"I always thought you only applied to the literature department back then because I was there too, so we could keep each other company."
Sayuri blinked, as if she hadn't expected him to bring this up out of nowhere.
She thought it over for a few seconds, then set down the pencil in her hand and turned to face Tsushima Kagami directly, her expression growing a touch more serious.
"Oh, it's actually pretty simple."
"It's just that I always thought Kagami's writing was so profound."
"Including other literary works, too."
"I felt like if I picked that kind of direction, it'd be really hard to graduate."
"When I was choosing my focus, I happened to come across children's literature."
"Just looking into it, I realized it wasn't simply stories for kids.
"Not that I looked down on it or anything."
"But once I found out that children's literature usually goes hand in hand with picture books and illustration..."
"I thought, maybe this suits me?"
"Even if I'm no good at the literature side, maybe I could find another way in through illustration and still graduate on that topic?"
"So when it came time to choose, I didn't hesitate at all — I went with children's literature."
Tsushima Kagami fell silent for a moment after hearing this.
"Sayuri, you really are getting smarter and smarter!"
"Heh? Really?"
"Kagami's praised me so many times today~"
"Because it really is pretty good."
Tsushima Kagami smiled as he looked at Sayuri, though his tone stayed even.
"You're helping ease the family finances, and you're already thinking ahead about graduation."
"Sayuri really is a proper Tokyo University woman."
Sayuri blinked, then suddenly smiled — a rather sly smile.
"Are you praising me right now?"
"Of course."
Tsushima Kagami didn't deny it. He simply reached over, picked up the picture-book manuscript on her desk, and turned another page.
On this page, a little bear had run into a lost bird. The two of them crouched together by a tree stump, staring at each other, neither one knowing the way.
"This story of yours..."
Tsushima Kagami studied the picture.
"Did you come up with it yourself, or did the publisher give you the original?"
"Half and half, I guess."
Sayuri explained.
"The publisher gave me a rough outline and some text, but they let me decide how to render the actual pictures."
"Though if I get the chance later, I'd like to try writing my own story and drawing it myself.
"Writing your own story?"
"Mm."
Sayuri nodded.
"Honestly, I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head, I just haven't found the right way to put them into words."
"With children's literature, the word count doesn't need to be long, the story doesn't need to be complicated, and the structure's pretty simple — I feel like I could give it a try."
Tsushima Kagami set down the manuscript and looked at her.
"So, have you tried yet?"
Sayuri stuck out her tongue.
"Tried once — wrote a story about a little rabbit looking for its mother."
"After I finished, I showed it to Yukinoshita Shizuku. She said the story was too flat — you could tell the ending the moment you read the beginning, nothing that made you want to keep turning the pages.
"Yukinoshita Shizuku said that?"
"Mm."
Sayuri nodded.
"She was right, actually. I read it again, and yeah — it really was boring."
She said this without a trace of discouragement — if anything, there was an eagerness in her voice, like she couldn't wait to try again.
"So I've been thinking, maybe I should read more classic children's literature and learn how other people tell stories."
Hearing this, something that had already been stirred in Tsushima Kagami's mind rang out once more.
Classic children's literature.
He thought of the Winnie-the-Pooh book by Milne that he'd read as a child.
The bear in that story seemed a little slow, spoke in a plodding way, yet every single line carried a kind of wisdom grown-ups could never quite put into words.
Then there was The Little Prince, and The Wind in the Willows, and Peter Rabbit.
None of these works seemed to exist in this world.
Things like Miyazawa Kenji's Night on the Galactic Railroad, Kadono Eiko's Kiki's Delivery Service (animated by Miyazaki Hayao), picture-book master Sano Yoko's The Cat Who Lived a Million Times, and so on.
At the very least, ever since he'd crossed over into this world, he'd never once seen any of these titles in a bookstore's children's section.
Tsushima Kagami tapped his fingers on the desk twice.
"Sayuri, you just said you wanted to read more classic children's literature?"
"Yeah, is something wrong?"
"No."
"I was just wondering — which classics did you have in mind?"
Sayuri tilted her head and thought for a few seconds.
"Hmm... things like Grimm's Fairy Tales, and Andersen's Fairy Tales. Those count as classics, right?"
"They do."
Tsushima Kagami nodded.
"What else?"
"What else?"
Sayuri thought about it.
"Aesop's Fables? Mother Goose rhymes? That's about all, I think."
Hearing those titles, Tsushima Kagami felt a suspicion of his confirmed.
Grimm's Fairy Tales, Andersen's Fairy Tales, Aesop's Fables, Mother Goose rhymes.
These were all works from hundreds, even thousands, of years ago — strictly speaking, they'd long since entered the public domain.
But of the modern and contemporary classics of children's literature — the batch of works that emerged from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century — Sayuri hadn't named a single one.
Not because she didn't know them, but because those works simply didn't exist in this world.
"I suddenly thought of a question."
Tsushima Kagami said abruptly.
"What question?"
"About the market for children's literature in Japan."
Tsushima Kagami turned to look at Sayuri.
"Since you're working part-time in this field, you'd know better than me — in today's children's picture-book market, how much of it is homegrown, original work, and how much is imported?"
Sayuri blinked, caught off guard by the question, but quickly recovered.
"There's homegrown, original work, of course — new books come out every year."
"But honestly..."
She lowered her voice, as if sharing a secret.
"Most of it's pretty mediocre... the kind of thing you forget the moment you finish it, and never want to read a second time."
"What about the imports?"
"The imports are a lot better."
"European and American fairy tales and picture books really hold their own in the market, especially the award-winning ones — parents buy them practically with their eyes closed."
She stopped short here, and eyed Tsushima Kagami with suspicion.
"Why are you suddenly so interested in this? It's not like you're drawing picture books."
Tsushima Kagami didn't answer the question.
"Sayuri, want to create a piece of children's literature together?"
"I'll write the story, you draw the pictures."
"We could draw... stories that ought to exist, but that no one's written yet."
Sayuri looked at him, her confusion deepening into something even more puzzled.
"What do you mean, 'ought to exist,' Kagami?"
Tsushima Kagami didn't answer.
He thought of the worn copy of Winnie-the-Pooh he'd flipped through on a children's-section shelf before he crossed over.
He thought of the shining eyes of children whenever he told them stories, of how those stories had passed down from one generation to the next, becoming a kind of shared memory and language.
None of that existed for the people of this world.
They didn't know what Tigger was, didn't know how timid Piglet looked, didn't know about Eeyore's tail that was always falling off.
They didn't know there was a little prince who lived on Asteroid B-612, didn't know about the boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant, didn't know what the fox meant by "taming."
They didn't know how Mr. Toad got himself into trouble, didn't know how lovely that afternoon was when Ratty and Mole went rowing on the river.
None of these stories existed here — but they could.
"It's nothing."
"Just something I said off the top of my head."
Sayuri clearly didn't believe him, but she didn't press further.
She looked down at the bear she'd drawn, then suddenly smiled.
"Anyway, I'm pretty happy right now."
"I get to do something I love, make money from it, and even use it as material for my thesis."
Tsushima Kagami looked at her, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
"Then keep it up."
"Mm!"
Sayuri nodded firmly, then suddenly remembered something.
"So, about what Kagami said earlier — creating children's literature together—"
"Is Kagami actually planning to write children's literature?"
Tsushima Kagami waved a hand.
"It was just a random thought that came up while talking with you."
"But even if I never write children's literature, if my novels ever get adapted into manga, I'll definitely come find you, Sayuri."
"That's definitely not a problem.
"I guarantee I can draw exactly the effect Kagami has in mind — after all, you're the one who trained me!"
Sayuri promised, thumping her chest.
"But if Kagami really did write children's literature..."
"The pure-literature writers and readers and professors would probably get a huge headache, wouldn't they?"
Sayuri looked at Tsushima Kagami again.
"Ha ha, don't you go looking down on children's literature!"
"I'm not looking down on it."
"It's just that other people would probably think Kagami's wasting his talent."
Just then, Sayuri suddenly remembered something.
"Oh right, didn't you say you had something to see Professor Kosaka about?"
"Already saw him."
Tsushima Kagami said.
"What was it about?"
Tsushima Kagami took the paperwork for the Yale exchange program out of his bag and set it on the table.
Sayuri glanced at the cover, and her eyes went round instantly.
"Yale?! You're going to America?"
"Not yet — not until next semester."
"Well, good luck."
"When you come back from Yale, don't forget to bring us souvenirs.
Sayuri counted on her fingers.
"One for Yukinoshita Shizuku, one for me, one for Nayotake, one for Seika, one for Akane, one for Sonoko, one for Yukinoshita Shizuku... Kikuri, PA-ko... Komoe-sensei and the others, oh, and Little Nijika too — can't forget her."
"Is this a shopping list or a farewell gift list?"
"Both.
Tsushima Kagami tucked the papers back into his bag and stood up.
"Let's go, class is about to start."
Sayuri glanced at the clock behind her and hurriedly stuffed her notebook and pencil into her bag.
"Wait, wait, wait, I'm not done packing.
"Then hurry up."
"I know, I know.
Sayuri fumbled to shove her things into her bag, tugging at the zipper twice without getting it closed, stamping her feet in frustration.
That evening, Tsushima Kagami went straight to his bedroom after dinner.
He took out his pen and manuscript, sat down at his desk, and fell into thought.
He'd been thinking for a while now — at this rate, he'd probably finish everything he had to write in pure literature before long.
What then?
Should he stop writing altogether, or switch to popular fiction?
Or, like in web novels, pivot to writing songs, making games, producing anime, drawing manga, shooting films?
But after this afternoon's unplanned conversation with Sayuri about children's literature —
he'd suddenly realized that writing some children's literature wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
After all, a good piece of children's literature could give a child a beautiful childhood.
and it could also guide a child's values in the right direction.
Classic, high-quality children's literature conveyed core values like kindness, courage, honesty, empathy, and responsibility through concrete stories.
Through emotional resonance, it quietly laid a moral foundation, helping children understand the complexities of human nature without losing their trust in the world.
In some sense, children's literature carried a heavy responsibility.
What's more, a lot of classic, high-quality children's literature wasn't really childish at all.
Calling it children's literature, many of these works were really adult fairy tales in disguise.
Like the "Fairy Tale King," Zheng Yuanjie.
Tsushima Kagami thought back to the old Yukinoshita family estate in Chiba, and the scene where Mrs. Yukinoshita had talked with him about future children.
That's right — sooner or later, he'd have children of his own too.
Becoming a father.
Writing some fairy tales wouldn't be bad at all.
And children's literature was, in fact, something of a wasteland within Japanese literature.
In Japan, because of the ratings system, the entertainment industry's various works could push quite a range of content.
Among young-adult reading material, works aimed specifically at young children were exceedingly rare, since that would run against the broader market trend.
Even Shogakukan, the publisher that had originally specialized in reading material for elementary schoolers, had gradually begun shifting its focus.
Most of what it published now spanned all ages, and was no longer exclusively for elementary schoolers.
Whenever Tsushima Kagami thought about it, what came to mind first were anime like Detective Conan, Crayon Shin-chan, and the Ultraman series.
But on closer thought, none of these were purely for young children either.
So what kind of story should he write?
As for whether to draw on Western works or homegrown Japanese ones, Tsushima Kagami didn't agonize over it at all.
Children's literature was different from pure literature, which was constrained by a country's cultural and linguistic habits.
Good children's literature was always "cross-border literature" — its literary core inevitably transcended time, space, and national boundaries.
That's precisely why children's literature could be understood the world over.
It was because it focused on emotions common to all humanity, universal values, and raw, vivid symbolic language.
It transcended cultural divides, reaching straight down to the shared resonance of childhood and human nature.
That's also why, if adults truly immersed themselves in it, they'd come away with many different insights of their own.
Because everyone had once had a childhood of their own.
After thinking it over for a while, another children's book flashed into his mind — one that had been a massive hit in his past life: The Little Prince.
It was a milestone of French children's literature.
In the history of world children's literature, it stood alongside Grimm's Fairy Tales and Aesop's Fables.
Together, the three were known as the world's three great short children's fairy tales!
This was it!
Tsushima Kagami slowly wrote the title down on the manuscript.
Looking at the bold characters for The Little Prince written on the page, he slowly sank into thought.
The Little Prince was a short children's novel written in 1942 by the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Antoine's real profession was as a pilot; the year after finishing The Little Prince, he vanished over the Mediterranean during his eighth reconnaissance flight mission.
Antoine wasn't the first author to write from a pilot's perspective, but he was the first to use aviation as a starting point to explore life and civilization.
The protagonist of The Little Prince was a young prince from another planet.
The novel used a pilot as its narrator, telling of the many wondrous adventures the little prince experienced on his journey from his own planet to Earth.
Through the little prince's childlike eyes, Antoine exposed the emptiness, blindness, folly, and rigid dogma of adults, using simple, innocent language to depict humanity's loneliness and its rootless, wandering fate.
At the same time, this short fairy-tale novel also expressed his critique of money-based relationships, and his praise for truth, goodness, and beauty.
Both in content and in theme, it was extremely well suited for young children to read.
____
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