Studying, chatting, and then going home. Occasionally visiting PC bangs and bathhouses with friends before coming back home to study. By the time Maru was done with his studies it was already 11 at night. He would blog a little, surf the web for a few minutes before going to sleep at midnight. He could hear his computer’s fan whirling in the background.

Maru stared blankly at his monitor for a second before pulling out a book. It was something he borrowed from a nearby library. He tried to find a few “self-improvement” books, but couldn’t find many of them. Come to think of it, there was no such thing during this time.

From the time Maru started working in a company all the way to becoming a bus driver, he had read a pile of books as high as him. Reading this many self improvement books lead him to one conclusion.

Self improvement books were just books about successful people reminiscing about their past.

“But I keep reading them again and again for some reason.”

One...