Book Girl and the Famished Spirit (19 page)

Imagining how he must have felt made my brain burn.

He had sold his soul to the devil and sent time flowing backward.

He acquired the house he and Kayano had once lived in and readied the basement room, had decorated it as it had once been and re-created their secret room, and even managed to bring Kayano back to life.

He made her daughter, who so resembled her, a proxy and taught her her mother’s speech, expressions, and manner, crafting her into the very image of Kayano.

In that basement room, Amemiya was forced to play the part of her mother against her will. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be fed. The only thing Amemiya could do in that place was to live as Kayano Kujo.

Amemiya must have been the one to draw red
X
’s over Kayano’s photos.

What emotions must have driven her to painstakingly draw an
X
over her mother’s face in each photo?

What emotions had driven her to write the notes and leave them in our mailbox?

In the hopelessness of her situation, Amemiya had slowly lost her mind. She began to assume the role of Kayano Kujo even
when she left the house. It must have felt like Kayano had taken over her body.

Wouldn’t she become Kayano completely one day, and Hotaru would disappear?

Even if she feared that, there was nothing she could do to stop it. Her extreme hunger and suffering blurred the boundary between reality and fantasy, and in her eyes, Tohko and I had seemed to be the spirits of Kayano and Aoi returned from the grave. That was why she had shut us in the basement and tried to set us on fire.

As she listened to Maki’s story, Tohko hugged herself and shuddered.

I, too, bit down on my lip and squeezed my eyes closed.

I was dizzy; I felt like I was on the verge of collapsing.

Tamotsu Kurosaki had done something truly awful.

He wanted to go back to the past and do it all over again. I had wished for that once, too. I had sworn that if I could get Miu back, I would do anything—even sell my soul to the devil.

But to do it, Kurosaki had stolen a girl’s future and erased her personality.

Even though that still wouldn’t bring the real Kayano back. Even though it helped no one.

With some difficulty, Tohko murmured, “Tell me one more thing, Maki. Did Kurosaki collect those books that were down in the basement?”

“… I don’t know. But I heard they used to belong to Kayano.”

“I see…”

Tohko’s eyelashes drooped, and she fell into a reverie, pressing an index finger to her lips. That was a habit Tohko had while reading—something she did when she was utterly absorbed in her interior world.

Ryuto glared at Maki, a look brimming with animosity usually reserved for a team of villains.

“What were you plannin’ by keepin’ me under surveillance and stoppin’ me from seein’ Hotaru? Huh, Maki? What were you tryin’ to make Hotaru do?”

Tohko looked up and turned an uneasy gaze on Maki.

Maki looked back at Ryuto haughtily, and when she spoke, her voice was hard.

“The reason I didn’t take you out of the hospital was because I didn’t want you to interfere with her. I only gave her advice, only gave her what help she asked of me. I’ve never once manipulated what she wants.”

Then Maki’s eyes filled with gloom and she murmured, “There isn’t much time left between her and Kurosaki. Kurosaki had already made his decision, so she had to act, too. Whatever effect it had on her, she had to bring things to an end with Kurosaki.”

Anxiety shot through my heart.

The last time I’d seen her in the chemistry lab, Kayano had said something similar.

If half of your soul has committed a sin and been cast into hell, isn’t that the duty of the half that’s left behind? It would be wrong for only one part to be saved and go to heaven.

What was Amemiya planning?

What did Maki mean, there wasn’t much time left between them? Saeko, the girl who worked at Kurosaki’s company, had told us that Kurosaki was throwing up his food. Could he be seriously ill? Was that why I’d seen Amemiya at the hospital? She wasn’t planning to commit suicide with him, was she?

Ryuto growled.

“Where is she?! Where are we goin’?!”

Maki answered with a grim look, “The church. She’s having the ceremony there next week.”

“I have wonderful news. I want you to congratulate me and really mean it. I’m marrying Takashi.”

She had smiled brightly that day while she ripped his heart into pieces.

“Why are you upset? Aren’t you going to be happy for me? If I married you, I couldn’t live in a white mansion with a pool or ride in limousines or keep a Yorkshire terrier as a pet, could I?”

Why? Why was she marrying another man? Was she telling me to be happy about that? Why was she smiling? Why?
Why?
Was she tossing me aside? Even though our souls were one and would never be separated, she was slicing them apart with her own hand. How could she do something so cruel? For money? For pleasure? For vanity?

How am I supposed to watch her give herself to another man!

On a stormy night, he disappeared from the house. He had despised her ever since. He hoped only for vengeance against her and crawled up from the depths of hell blazing with dark flames to return to the world.

But she had died and left him behind. He was assaulted by a despair even greater than before.

Then he had learned of her daughter, and when he saw her… he knew how he would get back the time he had lost.

The girl was a living reflection of her. If he could get hold of her
…

He made meticulous plans, entering her father’s company, pursuing him with the guile of a snake and the ferocity of a wolf to his death. Her father’s heart had a defect, and when the man
removed his sunglasses and quirked his mouth into a smile, her father was stunned. His eyes bulged out and he tore at his chest; then he passed away with a look of anguish in his hospital bed.

His sister, the woman who had become the man’s wife, knew what he had done to her brother and it unhinged her. “Stay away! Devil! Stay away! Stay away!!” she had shouted, backing frantically away, until her foot slipped and she toppled into the dark of the ocean.

Everything had gone exactly as he planned.

He had gone back in time and had “Kayano,” his betrayer, firmly in his grasp.

By controlling her food, he took away even her will to resist him and chained her spirit. Once he had her under his control, “she” never contradicted him or turned her back on him.

He had believed that, this time, life would go on in that way for eternity.

So how had this happened?

There was no time.

He had received a letter. She had sent it to him. She was to be married in a week, and so she wanted to see him once more before then.

His rage and despair buffeted him like a storm blowing over the hills, tightening his throat.
Will she betray me again?! Will another man’s arms embrace her?!

There was no time.

He crumpled up the letter.

There was no time.

His stomach was as barren as moorland, but a hellish nausea welled up inside him.

There was no time.

His throat prickled, and his stomach knotted. A glob of blood he spit up made a red stain on the floor.

He scrubbed roughly at his mouth with the back of his hand and staggered from the room.

To see her. To turn time back once more.

She knew that there was not much time left between them.

There was no time.

If she fled from this moment, she would never be able to hurt him.

Fingers filled with malice clawed at the walls of her wasted stomach.

She felt a chill, as if poison was being slathered over her body, but her mind was on fire.

There was no time.

She would have revenge. On him. On him who had destroyed her paradise, who had surely killed her aunt and father. She would strike a blow that he could not escape.

What she had been unable to do at twelve, she would be able to do at sixteen.

There was no time.

In the cool, silent chapel of the church, swathed in a white dress, her face covered by a translucent veil, she awaited his arrival.

In her heart she hid the knife she would use to stab him. She laced her thin fingers together and dug her nails into the backs of her hands.

She had been given a book when she turned sixteen. She had burned it before coming here. She had also erased the numbers written in the chemistry lab.

There was no time.

Her throat prickled and her stomach knotted.

“25-28-2-5-12-21-28-15-5-11”

No
.

“25-28-17-2-13-17-15-9-28-19-17-8-21-20”

Stop.

“2-5-5-1-28-17-10-28-3-21-28-4-5-10-28-3-5-10-24-21-8”

No! No!

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

“25-28-13-17-4-10-28-10-5-28-18-21-28-13-25-10-24-28-17-5-25”

Please, go away! Just go away!

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-19-17-8-21-28-25-22-28-25-10-27-9-28-17-28-9-25-4”

“25-28-17-19-19-21-6-10-28-10-24-21-28-6-11-4-25-9-24-3-21-4-10”

No! Not me!

“17-5-25-28-25-9-28-17-2-2-28-25-28-13-17-4-10”

“19-5-3-21-28-18-17-19-1-28-17-5-25”

“15-5-11-28-17-8-21-28-3-21-28-25-28-17-3-28-15-5-11”

Oh, Father… Father
…

“25-28-13-25-2-2-28-2-5-12-21-28-17-5-25-28-22-5-8-21-12-21-8”

I hate him. Hate him.

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

“25-28-20-5-4-27-10-28-4-21-21-20-28-24-21-17-12-21-4”

The ghost inside her was running wild. She pressed down on her stomach, which seared with pain, and let out a moan as she slipped to the floor. Doubled over, her ears caught the cold sound of footsteps.

She mustered all the strength left in her body and stood up on unsteady legs.

This—
this
—was truly the end.

Soon their two worlds would be completely severed. He had dammed up the flow of time so desperately, but he could no longer stop it from rushing on in a torrent toward annihilation.
When the time came,
she would never see him again, never be touched by him again. She would even lose her ability to hate him. That was why it had to be now—now!

Her gaze rushed like a storm down the aisle between the pews, illuminated by a candelabra. The main doors opened, and a man wearing a suit and lightly tinted sunglasses appeared.