Book Girl and the Wayfarer's Lamentation Read online

  “Ack—if you tug on me like that, I’m gonna fall, Kotobuki.”

  I wondered what was up. This time she’d grown suddenly cheerful.

  There was a part-time shrine maiden at the counter, and she shook the rectangular box for us. A long stick slid out of it, and we took the piece of white paper with the number that was written on the end of the stick.

  We moved under a big plum tree and unfolded our fortunes.

  “Oh—”

  Kotobuki let out a sound like a shriek. I looked down at the words written on my paper and murmured, “I’ve got ‘major bad luck.’”

  “What?!”

  When I looked up, Kotobuki had gone pale, still holding her fortune in her hand. I peeked at it and saw it was “major bad luck,” a match to mine.

  “H-how could we both get that?”

  Her shoulders were trembling. There were even rueful tears forming in her eyes.

  “Don’t worry about it. Look, we can tie it on that branch there and forget all about it.”

  “No! Let’s get another one.”

  “But, Kotobuki—”

  There was no need to get that upset about it. Did girls worry about this kind of thing?

  Kotobuki pouted and puffed out her chest and started back toward the counter with the fortunes.

  Just then, we heard cheerful voices talking near us.

  “Eeee! I’ve got ‘major good luck’!”

  “Hey, me too.”

  “Hooray! It’d be awful to start the year with ‘major bad luck.’”

  “You know, they don’t even put those in there.”

  Kotobuki glared pointedly in the direction of the carefree couple, as if their conversation had irked her.

  But I thought I recognized the man’s voice.

  “Ryuuuu, tie my fortune up, too!”

  “You sneak. Do mine, too!”

  “And mine!”

  There wasn’t even only one girl! And they’d said Ryu!

  Kotobuki’s eyes went wide.

  On the other side of the plum tree, the man who was so charming to the three girls was Ryuto, the son of the family Tohko was staying with.

  Ryuto seemed to have noticed us, too, and a friendly smile came over his handsome face.

  “Hey, is that Konoha? Didn’t expect to run into you here. You on a date with Kotobuki today?”

  “We’re, uh—”

  I looked over at Kotobuki, who had turned her flushed face to one side.

  “Er, what about you?”

  “I’m on a date,” he answered coolly, without a hint of guilt.

  “Yeah, Ryu’s on a date with me.”

  “No, he’s not, he’s with me.”

  “You’re with me—right, Ryu?”

  The girls started getting into it. Sigh. He hadn’t changed a bit in the new year. Apparently Kotobuki didn’t like how Ryuto made the girls fight one another without intervening at all, and she turned a critical look toward him. Of course, that didn’t bother Ryuto; he was nonchalant. In contrast, his eyes roved all over Kotobuki and—

  “I like your kimono. A beautiful girl looks good in anything.”

  He laughed affably.

  Kotobuki’s face showed that she was getting more and more ticked off when Chopin’s “Tristesse” abruptly started playing.

  “Oh, s…sorry.”

  Kotobuki was suddenly flustered. She pulled out a pink cell phone and moved off, staring at it.

  Ryuto put together a serious face and whispered into my ear, “That’s from a boy.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Oh, my experience and my intuition tell me, it’s for sure. If it were her family or a friend callin’, she wouldn’t get that flustered. She’s gonna come back and say it was her old boyfriend tryin’ to patch things up.”

  “Ooo, how dramatic!”

  “That kind of thing happens a lot, you know.”

  “Totally.”

  Even the three girls who had been arguing were nodding along like the best of friends. Looking triumphant, Ryu went so far as to say, “Tough-looking girls like that are surprisingly big cheaters. You better be careful you don’t get two-timed, Konoha.”

  Was it just my imagination, or did that sound like a jab?

  “You’re thinking of yourself. I’m going to tell Tohko you were three-timing first thing in the new year.”

  When I said that, Ryuto looked pathetic and gazed up at the sky.

  “Cut me some slack, Konoha. She’ll deck me with her bag again.”

  So he wouldn’t stand up to Tohko after all.

  At that point, Kotobuki pattered back over.

  “Sorry. I got an urgent text. Oh, but…everything’s fine now.”

  She seemed somehow intense when she said this.

  “Ryuuu, we shouldn’t bother them. Let’s go.”

  “I want to drink some sweet wine!”

  “I want to sing karaoke!”

  “Fine, fine. I’ll see you guys,” said Ryuto.

  “Byyye!”

  For a moment, we watched blankly as Ryuto’s group moved off energetically.

  “Um…how about we get something to drink, too?”

  “…Okay.”

  We moved to a family restaurant.

  “You changed your ring tone, huh?”

  “What?”

  “It’s different from the one I heard before.”

  When I mentioned the hit song of a female pop star, her hands stopped picking at her dessert, and she flushed red before my very eyes.

  “That’s…just for you,” she said haltingly.

  “Just for me?”

  “I change the ring tone depending on who it is…for friends or for family or whatever.” After pouting and looking up at me aggressively through her eyelashes, her eyes suddenly went timid again. “I only use that song for you.”

  “O-oh.”

  Uh-oh—my face was burning, too.

  I was pretty sure it was a graceful, sickly sweet love song with a chorus of “I love you, I love you” in the pop star’s cute voice.

  “Do you split up your ring tones, Inoue?”

  “No, everyone’s got the same one.”

  “Oh.” Kotobuki bit down on her lip.

  There was something touching about this, and I smiled.

  “But I want to try changing it. Then I’d know who was calling right away, which would be convenient. What song would be good for you? Any requests?”

  Kotobuki leaned forward.

  “The theme from Beauty and the Beast.”

  She said it impulsively, then pulled back in embarrassment and stuck her spoon into her dessert and clinked it against the dish a few times.

  “Um…when I was little, I saw the Disney movie, and I was totally hooked on it. The tune is pretty, but the lyrics are really good. I love the Japanese version so much. When I was picking the ring tone for you, I didn’t know what to use. So…”

  “Got it. Beauty and the Beast. I’ll use that for your ring tone, then.”

  I pulled out my cell phone, flipped it open, and started connecting to a ring tone site when Kotobuki stopped me in a panic.

  “No, stupid, don’t look for it here! Don’t listen to it!”

  “Why not?”

  “No, no way, no!…Ch-change it at home, secretly.”

  Seriously intimidated by her firmly pursed lips, I almost burst out laughing.

  Kotobuki ate her dessert with a glower.

  Still smiling, I said, “Hey, do you want to go see a movie next week?”

  “Really?” Her head popped up.

  “Sure. What do you want to see? Is there some Disney thing playing?”

  “What about you? What kinds of movies do you usually watch?”

  “Hmm…”

  Deep in my chest, something tickled. But it felt good.

  Talking with Kotobuki about our interests, deciding on a movie title, deciding a time and place to meet.

  The unassuming, embarrassing, ticklis
h conversation drew on until I forgot the time.

  “Um…I’m going to do my best! So…I look forward to the year with you!”

  Going our separate ways. At the crossroads that had begun to darken into calm, Kotobuki looked up at me with bright red cheeks and said that, breathing excitedly, and then ducked her head.

  “Me, too. I had a lot of fun today,” I answered with a smile, and a smile slowly spread over Kotobuki’s face, too, like the gentle light of evening.

  “I…I’m looking forward to the movie. I’ll text you, too. B-bye,” she whispered shyly; then she hurried away, the sleeves of her kimono fluttering. I watched her go, feeling content.

  When I got back home, my portion of the New Year’s postcards were sitting on my desk.

  “Huh? This card…”

  It was the one I’d seen on my way out that looked like a monstrous version of a bird and cat. I thought maybe one of Maika’s cards had gotten mixed in with mine and checked the address, where childishly unsteady letters read, “Konoha Inoue.”

  It was for me?

  But there was no name saying who had sent the card anywhere on it.

  Maybe it was a prank…

  I set the postcard down without thinking too deeply about it.

  I sat down in my chair, opened my cell phone, and searched for a Beauty and the Beast ring tone. I downloaded a music box version.

  Ah, this song…

  The duet between Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson. I’d heard it in commercials before. It was a tranquil, gentle song. I looked up the lyrics for the Japanese version while I was at it.

  A wondrous tale of love

  Hand in hand, a hesitant caress

  Only just a bit, step-by-step it comes

  A kind act opens the doors to love

  It looked like the song had been rearranged a little when it was translated.

  I remembered the chilly, awkward sensation when I’d held hands with Kotobuki in the crowd, and it squeezed my heart sweetly tight.

  There was definitely no burning passion in my feelings, but…hesitant, step by step.

  Maybe we were getting closer.

  I bought and downloaded the English version that Celine Dion had sung, and I listened to it over and over on my headphones that night.

  As I closed my eyes, I saw in my mind the happy smile, again and again—gentle like the last light of the setting sun—that Kotobuki had given me when we parted.

  It was the day before we were supposed to go to the movie that I got a text saying she couldn’t make it.

  I’m sorry. I can’t go tomorrow. I might not be able to call or text you for a while.

  She didn’t give a reason.

  There was no response to the text I sent her, either.

  I didn’t know why she’d suddenly canceled our plans.

  After two days went by with a nebulous anxiety growing in my chest, I got a call from our underclassman Takeda on my cell phone.

  “Oh, Konoha! It’s bad! Nanase got hurt, and she’s in the hospital. They say she fell down the stairs!”

  * * *

  You’re really dangerous and arrogant and selfish, and I hate you and detest you.

  How could you act so cruelly and hurt me like that?

  You watched, laughing, as my heart was slashed to ribbons by a glinting, transparent blade, and I screamed and spilled stinking blood and writhed in pain. You stomped casually on my back as I beat my fists against the ground and wept.

  What did you and Haraguchi talk about? Where did you go with Mine? Did you think I didn’t know?

  And how you misled Haraguchi with your skillful words and how you let Mine touch you and how you played together in the water—I know about all of it. I saw it with my own eyes.

  Then my body was thrown into blue flames, and I experienced pain as if I were being prodded all over by burning metal skewers until I was bloody.

  You always, always saw me suffering and laughed in pleasure.

  Then you would cuddle up next to me, steal all sorts of things from me, and destroy me.

  So you’ll forgive me if I take my revenge on you, right?

  Chapter 2—Why Miu Inoue Died

  “Whaaaat? A visit? You have to do it. That goes without saying.”

  On the other end of the cell phone, Takeda shouted, aghast.

  “But when I texted Kotobuki, she said not to come.”

  I was terribly confused.

  I’d been surprised that Kotobuki had canceled the movie and been admitted to the hospital the day before we were supposed to go, and I didn’t know how to take the fact that when her reply finally came, it was incredibly brusque, or that she’d told me that she was embarrassed so I didn’t have to come visit her.

  She explained that the reason she’d kept quiet about being hospitalized was that she had been admitted to the hospital she’d been in over the summer again and had felt stupid.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t understand why she would feel that way, but…

  When I went to visit her with Tohko over the summer, she’d had a litany of mutterings and been in a bad mood, and when she was alone with me in her hospital room, she had turned away from me as if I was a nuisance.

  Knowing Kotobuki’s personality, I guessed she didn’t want to show her weakness. Maybe she really didn’t want me to come. If I showed up even though she’d told me not to come, wouldn’t that make her feel bad?

  After much angst, I asked Takeda’s advice through a text message, and the call had come immediately to lecture me. “You’re so clueless about how girls feel.

  “With girls like that, even if they talk tough, deep inside of course they want you to come. Geez, you are just a lost cause. Things finally started getting good, and now her boyfriend won’t go visit her in the hospital. That’s the worst. Nanase is gonna cryyy.”

  She spoke her mind in a cute voice like a cartoon character.

  “Maybe that’s it…”

  “That is it,” she declared crisply, and I decided to go visit Kotobuki.

  The next day, I got the people at a flower shop to make a small bouquet from pink roses and red strawberry-scented candles shaped like strawberries and brought that to the hospital.

  “Let’s see…Kotobuki’s room is…”

  I’d been in this spacious hallway that smelled of medicine before. I was walking down the hall confirming the room number when it happened.

  “Inoue.”

  Someone spoke my name, and I looked up. Akutagawa was standing there in a black knit shirt and jeans wearing a hard expression.

  “You come to see Kotobuki?”

  “Huh? You knew she was in the hospital?”

  A shadow fell over Akutagawa’s eyes, and his handsome face twisted ever so slightly.

  “Yeah…she told me a second ago.”

  Akutagawa’s mother had been lying unconscious in a hospital bed for years now.

  So it wasn’t strange for him to be at the hospital. He must have come to visit his mother.

  “Did you go see her?”

  “Yeah,” he answered ambiguously.

  I wondered what was going on. Why was he so on edge?

  “How bad is she hurt? It’s not serious, is it?”

  “She’s fine. She’ll be out soon apparently.”

  “That’s good. But I heard she fell down some stairs. I wonder where. At a station, you think? Did she tell you anything?”

  “…No.”

  Akutagawa turned his eyes away in apparent pain and fell silent.

  Then he slowly opened his mouth and said, “Kotobuki’s room is over there. She looked pretty tired, so you probably shouldn’t stay too long.”

  “Gotcha. Thanks.”

  I thanked him and walked off. As I did, I felt someone’s eyes on me. When I turned around, Akutagawa was still standing in the hallway, looking at me with a tense expression.

  Was he worried about me, maybe? I wasn’t a kid, though; I could handle finding a hospital room on my own.

&nbs
p; “Ah, here it is.”

  I stopped outside the number I’d written down on a piece of paper. There was a placard with the name KOTOBUKI on it, too.

  I could hear voices talking inside.

  Was it the person sharing the room with her?

  I knocked on the door and opened it slowly. Two of the four beds in the room were occupied, and a high school–aged girl and a petite old woman looked at me.

  “Excuse me. I came to see Nanase Kotobuki.”

  “Nanase’s not here right now,” the girl answered with a cheerful look.

  The old woman spoke next. “She ought to be back from her tests soon, though.”

  “I see.”

  They both suggested that I wait there, but I was embarrassed and went out into the hall.

  While I was spacing out there, an unexpected person appeared.

  “Konoha?”

  “Tohko!”

  Wrapped up in a navy-blue duffle coat and wearing her school uniform even though it was winter break, the book girl with the long braids saw the pink bouquet in my hand, and a smile spilled across her face.

  “Did you come to visit Nanase, too?”

  “I did, but is it okay that you’re not studying for your tests? Your National Center Test is right around the corner. You’re not still solving second-year math problems, I hope?”

  Tohko huffed.

  “I’m doing the third-year problems, just like I should be. Whether I’m solving them or not is a different story.”

  “If it’s a different story, it’s a scary one, don’t you think?”

  “Geez, I just heard from Chia that Nanase was in the hospital again, and I was so worried I ran over. Please don’t bug me about all this tedious stuff. It’ll make Nanase’s injuries get worse.”

  “I don’t think there’s even the most remote link between your tests and the state of Kotobuki’s injuries. Besides, she’s not in the room right now.”

  “Oh no, really?”

  Tohko’s large, dark eyes widened, and her eyelashes fluttered. Then she giggled.