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Masumi tries not to look too uncomfortable as he leads his new – Companion? Adventuring partner? Traveling buddy? All those somehow seem both too personal and not personal enough – through the shelves of some small-town library. She’s looking around with wide eyes, pulling books out left and right and then guiltily reshelving them when Masumi looks back at her. She was so excited when Masumi explained to her what a library was, and disappointed when he explained that with how much treasure hunters move around, getting a library card just isn’t practical.
They reach the shelf Masumi was directed to, and he scans the books there for just a second before pulling one out and handing it to the girl.
“Just pick one you think sounds nice I guess,” he says, and leans back onto a shelf, not really sure what else to do.
The girl opens the book to a random page somewhere in the middle and scans it with her eyebrows furrowed. After only a few seconds, though, she looks up at Masumi with a frustrated frown.
“Masumi… I can’t read these,” she says, shoving the book in Masumi’s face.
Masumi takes it from her and holds back a groan when he sees the pages covered in kanji. Of course, he doesn’t know why he expected…. The girl seems to be able to read hiragana just fine, but kanji are usually learned so differently that it feels obvious in retrospect. Masumi learned them the same way you learn the rest of language, by just kind of picking them up, that must be why he forgot.
So he moves next to the girl, so they can share the book, and starts going down the page reading the names out loud. He’s about halfway down the page when the girl exclaims, “Natsuki! I like that one, it sounds… warm. Summer-y.”
Masumi looks more closely at the kanji of the name his finger is resting on.
“Actually, this one’s spelled differently,” he says. “See, this one’s ‘moon’.”
The girl points to the first kanji, the one that would be read “na”.
“So, what does that one mean then?” she asks.
Masumi squints at it. It’s not one he’s actually seen anywhere other than names.
“It’s probably some kind of flower,” he says. That’s usually a safe bet for feminine names.
The girl considers this.
“I still like it,” she decides. “It’s like it has a… a secret meaning. A hidden meaning. It’s sort of like me, I think.”
Masumi’s taken a little off guard by this. He thinks it’s the first time he’s seen the girl so serious.
“Alright, you’re Natsuki then,” he says, taking his notebook out of his bag and copying down the kanji so he doesn’t forget that first one.
The girl – Natsuki, now – hums happily.
“I guess I’m Inou Natsuki then?” she says with a grin.
Masumi balks at this, remembering the look the librarian got when he asked her where to find baby name books.
“Or not?” Natsuki says, tilting her head to the side.
Masumi doesn’t like the look on her face, just this side of devastated. He scrambles for some kind of explanation, some kind of solution.
“I mean, it’s not like you’ll be using a surname much… it would just be kinda hard to explain…” he flounders, thinking fast.
Not Inou, but… maybe something that sounds like it? Looks like it? Related in some way…? This last thought triggers a memory of being a little kid, dreaming of adventure, reading book after book about famous explorers – including a cartographer he shared a surname with, a man who had began his life in troubled circumstances, but had accomplished something great, and lived to a very old age for his time, a man who had also trained another cartographer named….
“What about Mamiya?” Masumi says. “It kind of has a hidden meaning too. I can tell you about it when we get back to camp.”
Natsuki lights up like the sun.
“Let’s go back right now, then!” she says, and immediately begins making her way to the library entrance.
Masumi shoves the book back onto the shelf and hurries to catch up. Natsuki is still grinning, her head way up in the clouds. She’s repeating to herself “Mamiya Natsuki… Mamiya Natsuki… Natsuki, Natsuki, Natsuki…”
As they reach the sliding doors, Natsuki swiftly turns around to face Masumi.
“Hey,” she says, “since today’s an important day, can we go to a restaurant for dinner? Natsuki wants to eat fancy curry!”
Masumi, caught off guard once again by Natsuki’s almost insistent use of her new name, stutters out, “Uh, sure, why not?”
Natsuki jumps at least a foot in the air and cheers.
“Natsuki saw a really good looking place when we were walking here, come on!” she says, and runs off down the street.
Masumi again rushes to follow. He wonders, not for the first time, exactly what he’s gotten himself into, how he’s going to actually take care of another person, let alone one as inexperienced as Natsuki, after being by himself for so long. But when he catches up, and Natsuki starts chattering away about the restaurant she saw and how good the food smelled, using her name as much as possible, Masumi finds that, at least right now, he honestly doesn’t care.