Book Girl and the Wayfarer's Lamentation Read online

  I tried going by Kotobuki’s room, but her bed was empty again today.

  Speaking of which…I’d left flowers and a note for her yesterday, but Kotobuki hadn’t sent me a text or called. Maybe it really did bother her that I’d come to visit.

  That was a convenient explanation. But if Kotobuki didn’t want to see me, then it was better that I didn’t.

  I decided not to wait for her and just go home, and I left the room.

  My chills and headache were getting worse, and something hazy was spreading through my chest. I was walking down the hall feeling guilty when it happened.

  A girl screamed from around the corner ahead.

  “Don’t go near Inoue!”

  That voice—

  My heart gave a little leap.

  Wasn’t that Kotobuki?

  “You are absolutely awful!”

  Who in the world was she talking to? Her voice was so harsh, and she sounded angry.

  I walked quickly in the direction the voice was coming from and turned the corner.

  “An evil girl like you has no right to see him!!” Kotobuki shouted with burning eyes, a large bandage stuck on her face. She was supporting herself on an aluminum cane fixed with a ring around her right arm.

  She wore a sweater over her pajamas.

  Standing in front of her, her back to me, was a girl with two aluminum crutches under her arms. She was also dressed in pajamas.

  Her body was slim like a boy’s.

  Her hair was short like a boy’s.

  Kotobuki gasped and looked at me.

  Her bandaged face tensed visibly, and she paled. Disappointment and terror shot like arrows through her widened eyes.

  I came to a halt, caught off guard by her expression, and the girl on crutches turned around.

  Every sound in the world fell away, and I felt as if time had stopped.

  A pale cheek.

  Big eyes.

  Cherry-pink lips.

  I knew this girl who looked like a boy, who was at this moment reflected in my eyes. I knew her voice. I knew her smile. I knew the way she moved, the smoothness of her hand, the softness of her lips on my earlobe, the sweetness of her sighs.

  “Konoha. Konoha.”

  Her innocent voice calling to me. Sweet memories tightening my chest. A white angel smiling in a sacred place!

  “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?”

  A lovely voice like a bell made of glass called my name exactly the way she used to.

  “Konoha.”

  Miu looked at me joyously, her eyes sparkling.

  Her lips curved into a gentle, indulgent smile.

  “You finally came to see me, huh, Konoha?”

  Her face filled with a radiantly happy smile, and Miu stretched out her hands and tried to run toward me.

  Her aluminum crutches clattered loudly to the floor, and her body tilted forward.

  “Miu!!”

  I exploded toward Miu.

  The instant her delicate, pajama-clad body had crumpled to the floor, the image of Miu jumping off the roof came to my mind, and I thought my heart would stop. I cradled her in my arms deliriously.

  “Miu! Are you all right?! Miu?!”

  Miu circled her arms around my neck and embraced me, trusting her whole body to me.

  “I can’t walk without my crutches. I forgot. Because I got to see you again, Konoha. Konoha, Konoha, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you a lot. I’ve…been waiting for you.”

  Her voice was raspy, her emotions in turmoil from her unrestrained happiness.

  Miu’s breath touching my ear. The warmth of Miu’s body against my skin. The bittersweet smell of soap mixed with sweat.

  My mind was reeling, and I hugged Miu back fiercely.

  This wasn’t a dream.

  She’d lost a lot of weight and her hair was short now, but her clear eyes were unchanged. This was definitely Miu. Miu was here.

  Still clinging to me, Miu whispered in an emotional voice, “Kotobuki was saying terrible things to me. She said she would never let me see you, that I didn’t deserve to see you…”

  When I heard that, I finally remembered Kotobuki’s presence and that we were in a hallway at the hospital.

  Hey! Why were Kotobuki and Miu together?

  And how could Kotobuki have said those things to Miu?

  When I lifted my gaze, Kotobuki was looking down at us with a tense expression, her forehead tightly knit, showing that she was fighting back tears.

  When her eyes met mine, her face flushed red, and she started trying to say something in a high-pitched voice.

  “N-no…I was…”

  Miu buried her face against my chest and started crying, interrupting Kotobuki’s explanation.

  “You heard her yelling at me a second ago, didn’t you, Konoha? She really did say a bunch of awful stuff to me! Like how I deserved to spend the rest of my life in the hospital and how she couldn’t stand to look at me and that I shouldn’t go near you. Sh-she came to my room out of nowhere and said, ‘Inoue’s forgotten all about you. Serves you right.’ I-I couldn’t say anything. It hurt so much.”

  “That’s not what happened!”

  Kotobuki’s eyebrows shot up, and she clenched her fingers around her cane. Her pale lips were trembling slightly.

  “Eek! She’s glaring at me. Take me back to my room, Konoha. I’m scared. Hurry.”

  Miu seemed badly confused. She curled up in my arms like a baby bird and sobbed, her body shaking.

  “I’m sorry, Kotobuki.”

  The instant I said it, Kotobuki’s eyes went wide in shock.

  But I was confused, too, by my sudden reunion with Miu, and I couldn’t think things through properly.

  At Miu’s request, I put my arms around her body—it was as light as air—and helped her stand, then picked up her crutches. Then, supporting Miu, I walked away.

  Kotobuki watched me do it without a word, biting down fiercely on her lip and gripping the cane affixed to her arm so tightly that her fingers turned white.

  Clang, clang…I moved down the hall with Miu, who nimbly handled the crutches to walk.

  The distance between Kotobuki and us grew steadily greater.

  “I really have missed you, Konoha. This whole time, I’ve wanted to see you. I’ve been waiting,” Miu repeated in a voice like a whisper. “I’m sure you’re mad at me. For doing what I did, right in front of you.”

  It was as if she’d grabbed my heart in her bare hands.

  The image of Miu falling away backward came to my mind, and my throat quivered, making it hard to breathe.

  “I’m not…at all.”

  Still on her crutches, Miu lowered her eyelashes and murmured forlornly.

  “No…of course you’d be mad. When you came to see me at the hospital, I wanted to see you more than anything. But my mom and dad…they wouldn’t let me see you.

  “Since I was with you when it happened, they thought you must have done something to me. And then they forced me to change hospitals…I’m sorry, Konoha. I wrote you letters, too. But I never once got a reply from you.”

  Surprised, I said, “I never got any letters!”

  Miu’s face grew even sadder at that.

  “I thought as much. Your mom…she hated me. I thought she might not give them to you.”

  My heart felt chilled.

  “You’re saying my mother threw the letters away?”

  Miu stopped walking and squeezed my arm with one hand.

  “I dunno…But the fact that the letters didn’t reach you might imply that. But I’m sure she’d say she doesn’t know anything about it.”

  I couldn’t believe that my mother would throw out Miu’s letters without telling me. But it was true that she’d seemed concerned that I only ever played with Miu.

  “Miu is a little girl. You’re a little boy. So don’t you think you should play with o
ther little boys?”

  She’d said that to me before in a gentle voice.

  As we advanced in school, Miu stopped coming over, and we started meeting up at the library in school or at a nearby library.

  I didn’t think my mother would throw away letters addressed to me.

  But if not, then where did the letters from Miu go?

  I’d been afraid this whole time that Miu hated me.

  She was entrusting her body to me like this, talking to me just like she used to, and my heart trembled with an almost melancholy joy alongside the anxiety, confusion, and doubt that it also felt.

  Miu pressed her head against my chest. As I gently supported her, we started walking again.

  “When did you come back here?” I asked.

  “…Last winter.”

  “That long ago!”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to come, Konoha. Kazushi promised he would give my letters to you and bring you with him. But…”

  “Kazushi…who’s that?”

  Miu stopped outside the room with the name card reading ASAKURA and looked up at me, her eyes narrowing quickly.

  Then she hung her head in silence. Her bangs slid across her eyes and hid her expression.

  The next moment, the name Miu produced gave me a shock.

  “Your classmate, Kazushi Akutagawa.”

  “Asakura? You’re back.”

  I was flabbergasted to see the door in front of us open and Akutagawa come out.

  It was like being punched in the head just for walking past someone.

  I couldn’t believe what my eyes were showing me.

  Akutagawa looked at me, too, and his face instantly stiffened.

  “…Inoue.” His muffled voice slipped past dry lips.

  Akutagawa looked at Miu standing beside me, then looked back at me, and his brows knit in pain.

  What are you doing here?!

  A hot lump rose in my throat.

  Miu suddenly threw her head back and shouted at Akutagawa, “How could you, Kazushi?! You said you would help me see Konoha. I believed you! I trusted my letters to you. But you didn’t give them to him, did you?”

  “Calm down, Asakura!”

  Akutagawa rested a hand on Miu’s shoulder and tried to soothe her. That act struck me as very familiar, and a searing pain coursed through my chest.

  Miu threw off Akutagawa’s arm with an expression of naked loathing. Losing her balance, her body wheeled and fell back against me. She clung to me tightly.

  “Don’t touch me! You said Konoha resented me. I believed you, ’cos you’re Konoha’s best friend. You told Kotobuki about me and let her bully me—how could you do such terrible things?”

  “Cut it out, Asakura. Don’t say another word. Please, stop it!” Akutagawa shouted, his face twisted and his breathing feeble. His narrowly squinted eyes were colored by suffering.

  “I hate you. Get out! Don’t ever come here again. Don’t interfere with me and Konoha!”

  Akutagawa looked over at me. His lips started moving as if there was something he wanted to say, but Miu said, “Go away, now!!” and he pressed his lips firmly together. Looking once more at me with painfully sad eyes, he let out a heavy sigh, quietly turned his back, and left.

  Miu buried her face against my chest, as if she didn’t want to see him.

  Maybe I should have gone after Akutagawa.

  Maybe I should have stopped him and asked what was going on.

  But so many different things were happening at once, I didn’t know what I ought to do.

  Feeling as if my chest were being ripped open, I listened to his retreating footsteps.

  At last they became totally inaudible and the hallway felt eerily silent.

  “Let’s go inside, Konoha. Come with me.”

  I could no longer think, so I went with Miu just like she told me to.

  Miu seemed to have the room to herself; there was only one bed.

  I sat Miu down gently, as if she were an expensive, breakable doll, atop the starched white sheets.

  Miu put her arms around me and rubbed her cheek softly against my neck like a lonely kitten.

  Then she turned her face up to mine, narrowed her eyes sweetly, and whispered in relief, “I’m glad I got to see you, Konoha.”

  Chapter 3—That Is a Pristine Trap

  Dinner was long over when I returned home.

  “Sorry. I ate while I was out.”

  “You should have called, then.”

  “Sorry…”

  Really I hadn’t eaten anything, though.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  My mother turned around with a smile.

  “What’s the matter, Konoha?”

  I moved my mouth laboriously.

  “Do you remember Miu?”

  My mother’s face tensed suddenly.

  “Y-yes…”

  As I felt the air prickle against my skin, I forced the words out with a fierce effort.

  “You haven’t ever…hidden anything from me about Miu, right?”

  I saw my mother’s eyes widen in shock and her lips tremble in fear.

  “What are you saying, Konoha? Of course I haven’t. Why are you asking all of a sudden? Have you had some news from Miu?”

  “No, I was just…thinking about her,” I lied to my mother, who asked her questions uneasily and pale faced.

  “I see…You ought to just forget about her.”

  “I guess.”

  It was hard to breathe, and it felt like my heart was ripping apart. It seemed like my mother was reacting way more than necessary to what I’d said. After Miu’s accident, I’d withdrawn and not gone to school for a long time, so she might have just become oversensitive.

  But…

  Maybe I was just overthinking things when I thought I saw guilt appear in her averted eyes.

  “Konoha, let’s play a video game!”

  My little sister came over innocently.

  “Maybe another time.”

  I pretended I was busy with homework and fled to my room.

  The sweet melody of a music box startled me, and I looked over at my cell phone. I’d gotten a text from Kotobuki.

  I remembered that I’d left her standing in the hall at the hospital, and my heart and throat instantly squeezed tight.

  Holding my breath, I opened the message, and the words “I’m sorry” leaped out at me first thing.

  I’m sorry…for not saying anything about Asakura.

  I heard about her from you and wanted to meet her real badly.

  When I talked to you, I thought it hurt you to remember her…so I couldn’t tell you that she was at the hospital.

  I’m so sorry.

  But she was the one who contacted me first.

  If I tell you this, you might think I’m a bad person, but…

  Don’t believe her.

  I’m worried about you. Asakura isn’t the girl you think she is.

  My heart swelled, and my throat quivered.

  I was the one who should have been apologizing.

  I’d left with Miu and hadn’t listened to what Kotobuki had to say after Miu made her out to be the bad guy.

  But still she was saying sorry without a word of reproach about that.

  What thoughts had been going through Kotobuki’s head as she typed up this message to me? How had she felt when I’d left her behind?

  But even as I was moved by Kotobuki’s message, I couldn’t fully accept the words “don’t believe her.”

  It didn’t seem likely that Kotobuki had bullied Miu. I wanted to believe my mother, too.

  But what reason did Miu have to lie? I could never doubt Miu, who had hugged me and murmured so happily when she finally got to see me.

  Miu had lost a lot of weight after two and a half years and had also cut short her pretty chestnut-brown hair that used to rustle in the wind. She looked boyish now.

  But her eyes glinted like stars when she looked at me, just the same as before
.

  And her voice calling my name like sweet music, her joyful smile—everything!

  The feelings I had for Miu, which buffeted me with a stormy ferocity from deep inside my body, made me despair and tortured me to the point where I thought my head would split in two.

  What should I do? How was I supposed to respond to Kotobuki?

  If I wrote down how I really felt, it would hurt her. If I pretended differently, it would be a lie.

  My fingers grew steadily colder as they gripped the phone. I was staring at the screen so intently that it made me nauseous. Just then a knock came at the door, and my mother hesitantly entered my room.

  “Konoha? One of your friends is here.”

  “Wh—?”

  “It’s Akutagawa.”

  I gulped.

  “Sorry for just showing up like this.”

  “…No problem.”

  A minute later, we were facing each other in my room.

  Akutagawa sat down in a chair, and I sat gingerly on my bed.

  I wasn’t able to look him straight in the eye; I looked down and fiddled with my nails.

  “I needed to talk to you today.”

  “…Okay.”

  “You probably figured, but this is about Asakura.”

  “Listen, Konoha.”

  The words Miu had whispered in her hospital room, stealing a glance up into my eyes, echoed vividly in my ears. I felt as if my heart were being crushed in their grasp.

  “Kazushi is definitely going to come see you tonight.”

  “When he does, he’s going to look you straight in the eye and pretend to be the most honest guy in the world, and then he’s going to lie to you.”

  When I looked up, Akutagawa’s back was perfectly straight, and he was looking at me with his sad, almond-shaped eyes. I couldn’t detect a trace of a lie or trick in his calm demeanor or in his serious expression.