Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel Page 12

  Kotobuki turned her back on me stubbornly.

  I didn’t get the feeling that this would be a good time to explain my side of it. She seemed ready to spend the rest of the night grumbling.

  Now what?

  After turning it over in my mind, I opened my cell phone and called Kotobuki’s number.

  A cute love song by a female pop star played in Kotobuki’s coat pocket.

  Kotobuki stopped complaining and gulped.

  Then she got her phone out and put it to her ear.

  I could hear Kotobuki’s dry, hesitant breathing through the earpiece.

  “Hello? It’s Inoue. I’d like to talk to Nanase Kotobuki. Is she available?”

  I heard another gulp and her hesitant response.

  “…Wh-what is it?”

  I talked into the cell phone.

  “First off, I’m sorry. You gave me hints and everything, and I never picked up on it. It’s not that I didn’t remember you. I just didn’t look at your face very closely that day because I was embarrassed.”

  “Wh-whatever…it’s no big deal. And I thought that might be it…”

  “But what did you mean when you said you came to see me every day after that? We only met once, right?”

  Tension ran through Kotobuki’s back. A stuttering voice came over the phone punctuated by hesitant breathing.

  “You…ran off without even telling me your name, though. I saw you go into the library, so I…wanted to…thank you…And after I pinned up my skirt, I went to the library…And…and you were talking to a girl with a ponytail, and it looked like you were having such a good time…”

  Memories surfaced of those days when I would spend my time after school with Miu in the public libraries.

  It was my daily routine to do homework there.

  Kotobuki went on with her story, her voice hitching.

  “You were sitting beside each other at a table and had a real casual look going on, so…I didn’t want to bother you guys, so I couldn’t say anything to you. But as soon as I got home, I regretted not thanking you.

  “Then the next day, I went to the library. I wasn’t sure if you’d be there, but…I thought I might as well try.

  “When I got there, you were sitting at a table next to that girl again and laughing so happily, so…Every time after that, you were with her, always having fun, not seeing anything but her, and I couldn’t find a good moment…”

  Surprised, I asked, “You came to the library every day? To thank me?”

  “I was stupid. It’s like I was stalking you,” Kotobuki spat, sounding annoyed at herself. Then her voice grew suddenly frail again. “A-and then—I’m sorry!…I wasn’t trying to listen, but…I could hear what you guys were saying. So I heard your name, and I heard you call her Miu…”

  I gasped.

  “So you thought Miu was Miu Inoue?”

  Kotobuki flinched.

  Then keeping her phone pressed to her ear, she slowly turned to face me. She looked up at me with vulnerable eyes, like a child waiting to get scolded by the teacher.

  “She was always writing stuff on loose-leaf paper and making you read it, though. And I accidentally overheard her say she was going to apply to the next Summer’s Breeze new author competition…You told her she could be the youngest person to ever win the grand prize.

  “So when the news started talking about a fourteen year-old middle schooler winning the prize, I thought I could feel my heart stop. She’d won. And after that, suddenly neither of you came to the library anymore. I thought that must be why…”

  Kotobuki’s face, her words, stirred up days long gone, and my heart squeezed tight with melancholy.

  Miu doodling lightly on the back of my hand with a mechanical pencil and winking at me teasingly, her bouncing ponytail, her fresh, soapy scent.

  Days of refreshing happiness.

  “Konoha, do you like me? Look me in the eye and say it. Do you like me? Hmm? I love you. How much do you like me, Konoha?”

  Miu always having fun and teasing me. “You’re special to me, Konoha. So I’m going to tell you and only you what my dream is.” She pressed her lips softly to my ear and whispered that to me.

  I thought my brain would boil in that moment, my heart would burst, and my body would melt away.

  “I’m thinking of applying to the Summer’s Breeze new author competition. If I won the grand prize, they’d turn my story into a book. The youngest person to ever win was seventeen. I wanna win younger than that.”

  “If anybody can win the grand prize as the youngest person ever, it’s you, Miu. I can’t wait for your story to be a book. I get your very first autograph. That’s a promise.”

  Miu giggled and said I was getting ahead of myself.

  Kotobuki had been there with us back then.

  She’d been watching Miu and me that whole time.

  Our innocent, happy hours—

  A sharp pain welled up in my throat.

  Of course, Kotobuki had misunderstood.

  Miu had written a novel first. All that time, I’d done nothing more than read for Miu and started writing something that looked like a novel to imitate her, and I’d kept it a secret from her.

  I hadn’t had the slightest intention of being a fourteen-year-old girl genius as an author, and I’d never imagined that our happy lives could be shattered so easily.

  It hurt to have Kotobuki, who had known me back then, watching me with such fragile eyes, so in a hoarse voice I said, “You got it wrong. Miu wasn’t Miu Inoue. Miu Inoue wasn’t her—”

  Kotobuki kept her cell phone pressed to her ear and stared at me, as if awaiting my next words.

  “Miu…Miu Inoue was…”

  The words stuck in my throat, and my breathing grew more strained. The hand that held my phone grew cold.

  Kotobuki asked in a small voice, almost like a sigh, “If she wasn’t Miu Inoue…then what’s she doing now?”

  In that instant, a shock of pain that seemed to crush my heart in its grasp and a stormy vision, black as night, assaulted me.

  A roof at the beginning of summer. A fluttering skirt and ponytail. Miu turning around with a sad face to smile at me. Her last words.

  “You would never understand, Konoha.”

  Miu falling away backward. Myself screaming.

  The world breaking apart like scattering puzzle pieces.

  The heavy, firm portals of memory opened with a creak, and a voice filled with malice rang out cruelly.

  “It’s not that guys like you don’t notice. You just don’t want to know.”

  People like you or Miu Inoue hurt people and force them into corners naively.

  No! Stop! I’m not the one who cornered Miu!

  Ohhh, but—

  An invisible hand crushed my heart in its grasp, my throat squeezed almost shut, and I could no longer breathe.

  Wasn’t I forgetting something important?

  Hadn’t I turned the lock on my heart any number of times so that I wouldn’t remember?

  “Inoue!”

  Kotobuki stood up and ran over to me.

  I knelt on the floor and took shallow breaths as I shuddered.

  “What’s wrong?! You’re sweating so much…”

  “…Ngh. I’m fine…Thanks.”

  “Sorry…this is ’cos I asked all that stuff.”

  “That’s not true. It’s not your fault.”

  I gave a misshapen smile with my dry lips to reassure Kotobuki, who looked like she was about to cry.

  “I won’t ever see Miu again. She moved away, and I haven’t heard from her since…”

  Kotobuki’s face fell and she gulped.

  Somehow I got my attack under control, but in its place a wrenching regret pressed down on my heart.

  That day two years ago when Miu jumped off the roof, she escaped death’s grasp.

  The fact that there were bushes right under her and that she hit a pole on the way down meant the speed of the fall was lessened, which kept
her alive.

  But for a long time her condition was precarious, and no one but her family was allowed to see her at the hospital.

  She finally regained consciousness, but even after therapy, problems persisted. When I found out that she wouldn’t be able to walk or move her hands like she used to, I was thrust once more into darkness.

  What was Miu feeling? Why had she jumped off the roof? Why had she said those things to me? What did she think of me now?

  Was it my fault that Miu jumped—?!

  I’d wanted to see Miu and hear what she had to say, but she wouldn’t see me. I was also terrified of hearing the truth from Miu’s mouth, terrified to the point of shaking. Every night I groaned at the dreams I had about Miu falling, and I would leap awake, throw up in the bathroom, and even if I went back to bed, I couldn’t sleep and just spent the night tangling up the sheets.

  I wanted to see Miu.

  But I was scared.

  I didn’t want to see her. Every single day I went to the hospital feeling oppressed, and every time I went to the front desk and was informed that I couldn’t see Miu, knives sliced into my heart and shredded it.

  While that was going on, while I was still ignorant of the answers, Miu moved away. Nobody knew where she’d gone.

  Miu disappeared without telling me anything.

  After that, I had several attacks where I suddenly stopped being able to breathe. After I collapsed at school, I got taken to the hospital in an ambulance and ended up being a recluse.

  In tears, I told the publishers who were pressing me for a sequel that I would never write another novel, that I couldn’t write anything, that I hated novels and Miu Inoue, that I was Konoha Inoue, not Miu. I cut off all communication with them, and the author Miu Inoue disappeared from the world.

  More than two years had gone by, and in that time I’d never gotten a single letter from Miu and heard no news of hear.

  Because Miu had never fit in with the girls in my class, and she didn’t have any other close friends…

  I knew I would never see her again.

  Miu had gone far away without ever forgiving me.

  Kotobuki looked at me with a taut expression.

  She was probably feeling bad because she thought she’d hurt my feelings. She rumpled her hair with one hand and spoke in a desperate, strained voice.

  “I…I’m sorry…I don’t know why I always say such nosy things…I’m offensive, and I dunno how I sound, so when I was in middle school all the boys said I had an awful personality and they hated me. The teachers thought I was rebelling against them, too, and they glared at me. God…I haven’t changed at all. I hate this. All I ever wanted was to be a nice, sociable girl like Yuka.”

  Then she slumped.

  “You don’t have a bad personality, Kotobuki. You’ve got all those friends in our class, after all.”

  Keeping her eyes down, Kotobuki murmured in a thick voice, “That’s—I got them all through Yuka…She’s been helping me out and supporting me ever since middle school. She’d tell me, ‘You should smile more, Nanase. That way people can tell that you’re not mad.’ She would always give me advice like that. But all I ever did was lean on her, and when she was in trouble, I couldn’t do anything to help.”

  The faint light of the candles illuminated Kotobuki’s sad face, orange flames flickering over her white cheeks.

  Like me, Kotobuki had lost someone important to her.

  Her life had been changed and suddenly lost.

  I, too, knew the pain and the despair that seemed to rip your body apart when you faced it head-on.

  Why?

  How come?

  Even though Miu had been smiling at me in what I know was happiness up until now.

  Even though I believed that our peaceful, unassuming lives spent hand in hand would go on forever and ever, for eternity—

  The questions repeating over and over deep in my heart that have no answers—the unending regrets, the incurable pain.

  Kotobuki, who hugged her knees and hung her head now, was me two years ago.

  But one thing was different.

  Kotobuki hadn’t lost Mito completely yet.

  Just as Kotobuki was concerned about Mito, Mito was worried about Kotobuki, too. The fact that even after she had disappeared, she’d kept on sending Kotobuki messages and called me were obviously because she didn’t want to hurt Kotobuki.

  Kotobuki wasn’t alone in her feelings. Mito cared about her, too.

  Raoul was a noble-hearted, spoiled son of good upbringing, and he’d had no power to resist the Phantom.

  But if Kotobuki and I incited some kind of action right now, the way Raoul had valiantly entered the subterranean kingdom, we might be able to tear Christine from the Phantom’s grasp.

  Though I wasn’t sure whether I was fulfilling the role of the Persian who rescued Raoul.

  We might still be in time.

  Ah, but—going to the underground kingdom meant revealing the truth that Mito had kept hidden.

  Kotobuki would find out what Mito had been doing up until she disappeared and what she was trying to do now. Could she accept the fact that the friend she was so proud of and who she loved had worked as an escort and had even threatened people in order to get a lead role?

  Would Kotobuki be able to stay friends with her, however dark and ghastly Mito’s “true” self was—however much of a stranger she was from the girl Kotobuki knew?

  If it were me—

  A sharp pain stabbed through my chest.

  Did I want to know everything about Miu?

  To know the truth about her?

  Why did Miu jump that day? Why did she avoid me all of a sudden? Why did she stop talking to me? Why did she start going home without me? Why did she look daggers at me and unleash her hatred on me?

  And the reason for that sad smile.

  Did I want to know that?

  No matter how intense the truth might be? Even if I was beset by suffering and despair even greater than I’d felt up till now, and it laid me out to the point that I couldn’t get back up?

  Even if I couldn’t bear the pain and went crazy?

  But learning the truth wasn’t necessarily the right thing—

  A battering voice thundered through my head.

  “You just don’t want to know. You’re a coward and a hypocrite. You pretend to be a victim, then turn your eyes from the truth and keep on running.”

  My breath caught, and I almost collapsed at an intense pain like a red-hot iron bar being thrust into an open wound and shaken around.

  Stop! Don’t attack me anymore!

  I’d finally managed to return to a peaceful life. I thought I’d be able to forget about Miu Inoue and start over. The truth wouldn’t necessarily save you. You could sometimes be happier not knowing. Mr. Mariya had said that.

  No, I didn’t want to know! I didn’t!

  Even though I was in this much pain, I was so terrified of opening the door to the truth that all I could do was plug my ears, close my eyes, fall to my knees, and bear it.

  I was so, so terrified of learning how Miu felt that I couldn’t handle it. If I found out that Miu hated me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to go on living—

  As I wrestled with these thoughts, beside me Kotobuki buried her face in her knees and her shoulders trembled minutely.

  What about Kotobuki—? What would she do? Did she want to know the truth about her best friend, even if the pain burrowing into her heart made her thrash in torment?

  Kotobuki was in the same position I was, so she would understand this fear and anxiety that threatened to crush us in deep darkness, wouldn’t she? We had both been hurt so much and we couldn’t bear any further betrayal or hatred—

  In a low voice, I asked, “Kotobuki…If…if Mito wasn’t the kind of person you thought she was…would you want to know the truth?”

  Kotobuki gasped and lifted her face to look at me.

  “If…if Mito was a criminal or if she betrayed
you…do you think you’d want to know?”

  Kotobuki probably didn’t understand why I was asking a question like that out of nowhere.

  But she may have sensed something dark and murky that was implicit in my feeble, almost inaudible voice, my trembling lips, and my beseeching eyes. She looked up at me with a tense, uneasy face.

  The flames flickered, the smell of smoke pricked my nose, and the air stabbed at my skin.

  Kotobuki’s face fell into a look of vulnerability as she murmured something.

  “…I want to know. I want to save Yuka.”

  That instant—my heart swelled and I thought I might cry.

  She had spoken the answer I’d been too afraid to give and as if it was the only logical choice.

  Though in reality she was an ordinary girl who had no power to fight the Phantom, who was vulnerable and kind and headstrong and prone to tears, she had said she wanted to know, had said that she wanted to save Yuka.

  I couldn’t stop my heart from trembling at those simple, powerful words—tenderness and courage and prayers and a desire to protect all welled up in my chest one after another, and I hugged Kotobuki close.

  Her small, chilled body trembled in my arms in surprise.

  “I, Inoue—”

  I wouldn’t be swayed by Omi’s words anymore.

  The courage Kotobuki had shown roused me from my cowardice and pulled me to my feet.

  Miu taught me that.

  Now, I hugged Kotobuki tightly, as if to hold fast to this warm, certain object that I could touch.

  “Let’s…look for Mito together. Let me help again. Please, let me stay with you till the end.”

  Her small, fragile hands, which she stretched out hesitantly, closed tightly around my back.

  Kotobuki nodded an okay, still sobbing.

  The empty room that smelled of mold and smoke was lit by the faint candlelight.

  We were very weak as we held each other, tears blurring our eyes, but I could believe that as long as we were together, we might grow stronger.