Suzume pushed through the glass doors a good twenty minutes before opening time, the bookstore’s overhead lights still half-dimmed. Her footsteps echoed on the polished floor, and she felt a tiny surge of smugness—she’d never been this early for her shift before. But then again, she’d never had such a crucial test to conduct either. Clutched at her wrist was Master’s newly reconfigured “slightly military-grade” smartwatch. If their late-night tinkering session had worked, she’d soon be free of the daily “fuzzy search” nightmares that had been haunting her ever since Kakashi (the meltdown-fearing AI) vacated the store’s official terminal.

  The air had that predawn hush, as though the rows of shelves themselves were still waking up. Normally, she’d arrive around nine-thirty, but here she was at just past nine, rummaging through the pocket of her apron for her phone. One eye stayed on the watch’s small black screen—one that currently displayed a timid ASCII-like emoticon, something like “(O_o)??.” Apparently, even the watch was nervous about today’s experiment.

  “All right,” she whispered to no one in particular, “I’m nervous, too. But hey, if last night’s fiasco was worth anything, maybe we’ve got a real fix this time.”

  She winced at the memory: the fiasco in question involved many hours of cursing, re-coding, and borderline comedic errors. Master’s second-floor living space had turned into a sort of impromptu AI lab, with cables everywhere and a half-eaten plate of garlic-laced pasta. She and Kakashi (lodged in an iPad) had spent the night wrestling with the watch’s voice recognition, which insisted on hearing all sorts of weird English mistranslations. More than once, the watch beeped out “SINK? Pink eyebrow detective?” when Suzume very clearly said “search pink dog fantasy.” The fiasco had ended around two in the morning with a half-coherent success message on the watch face—and a lot of hopeful sighs.

  Now, bright and early, she was about to find out if any of that effort meant something. She glanced at her phone—a normal iPhone discreetly tucked in her apron—and then at the watch. If the chain of connections worked, her watch would feed her fuzzy search requests to her phone, which would bounce them up to Master’s place, where Kakashi’s iPad sat waiting to decode them. If it all clicked, no meltdown, no rummaging through every corner of the store, no more “Uh, sorry, I’ll let you know if I find it” to clueless customers. She could do voice-based queries on the sly, and boom—fuzzy search results at her fingertips. Or more precisely, at her wrist.

  “Let’s see,” she muttered. She pulled out a small slip of paper with five leftover requests from yesterday. Among them: “A tanuki’s space-travel picture book,” “some pink dog in a fantasy setting,” and three other half-remembered nightmares. Exactly the sort of queries that made her want to tear her hair out.

  She flicked on one overhead light for the corner labeled “C,” making the shelves just visible enough to navigate. Then, swallowing her nerves, she lifted her wrist near her mouth. “Search… Tanuki… space… children’s book,” she said softly, trying to keep her voice steady.

  The watch face flickered a faint green. A bit of random text scrolled by—(???)??—like it was preparing to respond. Suzume held her breath. After a moment’s pause, the watch vibrated, showing a short line of text:

  Possible match: ‘たぬき星ぼうけん(仮)? Shelf C-7

  Immediately, she broke into a grin. “No freaking way. That easy?” She nearly shouted, but then remembered it was only 9:05 a.m. and no one else was supposed to be here yet. She forced her glee down to a whisper, checking if her phone had received the same message. Sure enough, a short notification was there, as though Kakashi had also sent a hush-hush data copy.

  “Okay, let’s see if it’s actually on C-7,” she whispered, walking toward the shelf. She tapped the watch lightly in gratitude, and it responded with (＾▽＾)—some triumphant ASCII grin. Part of her wanted to giggle at how the AI had learned to show silly emoticons in English.

  Reaching the assigned spot, she squinted in the low light. Sure enough, a picture book with a cartoonish tanuki on the cover, drifting in a starry cosmos, stuck out behind a few more mainstream titles. “Holy… so it’s real,” she said under her breath. The title was indeed something about “Tanuki Star Adventures,” presumably close enough to what the customer wanted. She plucked it free, feeling a surge of genuine relief.

  So it worked… at least for one request. She found a moment to breathe, letting the watch sense her success by lightly tapping it. Instantly, it displayed (???)v—like a little victory sign.

  But pride often goes before the fall. Emboldened, Suzume decided to tackle the dreaded “pink dog fantasy.” She spoke into the watch: “Search… pink… dog… fantasy.” The screen turned bright red this time, releasing an abrupt beep.

  IYAAA!! (O_o)

  Right in big letters. The comedic frustration of last night reared its head again.

  She sighed, tapping the watch. “Still got errors, huh? Sorry, buddy,” she muttered, though the watch seemed to hold no immediate solution. Maybe it was out of range for the third-floor fantasy section, or maybe Kakashi hadn’t fully deciphered that request yet. Either way, it confirmed that their system was “slightly functional,” not “miraculously perfect.”

  “Still,” she whispered, “one out of two ain’t bad.” Putting the watch-hand on her hip, she scanned the rest of her leftover queries. “Better to do more tests before the store actually opens,” she decided, stepping away from shelf C-7. She had about ten more minutes until someone else showed up. If she could solve even half of these riddles, it’d be a massive relief from her usual foot-blistering hunts.

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  She spent the next few minutes trying short queries in hushed tones: “Search… rabbit detective from 1920s.” The watch beeped, occasionally giving a partial result or spitting out another “IYAAA!! (O_o).” Each success made her grin like a fool, each failure made her roll her eyes. But the ratio of hits wasn’t bad at all—definitely an improvement from zero.

  She was in the middle of quietly celebrating a semi-success for “Might be ‘Bunny Sleuth of Whitechapel’? Possibly Shelf B-2?” when a familiar voice called from behind, “Suzume-chan, you’re here early! Did you open the store already?”

  Suzume almost jumped out of her skin. Quickly, she clutched the watch behind her back, spinning around to see her coworker (one of the senior part-timers) stepping in. The overhead lights flickered a bit brighter as the coworker presumably hit the main switch. “Oh! Good morning! I, um, just wanted to organize some stuff before opening. You know, that leftover mess from yesterday?”

  Her coworker gave a friendly nod, though her eyes darted suspiciously to Suzume’s partially hidden wrist. “Got it. Need any help?”

  “N-no, I’m all good! Just… you can handle the front while I check the shelves, I guess,” Suzume said, forcing a casual laugh. The coworker seemed unbothered, so she went off toward the register area. Suzume let out a quiet sigh, pulling out the watch again. It blinked at her with a sheepish (^_^;) emoticon. She swore the device was messing with her.

  Well, that was close. If the coworker had spotted the watch spamming weird ASCII, she might’ve asked too many questions. “At least we’re pulling this off,” she murmured, checking the success rate. She’d tested five requests from the day before, and so far, she’d pinned down one definitely correct, two plausible suggestions, and two total fails. A 60% improvement from the usual 0% success. She’d take it.

  A small vibration nudged her wrist. Looking down, she saw a new line of text:

  (???) keep trying??

  She stifled a grin. “Fine, one more attempt at pink dog fantasy.” She held the watch near her mouth, voice barely above a whisper. “Search… pink dog fantasy. One more time.”

  The watch glowed, a swirling cluster of icons, and for a split second, she expected that red “IYAAA!!” error. Instead, she got:

  (?Д?)? searching…

  She smiled, crossing her fingers as she spotted her coworker vanish behind another shelf. This time, maybe it’d work. The big question was if it would link properly to Kakashi upstairs, or if the dreaded meltdown-lore would come creeping back. But meltdown had been replaced by ephemeral ASCII faces, at least in the last few attempts. So maybe they were making genuine progress.

  A beep. She glanced down:

  Shelf 3F?? Possibly “Pink Pup’s Quest” ???

  Her heart soared. “We have a Pink Pup’s Quest?” she muttered. She’d never heard of the thing, but that was half the point of these weird queries. She pressed her lips together and started for the stairs. If it was on the third floor, she’d have to hustle, hopefully without losing the watch’s Bluetooth range to her phone. She checked her phone in the apron pocket—still connected. Good.

  Quietly scaling the bookstore’s steps, she tried to hide her excitement. The bookstore’s third floor tended to be the fantasy section, so if the watch identified something among those shelves, that spelled real success. She tried to keep her footsteps soft. The coworker was somewhere below, and Suzume didn’t feel like explaining a high-tech meltdown-escape scenario right now.

  Reaching the third floor, she felt a slight flutter of tension. If the watch lost signal, would it beep an error or start spamming “IYAAA!!?” The moment of truth. She took a breath, scanning the labeled aisles. When the watch flickered again, it had a short line:

  (O_o)… stable??

  She gave it a thumbs up, even though she felt silly giving gestures to a hunk of metal. “Same. Let’s do this,” she murmured. She checked the shelf numbers. Sure enough, near the fantasy corner, she spotted a battered spine that read something close to “Pink Pup’s Quest—Magical Something.” She tugged it free, revealing a pastel cover featuring (indeed) a pink dog in knight’s armor. The exact kind of bizarre niche that might match a random customer’s partial memory.

  Her eyes sparkled. “You’ve gotta be kidding. This is too perfect,” she whispered. Maybe it was a fluke, maybe the watch was half-lucky, or maybe Kakashi was truly becoming a meltdown-free hero. She pressed the watch once more, and it responded with a triumphant:

  (???)v

  This time, she actually giggled out loud. “You rock, meltdown maniac,” she teased. “But let’s not say meltdown in the store, okay?”

  No further text displayed, as if Kakashi was politely letting her enjoy the moment. She tucked the pink dog volume into her arms, feeling a surge of gratitude toward both Master’s random watch contraption and the AI’s willingness to adapt. At last, a real solution that didn’t involve forcibly reinstalling the AI back into the bookstore’s old terminal.

  Footsteps echoed from below. Probably the coworker starting her daily routine. Suzume realized she should hurry back down—some actual customers might roll in soon, and she wanted to stash these successes behind the counter, ready to impress the folks who’d come looking for them.

  On the watch, a small prompt blinked:

  “(?ω?) next search?”

  Suzume smirked. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep feeding you these random riddles once we open. For now, let me enjoy this small victory.”

  The screen turned pale green in agreement, no meltdown references in sight. She gave a quick nod, hugging the pink dog book to her chest, then made for the stairs. There would be more queries, more refining, more comedic misunderstandings, but at least she wouldn’t be reduced to rummaging entire floors on blind guesswork. The meltdown fiasco, it seemed, had officially found its meltdown-proof remedy—no fan-bolstered iPad meltdown, no meltdown of her own sanity.

  As she descended, the watch beeped a soft notification: her phone had just received some quick text from “Kakashi iPad,” presumably a short message praising the success. She planned to check it once she was safe behind a corner, away from coworker eyes.

  But for now, success was sweet. She inhaled, letting that faint new-book smell mingle with the leftover tinge of garlic from last night on her clothes. If this system kept working, she might have the best shift she’d had in ages. Sure, some “IYAAA!!” errors would pop up, and sure, the watch might overheat or lose signal. But they were genuinely moving forward.

  A small grin tugged at her lips as she headed back downstairs, pink dog quest in hand. Today might be the day she fully reclaims the bookstore from the chaos of incomplete memories and meltdown threats. And if anyone asked why she was grinning, well, she’d just say the future smelled better than it had in a long time—no meltdown pun intended.

  (End of Ep.11)