The Flaming Keyboard: Reading Glasses Edition #ShirokumaLiteratureClub

*This is an abrupt sequel to the "Flaming Keyboard Series" I wrote about two years ago. It is a youth story about Tsutsui, who makes his keyboard catch fire every time he writes because his typing speed is too fast, and Komatsu, who supports Tsutsui with various inventions.

I was rummaging through used books, but the author names and titles were blurred, and I couldn't tell whose book was whose. I seemed to have aged much more than the old, worn-out books published decades ago. The muscles I had once trained had withered significantly. Besides, the author name I really wanted to find should have been my own, not someone else's. No such book could be found anywhere.

Someone spoke to me as I stood frowning in front of the hundred-yen bargain bin at the used bookstore.
"Isn't that Tsutsui?"
"Komatsu?"
Komatsu, my former best friend and fellow literature club member with whom I had shared muscle-training writing, mid-air writing, and underwater writing, had also become a middle-aged man appropriate for his years. When I asked him about his life, he said he had inherited his father's global company. He said he was using the research budget as much as he wanted to keep making useless things.
"Your eyes, they're presbyopic."
I had vaguely suspected it, but I had no intention of admitting it. If it were the old me, even if an enemy spy had sprayed me with tear gas while I was writing, my vision would have returned to normal in ten seconds. Even broken bones would have healed in two hours.

"You can't beat aging," Komatsu said with a laugh. He took a pair of reading glasses out of his pocket.
"So I developed these reading glasses with a rejuvenation function. However, there are side effects..."
Of course, I didn't wait to hear the end of Komatsu's story; I snatched the reading glasses and put them on. For a moment, I felt like I could see the author names and titles of the lined-up used books, and even the text written inside them, right down to the ending. But the bookshelf grew enormous, and the vision that had been clear for an instant became blurred. My clothes were also baggy. My belt became loose, and my pants fell down. When I let out an involuntary scream, it was the high, clear voice of a boy before his voice changed. A beautiful voice was leaking out of me.

Komatsu, who should have been shorter than me, was looking down at me.
"How does it feel to be rejuvenated?"
"I feel strangely restless. I want to wander around aimlessly, jump around, and look for bugs."
"That's what we call boyhood."
"But why is my vision blurred?"
"Presbyopia begins with aging. In other words, if you rejuvenate, you no longer have presbyopia. What happens when someone who isn't presbyopic wears strong reading glasses?"
Since my eyes no longer needed focus adjustment, the reading glasses had become useless. In that case, I just had to take them off. I took off the reading glasses and glared at Komatsu.
"You and your defective, shoddy goods..."
In the middle of my sentence, my voice dropped lower and lower.
"You can only rejuvenate while wearing the reading glasses. If you take them off, not only do you return to normal, but you age ten years as a rebound," Komatsu explained.
My wrinkles increased. I couldn't read the text even more. My pants were still down. The owner of the used bookstore was about to call the police, so Komatsu flashed some money.
"Can I return to my original age?"
"Don't worry. A few people didn't return, but I paid them appropriate compensation."
Fortunately, I was able to return.

After that, we talked about our recent lives. I talked about my daughter's rebellious phase. Komatsu talked about how the summer heat had become severe due to too many weather experiments. On my way home, I bought reading glasses at a hundred-yen shop and visited the used bookstore again. The owner, who had mistaken that he could get money if he pretended to call the police, actually called them, and I was arrested. I had forgotten to pull up my pants.

(The End)

I participated in this week's Shirokuma Literature Club theme, "Old Books."

I recently made my debut with reading glasses. At the end of my lunch break, while I was eating lunch and watching a video, I tried to put my reading glasses away in their soft case. However, the glasses weren't on my face, and they were already inside the soft case. I hadn't been wearing them from the start. It was a horror story. I came up with the idea of "reading glasses that rejuvenate you when you wear them." When you rejuvenate, you no longer need reading glasses. Since Komatsu is the go-to guy for inventions, I remembered the "Flaming Keyboard Series." I wrote this.