It was the face of someone who had already made her decision alone and was trying to move toward it.
“Nngh… why not?”
“I’m not sure, either. I can’t explain it very well… and maybe I’m wrong. But I think this is how it has to be.”
Like Alissa refusing the love of Jerome and going through the narrow gate alone—
As she looked at me with the eyes of a holy woman, filled with an affection greater than love, Tohko wiped away my tears with her fingers.
“Come on, Konoha… don’t cry.
“From now on, even if you feel the tears coming, don’t give in. If you do that, then the fact that you made all that effort and didn’t cry will build your confidence.”
As she wiped at the corners of my eyes, at my cheeks, at my lips with her sweet fingertips, she whispered slowly in a warm voice.
“Come on, don’t cry…
“Throw out your chest…
“Smile…
“Take a good look, think…
“Stand up, and walk on your own.”
As her almost tickling fingertips wiped the transparent beads from my cheeks, she peeked up at me from below. Her eyes were clear and peaceful, too.
“Promise me, Konoha. That you won’t cry anymore. If I think that you’re crying, I won’t know what to do. I won’t be able to be at your side anymore… I won’t be able to wipe away your tears like this, either.”
Tohko’s fingers were so gentle, her eyes looking at me and her whisper of a voice, too; it was all so gentle—even though I told myself that it was wrong to cry, touched by her affection, my heart grew so full that the tears spilled out.
“Look, you’re crying again.”
Tohko’s face fell, troubled.
I sobbed and said, “I’ll make today the last time I cry. I won’t cry again. I promise.
“I won’t cry until the next time I see you, Tohko. I won’t cry except when I’m with you! I promise!
“So please don’t hold back if you want to cry, Tohko. When it gets so you want to cry more than you can believe, come see me. Please. Because next time I’ll at least be strong enough to wipe away your tears.”
I sniffled, tears coursing down my cheeks, but I knew I didn’t sound convincing at all.
But these really would be my last tears.
I’m not going to cry anymore.
The smile disappeared from Tohko’s face; fierce pain and sadness came into her eyes, and she looked like she might cry. But she smiled so prettily immediately after that it made my heart shake—
She unwound the scarf from her neck and put it around mine.
I was wrapped up in the warm texture of wool.
Cherry blossom petals swirling like snow fell in my hair and against my cheeks.
When Tohko tried to pull away from me, I grabbed her arm and pulled her back, and our lips met.
Tohko’s were soft enough to melt away in, moist, and they tasted of salt.
Maybe that was the taste of my lips.
We came so close together that we could feel each other’s heartbeats and the warmth of the other’s body, and I tilted my head several times and closed my eyes—it felt like it went on a really long time.
When our paired lips parted, Tohko said, her eyes tearing up, “Meanie… that was my first time.”
“Me too.”
When I said that, my voice thick, Tohko’s eyes filled even more.
Then, just like that, she smiled.
“Good-bye.”
My first kiss became our good-bye kiss.
Tohko gently loosened her hand from mine.
The instant she turned her back, her long, thin braids fluttered up and caressed my cheek.
Tohko’s retreating figure drew into the distance, as if she were melting away into the contented, golden hour before the arrival of night.
“Tohko!”
I shouted, feeling as if my heart was being torn apart, but Tohko didn’t turn around again.
“Tohko! Tohko!!”
I called to her again and again through tears.
The name of the person who for two years had been at my side and, with all her heart, had enfolded me in her pale, kind hands—I yelled her precious name over and over.
Just as her name had promised, the “distant child” was steadily drawing farther away.
Before she passed through the school gate, her slender shoulders trembled just slightly. Maybe she was crying, too.
But she never stopped walking.
She stepped nobly through the gate and disappeared completely from my field of view, dimmed now by tears. The white scarf Tohko had wrapped around my throat swayed in the wind.
In the bright, burning world, covered in flower petals, I went back to the tiny room where the two of us had spent our time, bearing a deep sense of loss, as if I’d lost half of the heart beating in my chest.
An old hardcover was resting on the fold-up chair where Tohko had sat.
It was Strait Is the Gate.
When I turned back the cover, there was a dedication from Tohko’s father. It was the book I’d seen on the shelf at Tohko’s house. A pale violet envelope was stuck inside it.
I opened the envelope and read the long, long letter written on stationery of the same color.
Dear Konoha,
I don’t think I’ll be able to talk very well, so I’m writing you a letter.
Because I thought I would end up crying if I talked to you face-to-face.
There’s something I never told you.
It must have bothered you, wondering how I knew about Miu Inoue’s first draft.
I encountered the first novel you ever wrote the winter of my third year in middle school.
That day I needed to see Mr. Sasaki about something, so I went to the editing bureau of Summer’s Breeze Publishing.
When I was little, my mom would take me there all the time to bring my dad a change of clothes, so it was a familiar place to me, full of memories.
I sat in a chair on the edge of the editors’ floor and waited for Mr. Sasaki to be done with his work.
It was right when the manuscripts that had finished the initial selection for the new author prize were coming back in. Cardboard boxes full of submissions were stacked all over.
They were picking from the ones that made it through the first round. They let me help while I waited for Mr. Sasaki.
Your submission was in the discard pile.
I saw the title Like the Open Sky written in big, neat, handwritten letters and that was the start of it. My interest was hooked.
As I flipped casually through it and then continued to read on, I was pulled into Itsuki and Hatori’s lush lives.
Before I realized it, I was immersed in it, oblivious to the world. Mr. Sasaki was surprised. I was plopped on the floor and turning through a rejected submission in utter silence.
The story you wrote was a lot like my mom’s stories.
The way it was warm, and kind, and overflowing with love for someone.
As it went, it put me into a nostalgic, happy mood.
I especially loved the scene where Itsuki confesses her feelings to Hatori.
Maybe it wasn’t great structurally, but Itsuki was adorable confessing so earnestly, and I imagined how very sweet this scene would taste if I ate it, how it had to be sour like lemon meringue pie and taste like happiness. I was enraptured.
Once I finished reading and let out a sigh, I held that manuscript out to Mr. Sasaki and I told him:
“Promise you’ll read this.
“The technique might have some problems, but this is not a story you can reject—”
The sun had set and the room was cloaked in darkness. The letters receded into the shadows, and I couldn’t make them out very well.
I turned on a light, then sat back down in the chair and continued reading, holding my breath.
One month later, when Mr. Sasaki told me that the story I’d pulled out of the rejection pile was stil
l around in the final selections, I leaped for joy.
At the same time, I was so hopeful that my chest ached.
Because I knew Aunt Kanako was on the selection committee for the new author prize.
What would she feel when she read that story?
Would she think it resembled my mom’s stories, the way I had?
I’d been writing letters to her for a long time.
Ever since my mom passed away, her heart had been closed.
Even though she was sadder than anyone at my mom’s death, she couldn’t say it out loud or show it in how she acted. She did things to deliberately sully her memories of my mom and hurt herself.
Even though I knew Aunt Kanako was suffering, I was incapable of doing anything.
If my mom were alive.
If she wrote the story of manna that she always talked about for Aunt Kanako.
Then Aunt Kanako wouldn’t have needed to suffer.
If only I could take my mom’s place.
With that thought, I took on my mom’s emotions as I remembered the things she had told me and I went on writing letters to Aunt Kanako that would never be sent.
Dear Kana.
That’s what I called her.
But she was steadily drawing away beyond the narrow gate, and no matter how much I called out to her, she wouldn’t respond. She wouldn’t even look at me.
It was as if she had shut her memories with my mom away deep in her heart and put a lock on them.
So I hoped that your story might touch her heart.
Your novel got chosen for the grand prize and became a book.
Aunt Kanako didn’t talk about it at home at all, but when I read her comments on the selection, hope came into my heart again.
If this kid put out a second book, maybe she would read that one, too.
If this kid kept on writing, maybe one day they’d be able to write the story of manna that my mom had wanted to write.
Maybe it would connect with Aunt Kanako’s heart.
I saw your profile on your submission, so I knew that Miu Inoue was attending a middle school inside the city under the name Konoha Inoue.
Konoha—“leaves of the heart.”
Konoha Inoue—
Was this kid a boy? A girl?
What kind of a person were they? What kind of wonderful stories would they write after this one?
Those were the selfish fantasies of a book girl.
But while I was daydreaming, thinking about all these things, my heart was oblivious and I was happy.
I was your very first fan, Konoha.
Tohko was your very first fan.
I recalled what Mr. Sasaki had told me.
And also what Ryuto had told me.
That if it weren’t for Tohko Amano, Miu Inoue wouldn’t exist.
The one who had discovered my run-of-the-mill story among so many submissions was Tohko. The one who’d liked my novel first, before anyone else, was Tohko.
Somewhere out there, a girl with braids who I had never met had read my story and been thinking about me. The thought of that filled my heart.
The two of us had been linked through novels since before we met.
When I quit writing, Tohko said in her letter that she’d been very, very glum.
And then she’d heard my name called at the welcoming ceremony the spring that she started her second year.
Konoha Inoue.
When the teacher read that name out, I thought my heart would jump out of my chest.
It could be them.
After the assembly, I went to the first-year classrooms, and when I found the name Konoha Inoue in the class rosters posted on the walls, I was truly thrilled.
It has to be! It’s them!
That day you were sitting in your chair spacing out, not talking to anyone.
After I got home, I told Ryuto in a huge rush, “I met that kid! It’s a boy!”
“Maybe he’ll write again.”
Oh, how wonderful that would be!
The light of a new hope caught in my heart, but Aunt Kanako had heard me talking.
“It’s not going to happen. That boy could never be an author.”
Her tone was cold and broke down my optimism. It made me think that she hated Miu Inoue, whom she’d never even met.
But despite her, I became more and more cheerful.
After all, the aunt who always ignored me had actually spoken to me!
It confirmed for me that Aunt Kanako had indeed felt your story was similar to my mom’s. So I told her with a smile, “Then I’ll make him an author! If Miu Inoue puts out another novel, you have to write a review.”
It was a bet that I made without consulting anyone.
If I lost my gamble, I would disappear from Aunt Kanako’s life. I realized that my existence tortured her. Even so, I wanted to share my mom’s feelings with her someday.
Maybe that kid could do it. If he matured—!
I’ll turn him into a true author.
I’ll make him write another novel.
I made my decision with a joy that had my heart leaping, and a few days after that, I saw you walking toward me, so I pretended to be reading a book under a magnolia, then deliberately tore out a page and let you see me eat it.
My dad had told me ever since I was little that I shouldn’t eat in front of anyone but my author, but I didn’t hesitate for a second.
I thought back to when I first met Tohko.
Under a magnolia at the end of a long, long winter.
The weird girl with the braids from one grade up who puffed out her chest and made a vibrant declaration in the face of my bewilderment.
“I am Tohko Amano in class eight of the second-years. As you can see, I am a book girl.”
It hadn’t been by chance. Under that tree, her heart thrilling, Tohko had been listening for my footsteps.
Same with the way she’d made me write improv stories, and made corrections to the pages with peculiar tastes that she brought to her lips through tears, and been at my side to encourage me constantly.
Tohko had been teaching me everything it took to become a writer as hard as she could.
I read the part where she said, “You were so mean and stubborn; there were so many times you nearly discouraged me,” and something hot welled up to fill my throat.
“You’ve gotten good, Konoha.”
“You’ve let me eat so many stories, Konoha.”
I told you the story about the ribbon at graduation, remember?
In second year, I made a wish on that ribbon.
That you would write me a novel someday.
I didn’t manage to tie the ribbon up, but you picked up the ribbon I’d dropped and tied it around a branch for me.
I was so happy.
I suppose it was around then that my feelings for you started to transform inside me.
At first I thought I wanted you to write the novel my mom should have written.
But then I realized.
Your stories resembled my mom’s, but there was something special, something decisive in the things you wrote, that wasn’t in my mom’s stories.
My mom’s stories were like home cooking.
They were rustic and refreshing, but it was a flavor aimed at those closest to her and not something that could be aimed at masses of people.
The same way my dad told Aunt Kanako, “You’re someone who needs to write.” While I was partaking of the things you wrote every day, I had the same thought. You’re someone who needs to write.
That the day would eventually come when I couldn’t eat what you wrote.
Because it was a story that couldn’t belong to me alone.
While I hoped that it would happen, I was very afraid of that day’s arrival.
Because in my heart, I was always conflicted about not being able to tell you the truth.
Because I gradually began to be aware of you as a boy.
Because you look kind at first glance, but you’re me
an and cynical, and you’re cowardly and a crybaby, and you’re a troubled, high-maintenance kid.
And yet sometimes you’ll do something so kind or docile that it makes my heart skip, and I think that’s cowardice.
I can’t be excitable. I have to look at you with jaded eyes because I have a mission to make you into a great author. I became more and more conscious of you, to the point that I had to remind myself of those things, and my face would turn red or I would tell you, “Don’t come near me!”
I even wavered, wondering if maybe I would be happier if I could spend my time with you the way things were, eating the snacks you wrote for me without thinking about making you into a writer.
And then I went to a fortune-teller I heard was accurate to talk to them.
She didn’t mean—
When she’d stood outside a long time the day of the blizzard and caught a cold.
That fishy place that told her she’d been inside a zone of romantic slaughter since she was born, and about the scarf in summer, or the bear with a salmon in its mouth…
The upshot was, since I was in a zone of romantic slaughter, I should press ahead with other goals.
Why did she believe that fortune?! I’d been reading her letter so intently until then, and now, right here, all the power had gone out of it.
At the same time, the tears I’d pulled back once felt like they were going to slip out again with my lapse in focus.
This was, after all, the kind of person Tohko was.
She looked wise and elegant, but something was missing, and she hugged pillows shaking because she was afraid of ghosts, and tried to tie ribbons around the branches of trees because she believed in tricks to grant wishes, and knocked down mounds of books because she did a headstand in the clubroom, and was truly a menace to those around her and a hopeless president… But she always did her best—that—that was the kind of person she was.
That’s why I sealed these feelings up and swore anew that I would make you into an author.
That from now on I would treat you as if I were your big sister.
Then the day you wrote a novel would be the day we parted.
But I stayed with you too long after all.
It’s not good for me to be with you anymore.
Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God, Part 2 Page 19