Excerpt from Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I'd developed a taste and tolerance for beer, so I got straight to work whenever a generous customer came in and encouraged us to let loose. A medium bottle cost ¥800, so if they ordered three, that came to ¥2,400. At the restaurant where I used to work, that would have been almost four hours of work. It seemed too good to be true—to be able to make the same amount of money by just sitting there and drinking beer all night. On a good day, it wasn't unusual to make ¥10,000 or even ¥20,000 off a single customer.

Each day was different, like the weather or your mood, but on average, Lemon was pulling in around ¥30,000 a night. On top of that, Kotomi came by maybe twice a month, bringing her fancy customers from Ginza, and they were on a completely different level from our normal crowd, spending way more money than any of the regulars. And that meant that we made a lot more each month.

Plus, there was something special about the people who came to Lemon.

It was like they were all members of the same group, even the other bar and club workers from the neighborhood. Everyone got along and enjoyed each other's company; no one seemed to mind when Kimiko and I spent our time at other tables. We had four bar stools and three booths, so even at full capacity, we only had about a dozen customers in the place. Maybe that's what gave Lemon such a community feel. Once in a while, some first-timers would get angry about not getting enough attention from us and demand their money back. But Kimiko never seemed bothered about it. She always knew how to get those customers to calm down and go home. "Just forget about them," she'd tell me with a smile, but when that kind of thing happened, it always weighed heavy on me, and sometimes I'd stay awake all night thinking about it.

"Hey, Kimiko, I know we've kept everything under control so far, but I was thinking ... what happens if one of us gets sick or something? What do we do then?"

"Are you saying we should hire some help?"

"Yeah ... maybe one more person, like somebody to work part-time? We've been getting more customers, too. It feels like a missed opportunity when they leave unsatisfied. Who knows, maybe they could have become regulars. It's probably too close to the holidays for us to find somebody now, but maybe in the new year?"

"Maybe, yeah."

I tried bringing up the idea of hiring help with Kimiko a couple more times, but she never seemed that interested. It was the same when it came to money. I'd get all excited and tell her how much we'd made that month, and she'd smile and act happy, but it never seemed like it brought her the same kind of satisfaction it brought me.

So I ended up being in charge of the finances, too, taking care of things like paying our bills and keeping track of our profits.

It just sort of worked out that way, and plus it wasn't that complicated. All I had to do was go to the bank every month and pay our bills in cash: rent for Lemon and the apartment we shared, alcohol expenses and hot towel service for the bar, and our utilities. That was it. We never really talked about how to divide our earnings either. We had a bowl we kept next to the TV where we'd put money for day-to-day expenses, just like my mom and I used to do. Whenever we ran out, we put more in. I always made sure I had ¥5,000 in my wallet, and Kimiko still kept small bills and loose change in her pockets.

I kept the rest of our money in a sturdy cardboard box with a lid. Ever since the Snoozy incident, part of me thought it might be safer to put our money in the bank. But all I brought when I left home were some clothes and underwear, and my navy shoebox. I'd never had a bank account, and I didn't have an ID either. Kimiko said she'd forgotten the PIN to her bank account, and she'd lost her family seal, too. So the bank wasn't an option for us.

I didn't feel like there was any need to worry, though. People weren't coming and going into our apartment like they did when I lived with my mom. Still, on the way home from Lemon one night, I found a big, flat, round stone—like the kind people used to weigh down vegetables in a pickling barrel—and brought it home. I scrubbed the stone clean in the bathtub and placed it on top of our money box, just to be safe.

Excerpted from Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami. Copyright © 2026 by Mieko Kawakami. Excerpted by permission of Knopf. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.