Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God, Part 2

by Mizuki Nomura

  “So Kotobuki’s gonna be a problem… huh?”

  The look filled with irritation and the chilling, knifelike voice cut again and again into my heart, carving it up.

  “I dunno what I’m gonna do.”

  Ryuto murmuring through the phone in a low, grasping voice.

  He hadn’t been normal that day!

  I’d known that, and yet—

  Known that Ryuto wouldn’t give up for anything. That what he said wasn’t a threat: it was the truth.

  I’d known that! So then why had I let Kotobuki out of my sight?

  I ran desperately through the hall and bolted down the stairs, berating my blunder as I went until my head almost split.

  My breathing was rough, and I thought my throat was going to rip open. Sweat ran into my eyes and my feet tangled up and I almost fell over, but I planted my feet and fought it off.

  The world around me was warping like rubber.

  Please—please let me be in time!

  There was a CLOSED sign hanging on the door to the library. Beyond, everything was silent; only my rough panting engulfed my ears. I turned the knob and went inside.

  As my shoulders heaved with my breathing, I looked around.

  The desk and reading area were both empty.

  In that place, a single student sat in a chair at a table, reading a book.

  Her cold eyes, devoid of any emotion, looked down at the words, and she turned the pages silently, without a sound. As if a mechanized doll were sitting there—

  “Takeda!”

  When I called her name, she raised her still-empty eyes to me, then turned her face ever so slightly in the direction of the room in the basement.

  I bolted toward it in a daze, opened the door that led downstairs, then descended the spiral staircase so fast that it made me dizzy.

  When I pulled open the weighty iron door, the sweet smell given off by yellowing books and the sharp, cold air pricked at my cheeks and forehead.

  The lamp on the small side table lit the room unsettlingly. In the slight space of the dim “book graveyard,” two shadows were cast on top of each other.

  The lower shadow was kicking its feet, trying desperately to push the upper shadow back.

  It was Ryuto and Kotobuki.

  I saw that Kotobuki had fallen to her back on the floor and that Ryuto was looming over her. Heat flared from the back of my neck to my ears to the core of my brain.

  It was the first time I’d felt rage at another person so strongly that I wanted to murder them. Even the insides of my eyes turned bloodred, my heart went wild, my reason fled, and I became a bundle of emotion. I surged forward.

  “Get off her! Stop!”

  When Ryuto turned around to look at me, I punched him in the face, grabbed his collar with both hands, and sent him flying back. A mound of books collapsed, hitting Ryuto on the shoulder as they tumbled to the floor. Dust particles floated about in the faint light from the table.

  “I-Inoue!”

  Kotobuki called my name, her voice thick with tears, and clung to me, trembling. Her hair and uniform were all rumpled and the ribbon over her chest had come untied.

  “I’m sorry, Kotobuki. I’m sorry.”

  I hugged Kotobuki, whispering the words over and over.

  Kotobuki didn’t stop shaking. She must have been so terrified. She gripped my uniform tightly and pressed her face against my chest and sobbed, “Inoue… Inoue…” White dust was stuck to her lovely brown hair.

  Clenching my jaw, I glared sharply at Ryuto.

  Ryuto plunked onto his bottom on the floor and looked up at me.

  His eyes flashed with displeasure, and his lips were twisted pettily. I saw that and the blood rushed into my head.

  “Don’t ever touch Kotobuki again!! What you’re doing is a crime! Why don’t you just forget I exist? No matter what you do, I’m not going to write a novel! I won’t go back to being Miu Inoue! If you do something to Kotobuki again, I might kill you. That’s how I angry I am!”

  In a thorny, grating voice, Ryuto muttered, “Never thought I’d hear ya say a word like kill. Your girlfriend that important to you? You oughta quit tryin’ stuff you’re not used to. You and me, Konoha, we’re on different levels. I’m used to people tellin’ me they’re gonna kill me. No matter how much they say it, there’s no one… who’ll actually do it for me…”

  Ryuto pulled a folding knife out of his pocket. He flicked it open and tossed it at my feet.

  Then, as if to fan my rage, he hitched his lips up slightly.

  “I want you to kill me with that thing. If you don’t, I’m gonna do the same thing again, as many times as I want.

  “I really am gonna break your precious Kotobuki. She’s in my way, after all. I really do want her to just disappear from your life.”

  Lying on the concrete floor scattered with old books, the blade of the knife gave off a cold light.

  My head grew numbingly hot, my throat was bone-dry, and I felt as if I’d been backed up against a cliff edge. A vicious animal was closing in on me steadily, and if I didn’t kill him, he’d kill me—that was the urgent feeling that had me under its sway.

  Kotobuki tugged on my sleeve uneasily.

  “Don’t…,” she whispered in a halting voice.

  Ryuto’s voice rang out, as if to eradicate her words.

  “Then maybe you want me to tear her up right in front of you?”

  Kotobuki flinched and shrank back. I did, too.

  He’d fixed on us a look that belonged to a demon, filled with dangerous enthusiasm. Cruel eyes without a shred of familiarity—

  “I’m serious. You wanna see which of us would win when we’re both bein’ serious? C’mon, pick that up and stop my heart. Then I won’t tell ya to write ever again. Dead people can’t talk. Show my body what it means when you’re serious, Konoha.”

  The silver knife lying at my feet.

  If I picked it up and stabbed it into Ryuto’s heart, Kotobuki would never be in danger again.

  I knew Ryuto wouldn’t dodge it.

  The air grew thicker and my throat choked tight. I stopped breathing, didn’t even blink, looking at the knife.

  I couldn’t forgive Ryuto for what he’d done to Kotobuki; he wasn’t the cheerful Ryuto that he used to be.

  If I didn’t end it here, the same thing would happen again.

  The scene I’d witnessed when I opened the door rose before my eyes again and a bubbling, murderous impulse welled up in me. If I truly wanted to protect Kotobuki—

  “Don’t!”

  As troubling emotions began to drag me in, a forceful voice called me back.

  Kotobuki was the one who’d shouted.

  Trembling slightly against my chest, gritting her teeth, she glared at Ryuto, her eyes tough, and said loudly, “Inoue’s not going to listen to anything you say! A-and I’m—I’m not going to break up with Inoue no matter what you do! This doesn’t impress me! I’m not afraid of someone like you! I’m going to be with Inoue for a long time!”

  Kotobuki released her grip on my uniform. I watched her crouch down toward the floor, and I started.

  “Kotobuki—”

  Ryuto’s eyes widened, too.

  Kotobuki picked up the knife, then hurled it into the shadows where the lines of bookshelves stood. The sound of the knife striking a shelf rang out, then the sound of it falling to the floor, and then silence.

  Kotobuki pressed her face against my arm, clinging to it tightly.

  “… It was true, what I said before. I care about Inoue… I’m going to stay with him.”

  What sweet, divine words those were.

  My spirit trembled.

  Kotobuki lifted her face and smiled at me. It was an awkward smile, but it looked prettier than any other smile could have been.

  “Thank you.”

  I put my arms around Kotobuki’s shoulders and pulled her closer. The fire drained out of my body, and I was filled with a feeling of purity. Kotobuki had given me
courage yet again.

  Ryuto murmured in a frigid voice, “How nice… havin’ someone who loves ya like that.”

  When I looked cautiously over at him, the flaring aura around him had faded and he was looking at us, apparently exhausted.

  “But I’m not plannin’ on retreatin’, either.”

  Kotobuki tugged at my uniform.

  “L-let’s go, Inoue.”

  “Yeah.”

  I nodded to Kotobuki, then turned toward Ryuto again and said, “I’m not retreating, either. I’m going to protect Kotobuki.”

  Ryuto was hunkered down, a look of exhaustion still on his face. His powerless, tortured gaze mimicked the face Tohko had shown me when she’d come to my house that one night, and my chest ached suddenly, but… even so I put my arm around Kotobuki’s shoulders and we left the room.

  “Inoue! You’re okay?”

  As soon as I went back up, Akutagawa came running over.

  “If one more minute went by and you still weren’t back, I was going to run after you.”

  “Akutagawa—what about class?”

  “I left. I said I was going to check on you.”

  It was all so messed up. The teacher must have been surprised. Kotobuki’s eyes were wide, too.

  With a bitter look, Akutagawa told us how he’d followed me here and how, when he tried to go downstairs, Takeda had stopped him with the words, “You should let the people involved talk. Have a seat over there, please.”

  Takeda turned a page in her book, pretending ignorance.

  “Thank you for telling me about Kotobuki, Takeda.”

  When I thanked her, she murmured distantly, her eyes still cold, “No problem…”

  Takeda didn’t ask about what had happened down there or what we’d talked to Ryuto about.

  A funny song played in the pocket of Takeda’s uniform. Still expressionless, she pulled out her cell phone and checked the screen.

  “It’s a text… from Ryu.”

  I flinched.

  “What does it say?”

  “It says, ‘You ratted to Konoha, didn’t you?’ ”

  Kotobuki watched Takeda nervously as she typed a reply with practiced movements. Even though she knew about her innocent underclassman’s other side, I suppose she still couldn’t help being uncomfortable. She gripped my arm fiercely.

  My voice hoarse, too, I asked, “What… did you tell him?”

  Takeda closed the book she’d just begun reading and stood up. The title on the cover was No Longer Human.

  “To do it somewhere else next time,” she answered coolly, then walked toward the room that led downstairs.

  “Takeda! Are you going to Ryuto?”

  “Yes. He’s pouting, so I’m going to see how he’s holding up.”

  Then she stopped partway there and turned around with the face of the nice, cheerful Chia Takeda.

  “I’ll see you guys! Later, Konoha, Nanase, Akutagawa!”

  The three of us just stood there for a while, struck dumb by the almost blatant transformation.

  Finally, Kotobuki broke the silence.

  “If—if we all go back to class together, it’ll look strange.”

  “Th-that’s true.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  We spent a few minutes murmuring among ourselves.

  In the end, in order to stay consistent, we all went to the nurse’s office together.

  “Um, I felt a little anemic… I was putting away books in the library and I started to feel dizzy, and then I couldn’t move.”

  “My stomach feels funny. I couldn’t get out of the bathroom.”

  “I’m here to escort Inoue.”

  That’s what we told the nurse.

  Has writing made you happy, Kana?

  Fumiharu has always talked about how writing down a story is an act that brings you closer to God.

  He said that you had gone through the narrow gate and you were walking toward Him. That he was helping you to reach the pinnacle called God. That it was the greatest joy that an editor could have.

  But even though you had all that talent and were so pretty and smart and had so much that people wished they had, you didn’t look happy to me, Kana.

  Fumiharu would say that the thing you truly wanted was somewhere far away and he was sure you would never achieve it.

  He said that you were just like Alissa, who sought love in heaven, and that it was that solitude and internal conflict that elevated your writing to another level.

  Fumiharu would say these terrible things while cuddling with Tohko with a gentle look on his face, and I would get angry with him.

  “It’s not true that you can only write novels if you’re unhappy.”

  “You’re right. But hunger is important for creation. If Dazai had been content and satisfied, would he have written No Longer Human? Without the tragic love of Elise, would Dancing Girl have been born? Without the conflict with his father, would Naoya Shiga have been able to write A Dark Night’s Passing?”

  “So then Kana is never allowed to be happy?”

  As he swept aside Tohko’s bangs with his fingertips, Fumiharu answered quietly, “She can be happy as an author.”

  As if that was the only way.

  Chapter 2—Poison Dripping from the Hand

  I went to school with Kotobuki the next morning, too.

  When I told her I would meet her at her house because I was worried about her, she refused vehemently.

  “No, don’t! Then my whole family will find out I’m going out with you.”

  “I introduced you to my family.”

  “You told them I was a girl from your class…”

  “Th-that’s ’cos my mom got this idea that a boy was coming over. Besides, I promised that next time I would do it right and introduce you as my girlfriend.”

  “Urk. That’s true… but you still can’t come to my house.”

  “Even if I introduce myself as just a guy from your class?”

  “It’s not normal for a guy who’s just from my class to come all the way to my house in the morning. I said you can’t!”

  We talked it over heatedly on the phone that night until I broke.

  Even so, I was worried, and I got to our meeting spot thirty minutes early. But Kotobuki had gotten there first.

  I saw her breathing in white puffs, the scarf I’d given her wound around her neck, and my eyes went wide.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to be so early, Kotobuki.”

  “S-so are you. You’re here too early!”

  I guess she felt awkward because she pursed her lips and turned her face away.

  “I just had something else I needed to do and ended up getting here early, that’s all.”

  I held on to my smile and murmured, “Oh, okay. You had something else you needed to do,” and Kotobuki peered up at me through her eyelashes. “But that works out, since I came early, too. Now I can be with you that much longer.”

  When I said that, she turned bright red and murmured quietly, making an excuse, “I swear, it just happened this way. It’s not like… I th-thought you might come early or anything…”

  “Oh, so that’s what it was.”

  “I said it wasn’t!”

  Kotobuki had shouted this and whipped her face away again.

  “T-today it just happened that I came early, but I might not tomorrow… So you have to come at the time you said you would. I swear I’ll be fine. I let my guard down, too, yesterday. I’m being careful so that doesn’t happen again. I’m not going to make you worry.”

  She’d experienced something terrible because of me, but still she was being considerate of me.

  My heart clenched sweetly, and I squeezed Kotobuki’s hand firmly.

  Kotobuki jumped and looked up at me.

  “Thanks. Maybe you can’t rely on me yet, but I’ll be able to protect you eventually. I’ll be the one who gets stronger so I don’t make you worry. I’ll work hard at it, so I hope you won’t give up on me.�
��

  After I said it, I realized something.

  Aha, this is a sensation I never had when I was with Miu.

  Having something I wanted to protect felt so warm and happy.

  A smile spilled shyly over Kotobuki’s face.

  “I won’t.”

  Seeing her face, I felt another thrill and warm feelings filled my chest. We started walking, our hands linked.

  Even so, that didn’t mean I was slacking on my caution about Ryuto.

  After we reached the classroom, I reminded Kotobuki, “When you’re at school, do everything with someone.”

  “I will.”

  “And please put my cell phone number in your speed dial. When Inoue can’t pick up the phone, you can call me. I won’t mind.”

  “Thanks, Akutagawa. You should do that, Kotobuki.”

  “O-okay…”

  “I also got some self-defense stuff from my older sister. You can use it if you want.”

  Akutagawa laid out sprays and alarms and whatever else on his desk with a serious look.

  “… Thanks.”

  Kotobuki didn’t seem very into it, but she thanked him and put a bottle of spray and an alarm in her pocket.

  Maybe since the three of us were whispering in a tight little clump together for so long—it was so bad that Mori asked me worriedly at lunch, “Hey, are you guys in a threesome? Are you and Akutagawa fighting over Nanase?”

  “What?! No way!”

  “But yesterday the three of you all skipped class.”

  “We just went to the nurse’s office.”

  “I think it’d be pretty bad for you if Akutagawa challenged you, but you’ve got your own qualities. So try not to let Nanase go, okay? For me? I’m rooting for you, Inoue.”

  She gave me those words of encouragement and then left.

  Yet another bizarre misunderstanding… I was sure Mori would interrogate Kotobuki about it, too, and get her all flustered.

  That was the extent of the peril (?) and lunch ended without incident.

  It was during cleanup after school when Ryuto showed himself.

  When I was wiping the window that faced the balcony, I saw Ryuto cutting through the school yard.