The Books
Longer evenings from the world of Aoi, available for Kindle. Each book stands on its own.
WHAT DO YOU KNOW
What do you know? Sho is about to enter the working world. He knows how to program. He knows how to use AI. He knows how to find answers. But how do you know what you don't know? That question keeps bringing Sho and his childhood friends, Noboru and Subaru, back to Bar Aoi—and to Kenichi, a fifty-four-year-old systems engineer who has spent decades making mistakes and supposedly turning them into experience. The problem is, Kenichi doesn't have the answers either. Across ten nights at Aoi, their conversations wander through work, AI, experience, trust, friendship, and all the different things people mean when they say something is “normal.” The young men want to know what they need before they begin. The older men are beginning to realize how much they still don't know. Maybe experience isn't having the answers. Maybe sometimes all you can pass on is the difference between what you noticed and what someone else did. And maybe that's still not enough. Ten conversations. Ten nights. No easy answers. BAR AOI STORIES Vol.5: WHAT DO YOU KNOW?
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WHAT DO YOU WANT
What would you do if you won $100 million tomorrow? Quit your job. Buy a mansion. Spend the rest of your life having fun. That’s how another ordinary night at Aoi begins. But then the questions start. What kind of house? What would you do all day? What about ten years from now? The more specific the questions become, the stranger things get. Some things they thought they wanted begin to disappear. Others grow into something much bigger. Tom wants to build a basketball court. Taka wants to build a school. Mama says she wouldn’t change much at all. And eventually, the same question comes back to Kenichi—the man who has spent all this time asking everyone else. If you had $100 million, what would you do? This isn’t a story about finding the right way to spend money. It isn’t about finding some grand dream, either. It’s ten nights at Bar Aoi, where four people share drinks and try to figure out what they actually want. **WHAT DO YOU WANT?** What would you do?
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WHO AM I
Who knows you better than anyone else? The obvious answer is: you do. You know what you like. What you hate. What matters to you. Why you made the choices you made. Or at least, you think you do. At a small bar called Aoi, Kenichi spends ten nights drinking whiskey with the same familiar faces: Mama behind the counter, Taka the private detective, and Tom, a retired cop with a story for almost everything. Their conversations begin with ordinary things. A phone checked for no reason. A man lying outside a station. An old story that refuses to be forgotten. Takoyaki bought on impulse. Cheese or nuts. Right or left. A crooked cabinet that needs fixing. But somewhere between the drinks, the jokes, and the clink of ice in a glass, the questions get harder. Do we really know why we do what we do? Are our reasons sometimes explanations invented afterward? How much of what we call “my decision” was shaped by someone else? And if we cannot completely understand even ourselves, what does it mean to say we know another person? Kenichi never finds a clean answer. Maybe there isn't one. But perhaps being understood perfectly isn't what matters. Perhaps it's enough to have people who look at you and think: He'll probably come tomorrow. Bar Aoi Stories Vol. 3: Who am I is a collection of ten interconnected short stories about identity, choice, memory, and the uncertain ways we come to know ourselves through other people. Pour yourself a drink. The door to Aoi is open again tonight. Clang-clink.
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BETWEEN US
Maybe we don't have to understand each other to stay in the same room. In a small bar tucked away in a corner of Tokyo, Kenichi sits down with his usual glass of Harper. Taka is already there with another question. Tom has something to say when nobody expects it. Mama listens from behind the counter. And somehow, the conversation begins. Why do we care about people we've never met? Where does a sense of belonging come from? How long are we supposed to hold on to anger? Can we ever really know the impact we have on someone else? At first, an answer always seems possible. Then someone says one unnecessary thing, and everything shifts a little. Before long, nobody is quite sure anymore. So they drink. They fall silent. Someone eats an egg sandwich. And nobody leaves. Maybe being together isn't about understanding each other completely. Maybe sometimes, it's enough to stay. Bar Aoi Stories: Between Us, Vol. 2 collects ten quiet nights of whiskey, conversation, disagreement, and the things that remain unresolved between people. There used to be an empty seat at the counter. Not anymore. You've been sitting there all along.
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HUMAN NATURE
Some stories end when you close the book. Others follow you home. BAR AOI STORIES is for readers who prefer the second kind. Ten nights. Ten conversations. No easy answers. At a small bar in Tokyo, a systems engineer named Kenichi spends his nights doing what he does best: trying to make sense of things. Why can two people remember the same event differently? Who are our good deeds really for? Why do we follow rules nobody can explain? Why do we sometimes want to be alone, yet still want someone to notice? Over a glass of whiskey, Kenichi builds his theories one piece at a time. They usually make perfect sense. Until Taka, Tom, or Mama says something unnecessary. Usually, it's just one more question. And suddenly, the answer doesn't seem quite so simple. HUMAN NATURE is a collection of ten short, conversational stories about memory, kindness, responsibility, loneliness, and the contradictions of being human. No lectures. No grand theories. No final answers. Just ordinary conversations that have a habit of turning into difficult questions. Read one over a drink. And see if the question follows you home.
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