Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel

by Mizuki Nomura

  “…Yuka did most of the talking. Saying they should have a party at Keiichi’s place for Christmas Eve, that she would take care of the food, asking what he wanted to eat. She apologized for not being able to see him so much…told him that she always wore her ring…”

  My chest trembled at a wrenching pain.

  How must he have felt, listening to Mito talk?

  Helpless to do anything, how had he felt…?

  After that, he said Mito had called Kotobuki’s house on her cell phone. When Kotobuki spoke with Mito for the last time, it hadn’t been Mr. Mariya holding her Mito in his arms; it had been Omi.

  “I’m with my boyfriend right now. The Christmas tree is so pretty, and he’s holding me in his arms, so I’m all toasty warm. Hey, Nanase, you’ve gotta hurry up and get a boyfriend. Then let’s all go out on a double date. It’ll be so fun.”

  Kotobuki’s eyes screwed shut to fight down a sob, and she bit down on her lip.

  Omi turned his face away so we wouldn’t see his expression.

  “And then?”

  Tohko gently urged him on.

  “…Ngh. She hung up and said, ‘Nanase’s so cute…I hope her love works out…Nanase’s—’…Ngh, ‘Nanase’s—’ she said, ‘I hope she’ll be happy like in Miu Inoue’s book…’”

  My heart thudded loudly.

  Happy like in Miu Inoue’s book—!

  Mito had said that?!

  Omi kept saying one thing after another about Miu Inoue. That Mito recommended the book to Mr. Mariya. That Miu’s book was gentle, innocent, unassuming, precious, and gave her relief. That Itsuki and Hatori were cute and she loved them—

  “Promise me now. Read Miu. She’s my favorite author. While I’m reading her book, I can forget that painful things happen.”

  I had never before thought that there were people who felt something after reading my book.

  That someone I’d never seen, someone I didn’t know, liked my book.

  My brain burned, and feelings I couldn’t describe welled up to fill my throat.

  Kotobuki covered her face with both hands, crouched down on a tuft of grass, and her shoulders trembled.

  In a voice as clear as the moonlight, Tohko asked, “And then? What did you do?”

  Omi was shaking, too. His head bent, biting his lip, he forced the words out.

  “‘Sing a hymn,’ Yuka told me. ‘I want to hear one now, more than anything…Please, I want you to sing…’ Her eyes were so clear…So…so I—”

  “So you sang for her,” she whispered gently. “You did a wonderful thing for her.”

  Omi’s face twisted sourly.

  “I was never going to sing again! Because so many people died when they heard me sing hymns! So I was never, ever going to sing again—but I felt like I would never see Yuka again, I felt like it was her last wish—and I sang! Yuka’s eyes stayed closed and she stopped moving. The next morning, her heart had stopped! She didn’t open her eyes, no matter how much I called to her!

  “Yuka died because I sang!”

  “You’re wrong!” Tohko shouted fiercely. “Think back! What did Mito’s face look like as she listened to you sing?!”

  Omi shook his head.

  “Remember it! Remember Mito’s eyes, her lips, her breathing—remember what they were telling you in her final moments!”

  Tohko wouldn’t stop hurling questions at him. Omi had his ears covered, but her long braids swinging, illuminated by the moonlight, fiercely, wildly—she was exactly like the ghosts in A Christmas Carol who appear to the moneylender Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, trying to break apart the armor that covered his heart and drag out the truth.

  “Go on, tell us the story you witnessed for Mito! Don’t be the one to sully the memories you have of her!”

  His head still bent, Omi brought his hands tightly together. The truth he had seen…It was about to be revealed from his very lips.

  “—Yuka leaned on my chest and clutched her ring in her hand…and she closed her eyes…and she was smiling! The whole time I was singing…! Then she said…‘Oh, how beautiful…Keiichi’…Ngh, she said, ‘It’s like a real angel singing’…And then—”

  His voice caught and he was racked by a sob.

  A small voice like a whisper related Mito’s last words.

  “She said…‘I’m so happy.’”

  That same instant, huge tears rolled from Omi’s eyes and fell down his cheek. He pressed his clasped hands to his mouth, and keeping his face down, he wept violently, like a child.

  “I’m so happy.”

  Mito had said that, smiled, and then passed away.

  Enveloped in the singing of an angel, her eyes closed, and in tranquil joy.

  “That’s the truth about Mito.”

  The book girl softly gave him the words that transformed the cruelly long tale at the last moment into a tale of a prayer, filled with pure, gentle light.

  Kotobuki stood up and ran over to him.

  She grabbed Omi’s hands and lifted them, covering them in both of her own, and Omi looked up in surprise.

  His teary eyes opened wide, and Kotobuki looked back at him with her own reddened eyes.

  Then she placed a kiss atop his clasped hands.

  Like Christine, who kissed the Phantom’s forehead—

  “Thank you for your kindness to Yuka.”

  Seeing Kotobuki do her very best to smile with a face that was streaked and puffy from crying, tears fell once again from Omi’s eyes. He gazed at Kotobuki with a frail look and drew his face to her ear.

  He appeared to whisper something to her.

  Kotobuki started, and then her face quickly threatened tears again.

  He slipped away from her, rubbed roughly at his tears with his arm and the back of his hand; then Omi’s face set into a fearless expression, as if everything had been wiped away, and he started walking.

  I tried to stop him as he slipped past me, but he murmured in a soft voice, “Take care of Nanase.”

  Then he left Kotobuki, who was trembling, her eyes filled with tears; left me, standing rooted as my heart practically ripped in half; left Tohko, who watched him go with clear eyes that seemed to pray for him; and without ever turning back, he disappeared into the darkness.

  That was the last we ever saw of the angel.

  Epilogue—To You, My Dear Friend

  In the end, I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t hate Miu Inoue.

  Maybe that was because I was jealous of him.

  That day Yuka died, a call came from Nanase on Yuka’s phone. I listened to her panicked voice on the voice mail saying, “Mori and the others told Inoue that I like him. What’m I gonna do?” after I’d buried Yuka’s body beneath the Christmas tree.

  I didn’t want to tell Nanase that Yuka was dead, wanted to protect Nanase’s life at least, and I returned her message as Yuka.

  I wonder when it was that I became aware of the Nanase that Yuka talked about almost every night.

  Nanase was in love with Konoha Inoue, a boy in her grade, and she frequently asked for Yuka’s advice.

  “I got nervous standing in front of Inoue and accidentally glared at him”; or “He must think I’m an awful person. It’s over. What am I gonna do?”; or “I managed to talk to him a little today, so that was really nice”; or “I’m thinking of baking cookies, but I don’t know what flavors boys like”; or “I’ll just try cutting back on the sugar overall…” They were minor things, and Yuka would always have fun talking to me about Nanase’s awkwardness.

  About how in middle school, Nanase regularly went to a library to see Inoue or how she’d hated boys until then, but she suddenly started acting like a girl and practiced drawing in her eyebrows with real dedication—

  “Nanase really is adorable, y’know. I hope her love comes true.”

  She would always say that at the end in a kind, dreamy tone of voice.

  Around that time, I was enrolled at Seijoh Academy and I was helping in the library just lik
e Nanase, so I was able to observe her behavior up close.

  The real Nanase was even more beautiful than in her pictures, but she was a girl who pursed her lips and pouted, and at first glance she looked harsh.

  But I knew that was only bravado, so the childish blushing she let out when her guard fell or when she got frantic made my lips start to stretch into a smile despite myself, and it got me in trouble. I see. Yuka’s right. There’s no other girl as genuine as Nanase.

  I went to peek into their class to see about Konoha Inoue, too, to confirm it. I thought he had a girlie face and seemed unreliable, and the reason I got such a bad impression of him from the very start was probably because I was annoyed at his idiocy for not noticing how Nanase felt. His indecisiveness rubbed me the wrong way, and I deliberately said mean things to him, and even lured him down an alley and used my voices to intimidate him.

  Inoue’s last girlfriend was always on Nanase’s mind.

  Nanase said she’d gotten an e-mail from her. Apparently she wrote some pretty awful stuff, like that Konoha was her dog and Nanase shouldn’t go anywhere near him and that if she tried to steal what belonged to someone else she’d be cursed. And Nanase, who was already vulnerable because of what was going on with Yuka, was utterly beaten.

  Nanase sent a tearful message to Yuka’s phone saying that she’d gotten a text from the Phantom and asked her to help by please, please coming home.

  Still I couldn’t do anything for Nanase, who was hurt and afraid.

  Even when she fled her house at the shock of learning that Yuka’s entire family had committed suicide, all I could do was watch from outside the window, feeling my heart ripping apart as Nanase buried her face in her knees and cried alone in Yuka’s house.

  The one who came to Nanase and comforted her was not me, but Konoha Inoue.

  That was probably for the best.

  Even if when Inoue held Nanase in his arms, when she clung to him as she cried, when Nanase’s lips finally confessed the feelings she’d kept locked away, the breath was knocked out of me and I felt like I’d been cast into a fire.

  Nanase’s happiness was Yuka’s hope and my greatest wish.

  Konoha Inoue wasn’t an average boy like he seemed at first sight.

  There was a deep sludge of darkness in his heart.

  While I was investigating the girl who sent Nanase the threatening messages, I learned Inoue’s secret. Maybe something happened between Inoue and the girl—

  That was when I thought, maybe Konoha Inoue and I are like a hall of mirrors. Something similar while still being different in every way. But still similar—

  Maybe that was why I couldn’t totally ignore him despite my annoyance.

  I didn’t really hate Miu Inoue, either.

  I felt loathing for her too-pretty world but also longing.

  I don’t think that Inoue’s last girlfriend will stay quiet for long.

  And then there’s Inoue’s upperclassman, Tohko Amano. She’s the closest one to Inoue, but her interior is wrapped up in mystery, and I couldn’t read her. Not just anyone can make me cry.

  How does Amano feel about Inoue? That book girl could by some chance turn out to be the most threatening Phantom for Nanase.

  But in the end, Nanase will probably claim victory.

  Inoue is beginning to lean toward her.

  He’s beginning to notice Nanase’s kindness, her determination, her strength, her love, and to be drawn to it.

  Nanase could never become a Phantom. But she could become a Raoul.

  The rest depends on how hard Nanase tries.

  Keiichi Mariya and Shoko Kagami both turned themselves in to the police, and my revenge is complete.

  I’ve finished my ‘contract,’ too, and said my good-byes, and all that remains is to leave for new soil.

  This place was the castle of darkness I made so that Yuka could release her feelings. I put many layers of protection on it, devised many traps, and made it so that no one but Yuka and I could access it.

  After Yuka died and I decided to take revenge on her behalf, I continued to update it in her stead. I hit the keys with Yuka’s feelings and wrote the text as Yuka. In so doing, perhaps I let out my own feelings.

  The guilt I felt toward Yuka, my concern for Nanase…

  I’ll probably never come here again, but I think I’ll leave this page exactly the way it is.

  In the photo that fills the entire screen, Yuka and Nanase are both smiling happily. I’m making a slightly embarrassed face.

  Some day, by some chance, I hope someone runs across this website, and when they’ve read Yuka’s words and seen the pictures, I hope they understand her a little bit.

  And adorable Nanase.

  As I whispered into your ear at the end, I hope from the bottom of my heart that your love comes true.

  I celebrated the twenty-fourth, Christmas Eve, at a restaurant Ryuto went to all the time.

  We’d rented out the country-themed restaurant, which looked like it could have been in a Western—I’d been there before—and put up flashy red and gold Christmas decorations.

  “I actually wanted you two alone on a date, y’know,” Ryuto griped beside me.

  “I’d get assassinated by a girl if I did that.”

  In every part of the restaurant, flashy girls were looking hard at each other, feinting at one another. It may have been a stimulating environment for Ryuto, who loved a good massacre, but for me it was pretty distasteful.

  “Hey, not with me…Geez, why does this keep happenin’?”

  Ryuto’s eyes rolled away in a bitter look. There stood Tohko, dressed like Santa Claus in a red jacket and miniskirt with white fur trim and a red pointed hat. She pulled presents out of a big sack that was slung over her shoulder and handed them out to everyone.

  At first she sounded embarrassed—“Why do I have to dress like this? Ugh, this skirt is so short”—but then she got completely into it, and she tossed people smiles along with their gifts.

  “Geez, Tohko! I told ya this wasn’t the time to be doin’ that.”

  “You’re right. She’s got her National Center Test next month. She’s got no awareness of the fact that she’s got exams.”

  “S’not what I meant.”

  Ryuto groaned just as a petite girl with fluffy clouds of hair approached.

  “Helloooo, Konohaaa.”

  “Oh, Takeda’s here, too.”

  “Yup! Tohko invited meee,” Takeda answered grinning. She was wearing a yellow mohair sweater with a gray skirt. “’Cos I’m between boyfriends right now, and I was gonna have a looonely Christmas Eve. I was totally lucky.”

  “What’s this now? Izzat true? A cutie like you? How ’bout me, then? ’Cos I’m lookin’ for a girlfriend, too.”

  “Wow, how cool! Are you Konoha’s friend? My name’s Chia Takeda. I’m a first-year at Seijoh Academy.”

  “Hey, same as me. I’m Ryuto Sakurai. Me and Konoha are real close, and I’m like family to Tohko.”

  “Whoooa, you’re a first-year? I thought you were in college!”

  “Ryuto! If you add any more girlfriends, you really will get stabbed!” I commented pointedly, but Ryuto gave me a relaxed smile.

  “Oh, I’m a veteran. I’m used to it.”

  “Wooow, that’s awesome!”

  Takeda applauded wildly. This was bad.

  “Which reminds me, is Akutagawa or anybody coming, too?”

  “Akutagawa said he had other plans. He could be spending tonight with a girlfriend…”

  “Ohhh, does Akutagawa have a girlfriend?”

  “No, I just…thought that might be it. Oh, Kotobuki is coming. Maki said she would just make an appearance.”

  Tohko had shouted, “You’re not invited! Don’t come!” but Maki had put on an eerie smile and said, “Of course, I’m going. To see the costume I gave you.” The miniskirt Santa outfit was the “compensation” for information—or rather, the “interest.”

  Maki appeared, bathing in
the stares of the entire restaurant.

  She had a fur shawl wrapped over a trailing dress with a deeply plunging neckline. A diamond necklace glittered brilliantly at her throat. She was dressed like she had snuck out of some celebrity’s party somewhere. To put it plainly, she stuck way, way out.

  “Argh, Maki! I told you not to come!!”

  Maki grinned slyly at Tohko’s squawking and let her gaze rove over Tohko’s body.

  “Yes, yes, it looks good on you, wonderful. This is what Christmas Eve is all about. If you would take off everything but that hat for me, it would be even more lovely and aesthetic, though.”

  “Ugh…you’re so gross, Maki!”

  Maki, whose eyes narrowed as she smiled, suggesting that she felt wonderful being insulted, made my spine shudder. This girl was seriously weird.

  And on top of that, she never let her guard down…

  The day after Omi left, Maki breezily revealed the details of his “contract.”

  She probably figured that it didn’t matter since he wasn’t around anymore. She had talked to Tohko and me in her workroom while she drank tea.

  In order to help Mito, Omi had been collecting evidence of wrongdoing by the finance company who was collecting from Mito’s father. He came to ask Maki to work the police and the media, saying, “It should be possible for you, the scion of the Himekuras.”

  In exchange, he was planted as a student at the school, and under orders from Maki, he gathered information and did investigations.

  “There was one other condition I gave, and it was this.”

  She showed us a watercolor painting she had made of Omi, a white sheet over his head covering his bare skin, looking both feminine and masculine.