Book Girl and the Captive Fool (4 page)

I suddenly recalled the vulnerability Kotobuki had shown when she was in the hospital.

She was always cold, so when her head was downcast and tears had filled her eyes, I’d been shaken. When I remembered the way she had looked in that moment, it made me a little nervous.

I doubted that Akutagawa had fallen for Kotobuki or anything like that, though.

But wait—Akutagawa’s girlfriend Sarashina wasn’t the strong, stubborn type, was she? Or maybe she looked quiet but was actually rambunctious like Tohko? If all you did was look at her, you would think Tohko was just a demure book girl, after all.

“And you? What’s your type?”

When he asked the question so suddenly, I was stuck for an answer.

There was no way I was going to open up about the dear girl I
missed so much, who floated through my mind like a phantom. My chest felt like it was going to rip open.

“No clue,” I muttered, forcing a smile.

I hadn’t noticed the air growing dark and chilly, and our inky shadows bobbed across the lamp-lit asphalt. We started discussing harmless topics and then went our separate ways.

How many letters have I sent you now?

I got emotional in the letter I sent the other day and wrote some harsh things, which I regret.

I had forgotten that even now you’re in the midst of a long, painful battle. It must feel like everything in the world is out to get you, like everything is coming at you with weapons drawn. Over and over you were betrayed, you were hurt, and even your last wish was disrupted by the person closest to you. So you may firmly believe that you have not a single ally in the world.

Your indomitable will, your burning spirit—they come from your hatred and refusal of the world. I understand that now. And that the way you are now, that very hatred is a crutch you need to keep yourself standing.

But even so, I will not tolerate you turning your hateful looks on me. I wish to be your protector so greatly that it threatens to crack my heart. You may not believe me when I say that I
have
avoided seeing you. But I truly want to be a friend to you.

If you didn’t wish any dishonorable acts of me, I believe I would run joyously to your side.

So I wish you would be calm. I wish you would open your heart, just a little bit.

If I told you that I couldn’t sleep for fear that you might be crying, you would probably get angry and slap me.

Several days after deciding on the casting, I was in the club room, beginning to focus on writing the script.

“Mushanokōji’s novels are composed of dialogue and the main character’s soliloquy-like exposition, so it should be easy to turn into a script. If anyone can do it, it’s you, Konoha. I believe in you!”

Tohko smiled, but just because there was a bit of dialogue, that didn’t mean I could just copy and paste it into the script. And there weren’t enough actors, so Sugiko’s brother Nakata and his friends couldn’t be in it. I had to massage their lines, so they wouldn’t sound unnatural, and we couldn’t change locations whenever we wanted. And long lines might work in a novel, but if a line went on too long onstage, it would be awkward and bore the audience.

Peering back and forth between my notebooks and the copy of
Friendship
I’d taken out of the library, I wrestled the sentences out with a look of agony on my face while Tohko sat beside me indelicately with her feet up on her fold-up chair, reveling in giving orders.

“Write it so it communicates Omiya’s hidden feelings and
Sugiko’s passion for him to the audience. The bittersweet triangle between Nojima, Omiya, and Sugiko is the tastiest part of this story.

“Nojima is lost in a joyous fantasy at being in love with someone, and Omiya discreetly supports his friend, all while being tempted by Sugiko—oh, it’s so romantic!

“Omiya treats Sugiko coldly on purpose, but she only starts to like him more and more because of it. Sugiko is adorable in the scene where she and her friend Takeko are playing cards with Nojima and Omiya, and she’s so uncomfortable that she blushes and spaces out and messes things up.

“Yes—it’s steamy and warms the inside of your mouth and stomach like simmered tofu, but sprinkled with ponzu sauce made from squeezed citrus. You sympathize with Nojima’s feelings at the same time, and the faint whiffs of tart citrus prick your heart.

“You gotta make the friendship between Nojima and Omiya really rich, too. Nanase mentioned this part, too, but when Sugiko is about to go abroad and Nojima comes to the station to see her off and tells her, ‘I hope you’ll be happy,’ while fighting back his feelings for her? That scene is so moving. It hurts a little, like when you almost burn your tongue on hot tofu.

“Some think that Omiya is based on Mushanokōji’s fellow White Birch author, Naoya Shiga. Mushanokōji, who had to live a frugal life despite coming from the nobility, and Shiga, the son of a wealthy family who greatly enjoyed his life as a student. Mushanokōji was bad at sports, and Shiga was a well-rounded athlete. These two different people who grew up in such similar environments and had such similar personalities became the best of friends through their creative work. They would even go on trips together on foot. They were good friends their whooole lives, even after they got old.”

While Tohko was eagerly relating episodes from Mushanokōji
and Shiga’s friendship, she grabbed sheets of discarded paper, tearing them up and munching on them.

“Hmmm. I think the lines are a little too long and that’s watering down the taste. Rhythm is the lifeblood of dialogue. The important lines need a calm, unhurried beat, like you’re chopping up a carrot with a kitchen knife. The comic scenes move the knife with a short, quick beat. Bam-bam-
bam!

“Oh! This part is fantastic! It’s like perfectly chilled tofu sliding down my throat. This is it! This is the taste of Mushanokōji.

“Ugh. This part is
sooo
tough. There’s a burned-up shrimp tail inside my tofuuu!

“Ooh, this part is so warm and tasty! It’s like I took a bite and have to blow on it before I can swallow. Konoha, you’re a genius!”

Dropping parts and picking others up, she crinkled and crunched through the script I’d written.

“Why are you eating the parts that I balled up and threw away? It’s going to give you diarrhea.”

She lifted her long lashes just a touch at that, dyed in the honey-colored light of the western sun that shone through the window, and her lips curved into a smile.

“No, it won’t. Your snacks have toughened me up, so my stomach’s not gonna be bested by these little scraps of nothing. Besides, they’re simple and delicious—like getting the crusts of bread from a bakery, maybe? And eeevery once in a while, there’s a smudge of strawberry or blueberry jam still on them, and then I feel like I hit the jackpot.”

I was aghast at how truly insatiable Tohko could be when it came to “food.” But I got a strange ticklish sensation deep in my chest as I watched her carefully smooth out the messed-up pages, tear them up with her slender fingers, and then bring them eagerly to her lips.

“So how has Akutagawa been since we talked to him?” Tohko asked around a piece of paper in her mouth.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Same as ever.”

After that day we went home together, I hadn’t had any deep conversations with him. The more I tried to find out about him, the less I could hide about myself. About my past, about who I used to like, about what had happened to her. I didn’t want anyone to know about that.

I told Sarashina that I was sorry, but I couldn’t get anything out of him. I felt a little guilty meeting someone else’s girlfriend alone in an empty hallway during a break.

When Sarashina found out that Akutagawa was going to be in a play for the culture fair, she seemed shocked.

“You said… Kazushi is going to be in your play? Really?” she had murmured in her frail voice, her head drooping as tears gathered in her eyes.

As Tohko chomped on the script, she mumbled, “You don’t have many friends, Konoha. You should treasure Akutagawa.”

That word sent a sharp chill through my very core.

Were we friends? Akutagawa and me?

Sure, we shared our notes from class and talked to each other, but… we weren’t like Nojima and Omiya, discussing our futures or getting advice on love or experiencing such strong friendship that it brought us to tears, and we had never wanted to do everything in our power to help the other.

The bond between Nojima and Omiya was strong and beautiful. But then, if they hadn’t been such good friends that they shared their every thought, Omiya would never have suffered so much for loving Sugiko, and Nojima could have avoided being hurt by Omiya’s betrayal.

Yeah—if they hadn’t expected anything from others or opened up so much, then they wouldn’t have lost anything or been disappointed…

That was why I would never trust anyone or love the way Nojima had.

“I’m so glad Akutagawa agreed to perform. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone loved the play and our membership went up?”

Hugging her knees on the fold-up chair in the twilight, Tohko’s eyes crinkled up with an easy smile.

“If that happens, you won’t be able to graze anymore.”

“Oh no! You’re right. But I also want a ton of members. I mean, the future of the club is… But, but, but—I want to eat my
snacks—
augh! I don’t know!”

The sight of her sulking like a little kid in her deep, almost tearful conflict warmed my heart just a little.

That weekend, I continued writing at home.

Around noon on Sunday, I was zoning out, buried in masses of paper, when there was a knock on my door and my mother came in.

“Konoha? Come down, we’re having lunch soon. Hmm?”

When she saw the tall stack of papers on my desk, her eyes went wide. I hurried to explain.

“I’m writing an essay for homework. It’s really hard. I messed up all that paper.”

My mother smiled at me kindly.

“Such a trooper. But your spaghetti’s going to get soggy. Hurry up.”

Once she’d closed the door and I was alone again, I couldn’t help but notice that my cheeks were burning. Had my mother realized that I’d lied to her?

I could have just told her that I was writing the script for a play for the culture fair. It wouldn’t have been a big deal.

My family knows I’m in the book club at school.

But I hadn’t told them that until almost two months after I’d joined, and I explained that, “We don’t have many members, so we don’t sponsor any big activities. I just sit around and talk about books with Tohko.” But I didn’t mention that Tohko had me writing improv stories for her every day.

I didn’t want to make my family worry unnecessarily…

Two years earlier, when I was still in middle school, I submitted the first novel I ever wrote to a magazine’s new author competition, and for some reason I was selected for the grand prize—the youngest winner in history.

After that, my life turned upside down. I was marketed everywhere as a mysterious young girl, my prizewinning novel became a best seller, and the name Miu Inoue became renowned throughout Japan.

But it brought me nothing but misfortune and cast me headlong into deepest darkness. I lost the girl that I loved, suffered from fits where I suddenly couldn’t breathe, became a shut-in who ditched school, and caused my family a ton of problems.

Even now, my mother worried because I never went out with other people on my days off and never got phone calls from friends. Sometimes she would look at me sadly.

At those times, when memories of the past mounted unexpectedly in my heart, I felt like my life was sad and impotent, and my throat tightened.

Why am I so weak? Will I keep dragging this out forever?

I don’t want to break anything or lose anything ever again. That was why I decided I would never write another novel. I had been wrong to think about writing a novel back in middle school.

I closed my notebook and went downstairs in a funk with Nojima’s lines sticking in my mind:

“Precious, precious girl.

“I will be a man worthy of becoming your husband.

“Until I am, I beg you not to marry another.”

Like Nojima, I, too, had been in love and oblivious to everything else. But I would never see that girl again.

I had typed up and printed out clean copies of the script. When I handed them over on Monday morning in the book club room, Tohko’s face twisted, and she shouted at me, practically sobbing.

“Noooooo! Why didn’t you write it by hand?! When each letter is written down on pure white paper in pencil, it’s like homemade rice and it’s sooo yummy. You know how much I like handwriting! This is so mean! Just—so mean!”

“If I handwrote a script on lined paper, it would be too hard to read. And you would just end up eating it.”

“I—I would not. Hmmph. So you know how to use a computer, huh?”

“Necessity compelled me to learn. Doesn’t everyone know how nowadays? I can even type without looking at the keyboard.”

“Traitor.”

She glared at me tearfully, but then suddenly her face brightened and she stretched both her hands out at me. “Oh, right! You must have a handwritten first draft! Hand it over.”

“The paper recycling was this morning, so I tied it up with some comics and put it out on the curb.”

“How
cruel!!
How could you do that?! Ogre—demon—president taunter!” Tohko wept.

“Can you get some bound copies made?” I replied heartlessly. “Here’s a copy of the file.”

I tried to hand her a CD and leave, but Tohko grabbed the cuff of my sleeve, her face an angry pout.

“Hold on a minute, Konoha. You’re going to pay for this. I have an important mission for you now. Since I’m such a benevolent
mentor, I’ll forgive you for the whole script thing if you pull this off.”

Geez. How blatantly was she going to keep using me?

At lunch, already in a state of resignation, I visited the orchestra.

Inside the grand building that rose up on our campus was a vast main hall and several smaller auditoriums and other little rooms, and on the top floor was the workroom of the orchestra’s club president, the third-year girl who served as its conductor, Maki Himekura—alias “the Princess.”

“Excuse me.”

I pushed open the door and went into the studio. It was filled with light, and at its center, Maki, a sturdy-looking girl, swept her brush over a canvas. Her sleeves were rolled up, and she wore a work apron over her school uniform.

Watercolors and sketches decorated the walls, and there was an expensive-looking mahogany bookshelf that contained gorgeous rows of luxuriously bound volumes of literature.

“Come in, Konoha.”

Maki hitched her sensuous lips up in a smile. Her wavy, light brown hair poured over her chest and back like a lion’s mane, shining golden in the light.

“Are you delivering a message for Tohko today? Sit, have some tea. Relax.”

With polished movements, a tall man dressed in a black suit set out sandwiches, fruit, and cups of tea on a small table covered with a tablecloth.

His name was Takamizawa, and he worked under Maki’s grandfather, the school’s director. That was why Maki was called “the Princess” and why she received so many special privileges at school.

To be honest, I didn’t like her very much. Probably because I
was an herbivore and she was a carnivore. I felt that if I let my guard down, her sharp fangs and claws would tear me apart.

“Thank you.”

I drank some tea at her urging and picked up a sandwich. The sandwich was very good—salmon and cucumbers between thinly sliced bread with just the right amount of salt—but perhaps due to the presence of a threat right in front of me, I found it difficult to swallow.