The rest of the morning passed slowly.
Du An arranged the sorted wristbands on the shelves one by one, then, following Sarah's instructions, restocked the commemorative badges and keychains in the glass display case.
Sarah handled the sales and the till up front.
Most of the time, he simply tended to the shelves, making sure every item was neatly aligned.
Du An watched all kinds of customers step into the shop.
There were gray-haired veteran supporters who stood before the memorial wall in lingering silence, fingers brushing gently over a familiar face;
there were students in school uniform, huddled together choosing red wristbands while talking about next week's march;
and middle-aged men with furious expressions, loudly cursing the dereliction of the police and the lies of The Sun...
Anger, grief, somber weight... A multitude of emotions crowded into the modest shop, converging into a shared conviction held by everyone there—about Liverpool, about the truth, and about the ninety-six who never came home.
Du An watched quietly, taking it all in.
The office door at the very back of the shop was ajar. Dunn's voice drifted out from time to time, often heated and tight with suppressed anger.
In snatches, Du An could make out words like "legal filings," "MP Burnham," and "full disclosure of the files."
Clearly, this fight, ongoing for seventeen years, was far harder than anything Du An knew, or even what Dunn had told him.
At one point Sarah walked past, saw how Du An was obsessively aligning every item so they all faced the exact same way, and let out a chuckle.
"You don't need to keep yourself busy every second," she said casually. "Watch what I do more. When it's just the two of us working weekends down the line, you'll gradually take over some of the sales and till work too."
Du An nodded and stepped over to the counter to watch intently.
Around noon, Dunn came out of his office and ordered lunch from a familiar spot nearby.
Three simple British lunches: sausages with mashed potatoes and baked beans.
The three of them sat together to eat.
Chewing on his potatoes, Dunn said to Du An, "Starting now, you'll come every other weekend. After this week, come back the week after next. You're still young, after all, and your studies and training come first. Just get here by nine. Lunch is on the shop, and you can head off at three. It won't eat up too much of your time. Sarah has a day job during the week and only comes in on weekends, so the two of you can share the weekend shifts. For the two days over the weekend, I'll give you fifteen pounds in total. It's not much, just a token of our appreciation."
"It's already a lot. Thank you, Mr. Murrleson. Thank you, Sarah."
Du An thanked them earnestly.
The afternoon was much like the morning. Customers trickled in steadily, neither too crowded nor empty.
Just before two o'clock, a schoolgirl carrying a backpack walked in. She glanced across the shelves, then pointed at a notebook on the lower shelf of the counter. "Excuse me, how much is this?"
It was a black-covered notebook emblazoned with a striking slogan in white lettering: Justice for the 96.
"One pound." Du An picked up the notebook and handed it over.
He noticed the emblem of Bishop John Catholic School on her uniform.
The girl dug out a coin, placed it on the counter, took the notebook, and clutched it to her chest. "Thank you," she said softly.
She glanced at Du An once more before turning to leave, perhaps wondering why such a young Asian lad had appeared behind the counter.
The brass bell chimed softly; outside, the daylight seemed to flicker in sync.
Du An looked down at the coin in his palm, suddenly lost in thought.
It was only selling a notebook—a trivial, insignificant thing—yet something stirred inexplicably inside him.
He felt as though he had begun to understand why Dunn and Sarah were willing to spend their time here doing such mundane, inconspicuous work.
Every notebook sold was more than just a transaction. It was one more person remembering ninety-six names, one more ounce of strength nudging things that much closer to the truth.
All these tiny gestures pieced together were what had kept them going for seventeen years.
"What are you daydreaming about?" Sarah waved a hand in front of his face, smiling. "Nervous about your first sale?"
Du An snapped back to reality and looked at her, leaving the question unanswered. Instead, he asked the question that had been circling in his mind for so long: "Sarah, do you hate football?"
Sarah blinked, regarding him with curious interest. "Why ask that all of a sudden? Sounds like you carry more of a story than I thought."
"My grandmother hates football," Du An said, his voice dropping low. "Her husband, two sons, and a grandson all died on the terraces at Hillsborough. Ever since, she's never touched anything related to football, and she wouldn't let me or my brother touch it either."
The smile on Sarah's face vanished instantly.
Looking at the quiet boy before her, she suddenly understood where that heaviness about him came from.
Grandma Mason's grief was like a web that had ensnared her for more than a decade—and had trapped these two boys along with her.
Du An had been a vessel for that sorrow from childhood, growing up under the weight of another's suffering, until even football became tainted with original sin.
She fell silent for a few seconds, making no hasty move to offer comfort.
A boy like Du An didn't need pity.
Sarah looked steadily at him—at this boy who was already nearly as tall as she was—then let out a soft sigh and swept her gaze across the wall of photographs.
"I have a day job. During the week, I do accounts at a supermarket in the city centre. When I come here on weekends, I don't take a single penny. I'm purely a volunteer. Every month, I donate a hundred pounds from my wages to the HJC. Whenever I have time, I go with the group to visit the victims' families, bring things to elderly people living alone, and just talk with them.
"Over and over, I tell strangers about Hillsborough, about my dad, about the truth that's been dragged through the mud. Some people get angry when they hear it, or sad, and they join our marches and sign our petitions."
She turned back to face Du An. "So you tell me—do I hate football?"
"I love it."
She answered her own question. "It was football that brought all of us together."
Du An frowned slightly. "Just because your dad was in that disaster too? Most of the people who died—you didn't even know them, did you?"
Sarah smiled and gently shook her head. "In Liverpool, none of us are ever strangers.
"We might not know each other's names or what street we live on, but we know the person standing beside us watching the match shares the same blood. I understand what you've lost, but I want to tell you: ninety-six people aren't just ninety-six isolated names. It belongs to all of us."
Du An was silent.
All his life, every memory of Hillsborough had been forged through his grandmother's tears.
He had always thought this grief belonged exclusively to their family, a crushing weight laid upon his grandmother, upon Ethan, and upon himself.
His grandmother had cut herself off from anything connected to football, trapped in memories from which she could never escape.
And in doing so, she had walled her two grandsons inside that same pain.
Yet only today did he realize:
that wasn't true.
In this city, so many people carried similar scars.
They hadn't shut themselves away. They didn't hate football. Instead, because of this disaster, they had drawn closer together, moving forward as one.
His grandmother's choice was only human nature.
Yet for the first time, a different thought took root in Du An's heart.
Perhaps closing oneself off and holding onto hatred was not the only answer.
Outside, the wind swept fallen leaves past the glass door. On the wall, the ninety-six photographs looked quietly down upon the shop.
Du An looked back at them, as if meeting their eyes across time.
Perhaps Dalglish's reason for bringing him here was far more than simply finding him an odd job.
Chapter 34