Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God, Part 1 Page 4

  I complained to Fumiharu that he should be more judicious with their snacks because if Tohko ate too much, she wouldn’t have room for dinner.

  He laughed and told me, “Nonsense. She’ll never run out of room for dinner. Tohko and I love the food you write more than any book.”

  Fumiharu always knows exactly what to say and he always wins me over. But it’s true that he and Tohko have polished off every meal I’ve ever written them.

  The other day Tohko tried to eat a book in the children’s corner of the library, and she got scolded by the librarian.

  The young man was kind and wore glasses and Tohko liked him very much, so it was a blow for her. She was still crying when we got home.

  “All I did was try to eat the book.”

  “The books at the library belong to everybody. You can’t eat them. You can’t eat the books they sell at bookstores, either. You can’t eat a book unless you paid for it and it belongs to you.”

  Fumiharu took Tohko onto his lap and hugged her. As he gently instructed her, he stroked her bangs.

  “And from now on, you can’t eat books except with people you care about. What Daddy’s telling you is very important, so you need to pay attention.”

  “People I care about?”

  “Like Mommy or Daddy—one day someone you truly care about—you should only eat with your author.”

  “My author?”

  And then Fumiharu told Tohko the story of how he proposed to me.

  Tohko listened, enthralled, her cheeks flushing.

  “Mommy is your author?”

  “Yes. She’s my author and yours, too.”

  When Fumiharu told her that, her face lit up with an excited smile.

  “That’s great, Daddy. That’s really great.”

  I wonder whether Tohko will ever meet someone who writes just for her.

  I wonder what sort of person they’ll be.

  Tohko’s hair has grown longer, so I braided it for her.

  “I wore braids when I was in school, too. Braids are proof that you’re a book girl.”

  When I told her that—“Just like you, Mommy”—she rejoiced.

  I let her hair down and it billowed out—“Exactly like you”—and she danced around with even greater joy.

  Sunday arrived, and I still hadn’t been able to tell my family about Kotobuki.

  She came over before noon—at eleven o’clock.

  “H-hello! I-I-I’m your son’s classmate. Nanase Kotobuki!”

  My parents stared at her with ambiguous expressions, struggling for words, as she gave her stuttering, stiffly nervous introduction. Seeing those looks, I could tell exactly how confused they were, and I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable.

  “Um, h-here. I mean, I made this. I’d like all of you to have it.”

  Just as Tohko had done the day before, Nanase held out a paper bag.

  “Well… thank you for going to all that trouble.”

  My mother rushed to take the bag from her. But her voice and expression were awkward and she was shooting glances at my father.

  “I enjoy making sweets. I don’t know if it’s any good, though.”

  At this statement that was again word for word what Tohko had said, my parents’ expressions became even more ambiguous.

  “Kotobuki really does enjoy making sweets. And she’s good at it.”

  I hurried to back her up and—“Oh, geez, I’m not that good,” she said, turning red. “Just don’t expect too much. I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing you like. Um, it’s a lemon meringue pie.”

  “Wow! Lemon meringue pie!”

  Maika, who was totally unable to pick up on the weird atmosphere, jumped up and down excitedly.

  “Anne and Gilbert taste like lemon meringue pie! They taste sweet and sour! I want some lemon meringue pie. Thank you, Miss Nanase. Yaaaay, I got lemon meringue pie!”

  Kotobuki’s eyes widened at Maika’s excited display, but still her expression brightened. I guess she was glad she’d made Maika that happy.

  “Now, Maika, you need to behave in front of our guest,” my mother scolded.

  But Maika was utterly consumed by the lemon meringue pie, and she peeked into the paper bag in my mother’s hand with glittering eyes.

  “Come in, Kotobuki. Let’s go to my room.”

  “O-okay.”

  Kotobuki excused herself and took off her shoes. Maika sniffed deeply at the aroma from the paper bag and shouted.

  “It smells goooood! The other girl’s cream puffs were so salty yesterday, but today’s girl brought lemon meringue pie! It looks sooo good.”

  Kotobuki started.

  “What… other girl?”

  My mother, my father, and I all stiffened.

  With an innocent, childlike grin, Maika unleashed the final blow.

  “The preznent! She had braids and looks like Anne!”

  A few minutes later, Kotobuki and I were alone in my room.

  “Um…”

  Kotobuki sat stiffly on the rug with her legs tucked under her. She had her hands squeezed tightly together in her lap. The air was unbelievably loaded.

  “Do you want to take off your coat?” I asked.

  She stood up and took off her girlishly flouncy white coat, leaving her standing in a light pink sweater and black miniskirt.

  I tried to offer her a hanger, but before I could, she’d bundled her jacket up and set it down beside her. Then she sat back down stiffly and gazed tensely at her knees.

  Uh-oh. I needed to come up with something to talk about to cheer her up. I was racking my brains for something when she whispered, “… So Tohko was here.”

  Aaaaaack.

  It felt like my heart was going to jump out of my mouth, and I broke out in a sweat. I explained it away quickly.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. But it just so happened—I mean, yeah! It just so happened that she needed to talk to me about something for the club and she came over here for a little bit. It was purely a coincidence.”

  “… And she brought salted cream puffs?”

  “Hold on, they weren’t salted cream puffs—they were over-salted cream puffs. Nothing fancy. She mixed up the salt and sugar when she made them.”

  “… So Tohko happened to come over with cream puffs she’d made from scratch. Does she come over often?”

  “Th-this was the first time! Yesterday was a first, and her making something from scratch was a first, and everything else was a first, and it was totally impossible to predict!”

  Geez, what was I saying? Just as I’d worked myself into a corner, my mother came in. I was relieved.

  Her tray held the tea set, slices of Kotobuki’s lemon meringue pie, and also crispy sesame dumplings piled up on a plate. Great, now we’ll have some tea, eat some snacks, and it’ll change up the mood a little—

  “I’m sorry. I wish I had prettier snacks for you. Konoha didn’t say that you were a girl, so I thought a boy was coming over.”

  I saw Kotobuki’s shoulders twitch, and I felt as if a knife had been thrust into my neck. Why would you blab about that, Mom?!

  “No, these are great. I love sesame dumplings, so this is perfect. Thank you.”

  Though her words were polite, her voice was shaking. And her face was as hard as a rock.

  As if sensing the turbulent mood, my mother practically fled the room.

  “Um! Well! When he told me a classmate was coming over, I must have misunderstood and thought he meant a boy. And then he never denied it, and in any case, I wouldn’t know for sure until you actually came over, so I thought, Why not?”

  Kotobuki was quiet.

  “Your lemon meringue pie sure looks good, Kotobuki! I’m going to try it!”

  I pulled a plate over, rattling it against everything, and plunged my fork into the pure white meringue.

  The pie was extraordinarily soft, the crust crisp, and my fork cut through it effortlessly. When I brought it to my mouth, the fluffy mer
ingue and, beneath that, the mixture of lemons and custard in the sour-sweet lemon cream combined with the crispness of the crust to spread across my tongue a delicious flavor that lived up to how good the pie looked.

  “Wow! This tastes like a lemon meringue pie a pastry chef would make!”

  My honest impression of it spilled out of me.

  Kotobuki lifted her face and looked at me cautiously. Her lips were still pursed, but her cheeks were faintly flushed.

  “It really is good. Mmm.”

  She stared straight at me, her face turning redder and redder, as I cut out big pieces and took one bite after another.

  When I started to laugh, she looked away, kind of flustered, and then suddenly her face fell and she looked like she was about to start crying.

  “… There’s some cream on your face.”

  “Wh—”

  I rubbed it away quickly with my hand.

  Her head still bent, Kotobuki said brusquely, “I-I get jealous really easily. They said Tohko came over, and I’ve felt sick over it ever since. Smiling was just impossible. I-I’m sorry. I bet it’s annoying. But you always act so natural when you’re with Tohko, and I feel like she understands you way, way better than I do—”

  “No way! Tohko’s just my club president. It’s not like that with us at all.”

  I leaned forward and put a hand on her thin shoulder.

  Actually, I’d lied to Kotobuki about one thing, and it stabbed me through the heart.

  Tohko wasn’t just my club president.

  She had been at my side for two years and become deeply linked to me. Not like family, not like a friend—she was special. But I wasn’t in love with her.

  Kotobuki was the one I was dating!

  “Inoue…”

  Kotobuki caught her breath.

  Our eyes locked, and it was so hard to breathe it felt like something was lodged in my throat—the atmosphere made me think we were about to kiss when—

  “Oh, I can find the way! Don’t even worry about it.”

  I heard a familiar voice downstairs.

  Then the sound of feet pounding up the stairs.

  Suddenly the door opened without so much as a knock, and Ryuto came in with a cheery smile, wearing bleached jeans and a down jacket.

  “Comin’ in!”

  “Ryuto!”

  We stiffened, still close to each other. Kotobuki paled and my hand stayed where I’d left it, resting on her shoulder.

  “Oops, am I interruptin’ somethin’?”

  He leered at us and we hastily moved apart.

  “Wh-what are you doing here, Ryuto?”

  “Oh, I was in the neighborhood, so I figured I’d swing by. You mind if I hang out with you guys?”

  Without waiting for our answer, he pulled a pillow over and settled himself on it, then started grabbing my mother’s sesame dumplings.

  When Ryuto’s butt hit the floor with a thump, Kotobuki jumped slightly.

  “Whoa! These’re great. Your mom made these? And I’m guessin’ this pie is Kotobuki’s.”

  “Um, Ryuto…”

  Why? What was happening? Questions flooded my mind.

  He’d never once come to my house before. And anyway, how could he be kicking back and this relaxed with Kotobuki clenching her jaw and glaring at him on her way to tears the way she was?

  When my mother came into the room with tea and a piece of pie for Ryuto, he stuffed a third dumpling into his mouth.

  “You’re sure good at cookin’, Mrs. Inoue.”

  “Why, thank you. There’s plenty more downstairs, so eat up. Lunch is ready, too. I’ll bring it up soon.”

  “You’re the best, Mrs. Inoue! You’re gorgeous!”

  Ryuto had really warmed up to my mom. And she was talking to him more casually than she had with either Tohko or Kotobuki. I couldn’t believe it, but her cheeks were flushing at his bald-faced flattery.

  Ryuto picked Kotobuki’s lemon meringue pie up in his hand and bit into it.

  Kotobuki flinched again.

  “Whoa…,” he murmured, impressed. He kept on eating, savoring every morsel of it.

  Kotobuki looked away from Ryuto as if she couldn’t stand to watch him and dug her fingers into the fabric of her skirt, her entire body stiffening. Each time Ryuto murmured something or shifted his legs, her shoulders shrank in on themselves slightly, and she looked as if she was fighting back tears. Kotobuki seemed to be caught up in the prickling tension of the atmosphere.

  Watching her made me feel uneasy.

  Once he’d polished off his piece of pie, Ryuto licked his fingers.

  “That was great, thanks. If it were just a contest of cookin’ skills, you’d have Tohko totally beat. She went to all that trouble to make Konoha cream puffs, and then she switched up the salt and the sugar on ’em. She was in the dumps the whole rest of the night. I took a nibble off one of the ones she left for us, and it was absolutely disgustin’. No way you could eat that. I wouldn’t even feed it to a dog.”

  The air grew even more tense.

  I was flustered, but Ryuto stared at me with a mockingly sweet look.

  “But you ate every last one of them, Konoha.”

  Kotobuki’s face twisted almost to the point of shattering.

  “Ryuto, don’t—!”

  I tried to stop him, but he talked right over me.

  “No one coulda finished that stuff without somethin’ special. I guess there was some payoff for Tohko goin’ to the trouble of makin’ cream puff shells every night, huh? At first they didn’t puff up at all. They were as flat as Tohko’s chest. She remade them a bunch of times—so for a while there, I got to have burned, deflated cream puff shells for breakfast. By the time they finally started fluffin’ up right, she was bustlin’ all over in front of the oven.

  “If only she hadn’t mixed up the ingredients for the custard, they woulda been perfect.

  “Well, I guess that’s Tohko’s style, to end on a punch line by mixin’ up salt and sugar. And thanks to that, we got a great look at how you feel, Konoha.”

  He curled his mouth into a sly smile.

  “I wanna thank you for eatin’ all those horrible things, K.”

  Kotobuki was trembling.

  My stomach felt like it was on fire, too. I didn’t know what Ryuto was trying to accomplish. But I had to do something to protect Kotobuki. Consumed by that sense of purpose, I spoke up fiercely.

  “If Kotobuki had mixed up the salt and sugar in her lemon meringue pie, I would have finished that, too!”

  Kotobuki’s face jerked up. Her eyes looked shocked, then shifted, brimming with tears.

  “Kotobuki put a lot of work into making this pie for me, too.”

  At that, she nodded, her face bright red.

  “I-I wanted you to enjoy it.”

  “Ooh, this is gettin’ steamy,” Ryuto said, his voice deliberately loud, and thunked his elbows roughly down on the table. “I guess every couple is cutesy when they first start goin’ out. But from what I’ve seen, you two ain’t very compatible.”

  He got a mocking look on his face.

  “I-I don’t need to hear that from someone like you!”

  Kotobuki stood up, her fists clenched, as if she was reaching her limit.

  I watched astounded as she yelled shrilly at him, her entire body shaking, her face pinched into a tight glare, fixed with burning intensity on Ryuto.

  “Why—why do you keep saying how Inoue and I aren’t good for each other?! How Inoue’s forcing himself to be with me, or—or that he doesn’t look like he’s having fun, or that we’ve got different styles, or that we’re not on the same wavelength! What right do you have? How dare you force your way into Inoue’s house to harass us! What a terrible person! Do I bug you that much?”

  “Oh no, I love good-lookin’ girls. But gettin’ mad shows you got no confidence. You know that, too,” Ryuto told her bluntly, a mocking smile still plastered on his face.

  I watched their exchange, conflic
ted. What did she mean, “keep saying”?

  Had Ryuto routinely been telling Kotobuki stuff like this?

  “Sure he’s goin’ out with ya, but Konoha’s bein’ polite and won’t tell you what he’s actually thinkin’. You’re not winnin’ him over. You never quit bein’ tense, so the conversation’s always strained. So even if you are goin’ out, you’re not havin’ any fun, are ya? Couples like that get tired of each other and break up pretty quick. But when Konoha’s with Tohko, all the tension goes out of him and he looks like he’s enjoyin’ himself a zillion times more.”

  “Y-you don’t—”

  “You’re totally wrong! I’m going out with Kotobuki ’cos I like her.”

  With an arrogant look, Ryuto said, “You like her? Are you sure you’re not just telling yourself that? Was it like that with Miu? It was different, wasn’t it? You had way more intense feelings burnin’ you up, right?”

  His words dug mercilessly into my chest. It was true. The feelings I’d had for Miu were very different from the feelings I had for Kotobuki. With Miu, I had been more intense. I’d loved her so much it filled my heart, was more than I could bear, and I’d wanted to take her whole self into my arms. My feelings for Kotobuki were quiet and peaceful. But—

  Ryuto looked up at Kotobuki and smiled.

  It was different from the poisonous smiles he’d been giving her—it was captivating and charming, innocent, fresh.

  “You should break up with Konoha now so you don’t get hurt later on. A sweet thing like you could find a new guy in no time. In which case, you wanna go out with me?”

  Kotobuki picked up her slice of pie and shoved it into Ryuto’s face. The whipped cream and meringue splattered over Ryuto’s face.

  “Y-you’ve gotta be kidding me! Just stop thinking about me! Don’t ever come to the library again!”

  She shouted, at the very limit of her nerves, and then she grabbed her coat and bag and ran out of the room.

  “Kotobuki, wait!”

  I ran after her, and at the top of the stairs, I grabbed her shoulder. But in a tearful voice, she said, “I-I’m sorry… I’m going to go home. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” and I couldn’t do anything else to stop her.

  I watched her small frame run down the stairs, feeling a heart-wrenching frustration.