“Honestly…It’s for work. If I gave Miss Selim glasses, she might get better at reading and writing, since she does seem eager to learn. She’s patient, so I could ask her to do all the things that Col did, like writing accounts for purchases and expenditures, letters to guests, and even write letters for business in town. That would make things a lot easier for me.”
“Will you not ask me?”
She could read and write all the same.
Well, she knew why he would of course ask Selim to do work and not herself.
But she asked purposefully anyway. She should be familiar with all the things on this desk. There were records of agreements they could not see. If she could see the threads that connected her and her companion when she found herself lost, then there was nothing to worry about.
He looked at her and sighed, tired.
He may have truly been exhausted.
Because—
“There’s no point in me being free if you’re busy.”
Because her companion loved her, and he was always working his hardest.
“Heh.”
She laughed at how spoiled she was, and she laughed at how strangely, terribly relieved she was.
“Heh-heh, ah-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha…! You fool, what a fool you are.”
“Of course I am.”
He laughed, too, and for a while they did nothing but laugh together before finally sighing in unison.
It was a strange interval of neither routine nor boredom.
“Well then, should we finish up the rest of this?”
He spoke purposefully as though he was smoothing things over.
“Mm, let us square it all away.”
It felt like they had had the same conversation a thousand times in the past.
But now, she no longer feared being unable to tell them apart.
“Oh, right.”
“Hmm?”
As she grasped a pen, she spoke.
“Little Col mentioned it a lot. Books and such need titles. Shall we title this one after you?”
He looked at her for a little while before a slight smile appeared on his face.
“What’s the name of this house?”
“Hmm? Indeed, ’twould be the best.”
Memories of her time with her companion. Memories she could never forget. She would fill her book with as many of them as she could.
A tome overflowing with happiness, like the season of life and blossoms and the bubbling waters of their home—a Spring Log.
It would become something that anyone would look at with a dry smile and shrug their shoulders in exasperation.
AFTERWORD
Long time no see. Isuna Hasekura here. This is the newest Spice & Wolf novel in about eight months. Sorry to keep you waiting. Since this is a series I’ve already finished, I hope to put out more at around this pace. Please stick with me at this leisurely pace.
By the way, it might already be over by the time this afterword is printed in a book, but there was a Spice & Wolf collaboration café in juncture with Subculture Café & Bar Newtype Shinjuku. Collaboration cafés typically sell food and things based on the image of the characters in the work…but this time, they tried their best to replicate the food in the novel, and I really enjoyed it. I had rabbit meat, goat cheese, salted herring, and such for the first time. All the food that I wrote about completely with my imagination had been brought to life, and I was touched. There was also a footbath in the shop because of the bathhouse, and I thought it was just going to be a little tub with some hot water in it, but I was amazed to see a proper footbath, one you might actually see at a tourist spot, and the clerks were all dressed up as Holo and Myuri, and I think all my fortune as an author has run out. Thank you, thank you.
I am prospering even as I write this afterword, so I am as happy as can be as the original author.
Thank you very much to all who came.
What else…I have nothing to write about…My days are spent either changing oxygen into carbon dioxide or getting excited over Friends. But Friends is good. Now I only have a little bit left, and I’m very sad that it will be over. Just recently, I cried over the story between Toki and the professor. It’s amazing no matter how many times I watch it.
Now I remember. I’ve moved a bit away from the city, and now I commute by train. At first, I poked around on social games on my smartphone, but once I started reading, the number of books I had ballooned. I don’t have the will or strength to read for two hours straight, so it was too bothersome for me to open a book, but if I just think about reading for ten or so minutes, I can get through a lot. The start is always hard to get through.
So I’ve been reading some popular stories I’ve been hearing about. They’re all so good it pains me. It makes me want to work harder.
I imagined that once I read some new books, I would challenge myself with older novels that I’d never read but only heard of, but there are too many hot new books. I wonder when I’ll get around to that.
And those are the sort of days I’ve been having.
My page is all filled now, so I’ll end it here. I will see you in the next book.
Isuna Hasekura
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Spring Log II Page 18
