Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel Read online

  Then out of nowhere, his face turned serious and he looked straight at me and asked, “But what about you? Everything still good?”

  “We just saw each other yesterday. And you even called me. Oh, thanks for that, by the way.”

  “Oh, it was no problem…You didn’t get any weird calls or texts after that, though? I mean, I hear people have been getting a lot of calls like that lately.”

  “So far, I haven’t even gotten random hang ups.”

  Akutagawa leaned in even closer.

  “Planning to change your phone number or e-mail?”

  “No…what’s going on, Akutagawa?”

  My question seemed to bring him back to his senses, and he drew back, a forced-looking smile coming over his face.

  “Well, if nothing’s bothering you, it doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

  That was weird. What’s going on? I wondered suspiciously, but I had my hands full with Kotobuki and I couldn’t pursue anything else.

  After school, we met up with some of Mito’s classmates at the café from the day before.

  They’d been surprised at how suddenly Mito’s singing had improved, too.

  “She got picked for the lead out of a ton of other girls. Turandot is a cruel, arrogant princess, which isn’t Mito’s image at all.”

  “The male lead, Calaf, is being played by Ogiwara, this young pro who’s a huge star. In the scene where Turandot asks her questions, people were bad-mouthing Mito and saying her voice paled next to Ogiwara’s and sounded like it was a total wreck.”

  But then when rehearsals had started, Mito’s voice had enough energy to overwhelm the professional singer’s.

  “Mito kept it a secret, but she must’ve been getting lessons from a superfamous teacher. Otherwise she’d never get a voice like that so fast. They’re even saying that the reason she’s out now is that she’s getting secret training somewhere.”

  “I guess I can see why she wouldn’t step down from the role. There’ve been rumors about someone awesome backing her for a long time and that it was that person who got her picked for the lead,” said another girl.

  “Do you know who that person is?”

  “No clue.”

  They shook their heads. Then as if suddenly remembering, one of them said, “Oh, but I saw Mito get into a car with a man in a black suit before! He had his arm around her, and it looked really fishy, and he called her ‘Camellia’…”

  After leaving the café, Kotobuki and I walked side by side down the street lit by white and gold Christmas lights.

  We talked in spurts.

  “Is Camellia a nickname? Do you know, Kotobuki?”

  “Nope. I don’t think anyone’s ever called Yuka ‘Camellia.’ But maybe Yuka really is with the angel. The whole time she’s been out of school, I was still getting messages from her that sounded like she was taking lessons from the angel. The man who called her Camellia might be the angel.”

  Kotobuki’s expression was grim. It seemed like she felt seriously hostile toward the Angel of Music, and she seemed to believe that her best friend’s disappearance was linked entirely to him.

  In Phantom of the Opera, it was the Phantom who abducted Christine, taking her to his underground kingdom by pretending to be an angel and wearing a mask to hide his ugliness, so I could understand why she felt that way.

  But was Mito really with the angel as Kotobuki said?

  She had been with her boyfriend the night before she disappeared, so I couldn’t say for certain.

  Where exactly had Mito gone? Why didn’t she come back to the dorms?

  She still hadn’t sent any new messages to Kotobuki.

  The cool air ran over my skin with a prickly chill. The sky was cloudy, and I couldn’t see the moon or stars; man-made lights were the only illumination on the street. An upbeat Christmas song played, clashing with our mood.

  The expression in Kotobuki’s eyes became vulnerable, and she said, “I feel like I’ve become Raoul. I’m jealous of Christine and the Phantom, and I keep wavering, but even if I go to save Christine from the Phantom who’s kidnapped her, I won’t do any good…”

  “There are a lot of protagonists like that.”

  “Isn’t the Phantom the protagonist of Phantom of the Opera?”

  “I’m only partway through it, but since the story develops from Raoul’s perspective, I feel like it’s him.”

  “But the second half is a monologue by a mysterious Persian.”

  “It is?!”

  “Raoul falls right into the Phantom’s trap. There’s nothing good about him.”

  “Hmm…”

  Kotobuki pursed her lips and whispered sadly, ruefully, “Raoul really is useless.”

  “But I’m rooting for him,” I told her with a smile. “I keep reading the story, thinking how great it would be if he rescued Christine and got a happy ending.”

  Kotobuki jerked her head up to look at me. She immediately buried her face in her scarf again and muttered shyly, “H…hmph. I see.”

  She was cute when she turned away and blushed, and my mouth curved into a smile despite itself.

  Without turning back, Kotobuki muttered, “Um…yesterday, I was going through my old letters and I found a postcard Yuka sent me one summer from her mom’s parents’ house. It had an address on it. I’m thinking of sending a letter there. I might be able to contact Yuka’s family.”

  I smiled.

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea. It’d be nice to find out where Mito is soon.”

  My angel always sings alone.

  Beneath the moon, standing in the rustling grass, his melancholy voice reverberating across the indigo sky.

  Even though my angel hates hymns, his voice is filled with a mournfulness and pleading that tears at my heart. I’m sure my angel thinks of someone who’s gone while he sings. To comfort the soul of someone I don’t know.

  Long ago, my angel killed someone. He said bright red blood, like when you smash a strawberry, dyed the blue sheets and dripped onto the floor.

  That after that, many people died for him.

  My angel’s name was blackened, his wings stained with blood, and he could no longer stay in the daylight world.

  I felt awful.

  I felt awful for my angel.

  I always cry in front of him. But he never cries. He puts an arm around my shoulders, strokes my hair, and smiles for me.

  Even when I tell him he can cry, he says he has nothing to be sad about and the tears won’t come. He says he’s never once cried in his entire life.

  And so he won’t sing me hymns, but he does sing lullabies for me.

  So that I don’t have scary dreams; so that I can forget everything painful and bitter that’s happened and sleep soundly; so that tomorrow when I’m in the sunlight, I can hide my sins and smile purely, like every other perfectly ordinary girl.

  The reason I can be his girlfriend and be Nanase’s best friend is because my angel sings for me. If he didn’t, I would be ashamed of how dirty and ugly I am. I would be paralyzed, and I wouldn’t have anywhere near enough courage to stand before either of them.

  Even though my angel has forgiven me and rescued me, who on earth will save him, who cannot be allowed into the light of the sun, who has lost his name, who can only hide himself in the world of darkness?

  I was going to the music room to tell Mr. Mariya that we would be taking a break from organizing papers for a while when I found him smack in the middle of a love scene.

  The petite girl whose lips were locked with his shrieked and scrambled away from him.

  Then she shouted, “E-excuse me!” in an adorable voice, hung her head, and flew out of the room.

  “…Mr. Mariya, what was that?”

  Appearing at such a critical juncture had left me dazed, but Mr. Mariya smiled at me shamelessly.

  “Ha-ha-ha. I think you ought to knock when you go into a room, Konoha.”

  “I did. And I think when you’re doing stuff like that a
t school, you should keep an eye on your surroundings.”

  “Oh, absolutely true. Next time I’ll be careful. She was an aggressive girl, and things just…”

  Mr. Mariya wiped away his sweat with a handkerchief.

  “Oh, is Nanase working at the library today?” he asked.

  “Actually…I don’t think we can help you right now.”

  I gave him the short version of how Kotobuki’s best friend had disappeared.

  “I see. That’s awful,” Mr. Mariya murmured, furrowing his brow, full of sympathy. Then he said something unexpected.

  “Nanase’s friend is that Yuka Mito girl who’s playing Turandot at the recital, no? I met her a few times when I went to Shirafuji to mentor. She lacked a little polish, but there was something about her that shone. She seemed like the kind of girl who would grow with a good mentor. I was looking forward to hearing her Turandot. I had no idea whatsoever that such a thing had happened to her…That’s too bad.”

  “Do you have any ideas about who Mito might have been taking lessons from? Apparently she called him her Angel of Music.”

  Mr. Mariya’s face hardened suddenly, and he clasped his hands together firmly. The heavy-looking watch glinted on his left wrist.

  “Her Angel of Music…”

  “Yes. Have you heard of it?”

  He slowly let out a breath and unlocked his fingers, then looked at me apologetically.

  “No. I wasn’t that close with Mito. But I’ll ask the musicians I know.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  I bowed my head.

  “Oh, Ms. Shoko Kagami from Shirafuji said to ask how you were doing.”

  Mr. Mariya broke out into a grin.

  “Oh, you met her? She’s beautiful, isn’t she? All the boys around me yearned for her. She has a strong, forceful voice, and she got typecast in roles like Carmen.”

  “Yes, she’s very pretty. She said that you used to be a rising star.”

  “Ha-ha-ha. She’s exaggerating. I’m nothing that special. I’m much better suited to teaching here casually,” he countered lightly, his cheerful voice spilling over with brightness.

  His breezy smile was so noble it made me feel wonderful.

  “When things settle back down, we can come help again.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  We gave our words of farewell, and then I left the room.

  I was meeting up with Kotobuki in the library after that.

  I closed the door to the music room and was walking down the hall when suddenly a hand shot out from around a corner and grabbed my shoulder.

  I jumped and felt goose bumps rising at the sensation of fingers digging into my skin through the material of my uniform.

  When I turned around, I saw that a boy of about my height with glasses and colorless hair was glaring at me with a biting gaze.

  It was the boy who had called me awful in the library before!

  The world around me suddenly darkened, and I stiffened as if a maniac with a knife had appeared.

  “Hey! What were you talking to Mariya about?”

  “Who…are you?”

  “That doesn’t matter. Answer me. What did you say to him?”

  I scowled at his imperious tone and shook his hand off.

  “I don’t need to answer to someone I don’t know.”

  I turned my back on him and started to walk briskly away when a cold voice stabbed into me from behind.

  “What a heartwarming scene.”

  The low voice was like the moaning of the wind that I’d heard in the stairwell, and the dark, bone-chilling gaze I’d felt that day came back to me, and all at once my skin prickled. When I turned around, jet-black eyes were glaring at me hatefully.

  “Getting close to Mariya—I bet you get along. You’re both hypocrites.”

  “What…are you talking about?”

  “About you and Mariya. You’re both living in pretty little worlds and glossing over things with your smiles. You hurt others so you don’t get hurt yourself.”

  I was staggered by this surreal situation, being relentlessly criticized by a stranger—I didn’t even know his name—and my breathing grew more strained. His pointed gaze crawled over my face like a snake.

  “You’re always like that. You act like you’re obtuse about Kotobuki, too, but aren’t you really just playing off the fact that you’re not into it? It’s not that guys like you don’t notice. You just don’t want to know. You hate getting dirty, so even though you don’t feel that way at all, you act nice and build up expectations, and I call people like that hypocrites.”

  Why did he hate me so much? Did he like Kotobuki? Did he dislike me because he had the wrong idea about us?

  The thought crossed my mind, but the knives of his words overpowered it as they sliced into my chest, and the pain sent me reeling.

  I was a hypocrite? It wasn’t that I didn’t notice. I just didn’t want to know?

  Even though I don’t feel that way, I was acting nice and jerking Kotobuki around?

  His words spun me around me like a pitch-black cutting wind and sliced into my flesh, sending up a spray of blood.

  The back of my brain burned as if there were a fire pressing against it, and several times a lump rose in my throat, but it was uncontrolled and didn’t form into words. I couldn’t decide how to respond to his animosity—should I be angry, should I run, should I laugh it off?

  Impaled by his piercing eyes, I stood immobilized as his funereal voice resounded in my ears.

  “Don’t go near Mariya again.”

  When he disappeared from sight, I was finally able to move again and sweat broke out all over my body.

  What had just happened? Who was that guy?

  And where did he get off telling me not to go near Mr. Mariya?

  I wanted to go back to the music room and put the screws to Mr. Mariya about it, but the guy was still nearby. I felt his dark eyes glaring at me and I got scared.

  In the end, after all my hesitation, I went to the library.

  Kotobuki worked busily behind the desk.

  “Sorry. The other girl who’s on duty was out today. Just give me a second.”

  “I’ll be in the reading area, then.”

  “You look kind of spacey, Inoue.”

  “Nah, not really.”

  The guy’s voice and glare still lingered in my mind. I couldn’t talk to Kotobuki about it, about how I was jerking her around.

  Just then, from somewhere nearby, I heard that same voice from moments ago.

  “Kotobuki? I can take care of the rest. You can go home.”

  A student wearing glasses, surrounded by a somber air, appeared silently next to Kotobuki, and I shuddered.

  “But you’re not on duty today, Omi.”

  “There’s not much left to do, so I can take over. There’s someone waiting for you.”

  Kotobuki stole a glance at me.

  I stood rooted to the spot, bloodcurdling thoughts running through my head.

  “Well…I guess you can have the keys. Thanks, Omi.”

  “Sure. Bye.”

  He sent us off with a gruff look.

  “Was that guy a first-year? What’s his name?” I asked as we walked down the hall, desperately hiding how rattled I was.

  “You mean Omi? His name’s Shiro. Yeah, he’s a first-year.”

  “I’ve never seen him at the library before. He works there, right?”

  “Maybe ’cos he was out for the whole first semester. He’s a little frail.”

  “…Are you guys friends?”

  “What? Of course not. He’s so quiet. Even when it’s his shift, he hardly talks at all!”

  She denied it fervently, her face red. When I saw how Kotobuki was acting, I remembered what Omi said to me and felt like my chest was being crushed.

  “You’re…glossing over things with your smile. You hurt others so you don’t get hurt yourself.”

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

  I remembered the way Kotobuki had looked at me when I’d gone to visit her at the hospital. And then the tears she’d shown me at rehearsal for the play…

  “You may not remember it, but I…in middle school, I…”

  “You…hate me. You won’t be open with me.”

  “I’m sure you don’t remember. But it meant a lot to me. So I went to see you again after that. Over and over, all through the winter. Every day.”

  Her words, her tears, that vulnerable look—what they had meant.

  What Kotobuki had so desperately wanted to tell me—maybe I had been refusing to think about it.

  Because for me, there was only one girl in the world, only Miu, and I would never be able to love like that again, focusing all of my emotions on someone.

  I couldn’t have strong feelings like that for anyone but Miu.

  But then wasn’t it cruel to be with Kotobuki like this?

  Kotobuki was sad about the disappearance of her best friend, so wasn’t my desire to help nothing but smug hypocrisy because I didn’t want to be a bad person? If the worst should happen, was I prepared to help Kotobuki with her pain?

  As I thought these things over, they dug into my chest, and it felt like they would knock the breath out of me.

  Even though I could feel Kotobuki torturously stealing glances at me as I gritted my teeth, my face tense, it didn’t change anything. It took everything I had to talk about the weather, my words horribly wooden—“Sure is cold today”—and I just felt awkward.

  By the time we reached Mito’s house, we were both completely silent.

  The nameplate had toppled off the wall, the lights were out, and the house was now completely abandoned.

  I knew Kotobuki was grasping at straws, thinking that if she came here, maybe she would discover something. But the bleak sight that assaulted us eradicated even that paltry hope. The mail cascading out of the mailbox had been exposed to the weather and grown tattered, and the glass in one of the windows facing the yard was broken. In the midst of a perfectly ordinary neighborhood, this was the only house that stood like a graveyard.