Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime

by Mizuki Nomura

  “How are we going to investigate something from ten years ago?”

  “We could ask teachers who were here ten years ago, or ask old book club members. There are ways to do it.”

  “Are there old book club members?”

  Tohko puffed up her flat chest and pulled out a notebook.

  “Ha! This volume contains the names of former members of Seijoh Academy’s legendary book club. Let’s see, alumni from ten years ago… Look! There’s three whole people!”

  That’s it?

  “Let’s get in touch with them ASAP.”

  Tohko hurried me out of the club room, surging with excitement. There was a pay phone on the first floor. Tohko kept one eye on the notebook as she dialed each number. Tohko didn’t own a cell phone, since her body (I guess?) messed up machines. I didn’t carry mine with me much, since I didn’t have that many friends.

  We called the first name on the list.

  “This telephone number is no longer in service. Please confirm the number you have dialed and…”

  Then the second one: “Huh? Kobayashi? My name is Kakimoto.”

  Then the third one: “Ahaha, well now, our baby boy went to work at a laboratory in Paris last spring. Ahaha!”

  “W-well, there’s still the first- and second-year students from ten years ago.”

  Tohko flipped through the notebook, smiling.

  The first of the second-year students: “This call cannot be completed due to customer problems.”

  The second: “Huh? Book club? Everything’s going to hell right now. Call me back in six months. CLICK!”

  Next were the first-year students…

  “There aren’t any. No first-year students. It’s blank.”

  Tohko looked at the empty column on the list of names and stuck out her lower lip.

  The greater mystery was not the truth of who Shuji Kataoka was, but how our club had ever managed to survive.

  Standing in front of the phone, shoulders slumped, Tohko nervously fiddled with the tip of one braid. I spoke up soberly. “Let’s forget about it. We’re better off not getting involved with Takeda or Shuji more than we already are.”

  The truth was, after I found out that Shuji had leaped to his death, I’d gotten scared. The roof brought back bad memories.

  Tohko looked back over her shoulder at me, her eyes ever so slightly sad. “Can you live with that, Konoha?”

  “Well, it creeps me out that my doppelgänger committed suicide, and it bothers me that Takeda and the archery team alums are all hiding something. But what can I do about it?”

  Tohko frowned dejectedly. Then she shook her head fiercely, her braids swinging together like cats’ tails. “No, I can’t do it. What if Shuji’s ghost wants us to find out the truth, and he’s reaching out to us from the beyond? If we quit now, he’ll never be at peace and I’ll never get that lovely report from little Chia!”

  If Shuji was in the beyond, didn’t that mean he was already at peace? This was about food, after all…

  I was deflated, but Tohko grabbed my arm and resolutely declared, “We can’t let this defeat us! Let’s dig a little deeper. For this… for this… I’m willing to take it all off.”

  Wha—?

  The next day we visited the school’s music hall.

  It belonged to the school orchestra, so it was never used for classes. According to the stories, the former members of the orchestra and their fan club had pooled their money to have it built.

  The orchestra had a lot of members and every year they earned high scores at national competitions. Former members were active around the world, and the school director and his son had both belonged to it.

  Because of that, the orchestra was in a class all its own, even among the more well-populated clubs. The difference between it and the two-member book club that was allowed to use a spare storage room out of pity was like the difference between a mansion with an elaborate security system and a run-down apartment with no bathroom.

  We opened the thick, soundproofed door and went inside. The first thing we saw was a huge hall that could have seated a thousand people. Musicians with violins, violas, and cellos were practicing under the tutelage of a professional coach.

  The variety of sounds pounded against my ears like an invisible flood.

  “Wow… so this is the entire orchestra.”

  I’d thought the archery team had a lot of members, but the orchestra was an even bigger clan. In one quick glance, I thought I counted a hundred people.

  “Hmph. More members don’t make a better club,” Tohko observed sourly beside me.

  There were several small rooms other than the big hall, and a member of the orchestra guided us to one of these.

  “This is it.”

  “Thanks. We can handle the rest.”

  “All right. Excuse me, then.”

  When our guide had left, Tohko squared her shoulders as if to harden her resolve, then opened the door. “Here I am, Maki!”

  Instantly, the smell of art supplies assaulted me.

  What’s going on?

  Bright sunlight came in through a skylight to illuminate the room. One entire wall was covered with painted canvases and sketches on paper. A canvas was propped up on an easel in the center of the room, where a girl in a school uniform sat holding a paintbrush. She turned to look at us and grinned slyly.

  “Great! So you didn’t back out.”

  In the light, her brown hair gleamed golden, and I squinted reflexively in the face of such brilliance.

  Her features were also sharply impressive, and she was taller than many boys. She made a majestic picture. And unlike Tohko, she had a chest and curves; there was a sensuality to her body and her entire frame gave off a powerful aura.

  This was Maki Himekura.

  The school director’s granddaughter and the conductor in charge of the orchestra. The princess who was always the subject of gossip, with her illustrious heritage and good looks.

  “So that’s Konoha, huh? Isn’t he a cutie. I’m Maki Himekura. You can call me Maki.”

  When she turned her powerful, luminous eyes on me, I tensed.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Maki.”

  She gave me a look after that awkward response and grinned.

  Everyone called her “the princess” and gave her special treatment at school, but she didn’t possess so much as a shred of meekness or hesitation.

  I knew that was because, unlike me, she was the real thing. After she’d had her fill of me, Maki turned to Tohko and her eyes narrowed with pleasure.

  “Heh-heh. It was pretty gutsy of you to bring Konoha along, Tohko. You do know what we’re going to be doing, don’t you?”

  Tohko pouted prettily. “Did you find out what I asked you to?”

  “It’s all here. Because unlike you, we have alums to burn. We’ve got contact info for more people than we have time to call.”

  “W-we only let a tiny elite into the book club!”

  “Uh-huh. In any case, the orchestra makes up the majority of the Academy’s alumni. There are even members with influence in the police department, so I was able to discover quite a lot about Shuji Kataoka.”

  “Ohhh, like what?”

  The corner of Maki’s mouth lifted in a smirk, and she leered at Tohko suggestively.

  “That information will be exchanged for the condition we discussed. Are you prepared, Tohko?”

  “Geez, all right already…”

  “Then take your clothes off and sit in that chair. Oh, you can change the pose however you want. I’ll just go ahead and sketch it.”

  “Urk.”

  Tohko’s cheeks flushed red and she touched the ribbon at her throat with slender fingers.

  “Hold on, what are you guys talking about? What are you planning to do?”

  I couldn’t process what the condition was, and the girls each looked at me with different emotions: Tohko with embarrassment, Maki with relish.

  “I’m going to model for
one of her pictures.”

  “Right. Nude.”

  N-n-NUDE?!

  “I’ve had my eye on her since we started here, and I’ve kept trying to convince her to do it. I just had to draw a picture of Tohko before we graduated. Only a natural state will do for a true beauty; dressing her up and decorating her with accessories would only distract. I totally scored when you finally changed your mind!”

  Tohko’s face was bright red, and she was cringing. “Hey, you never said I had to get totally naked! Th… that depends on your information.”

  “Which means if I’ve got good info, you agree to go all the way?”

  “I… haven’t decided.”

  “Heh-heh-heh, Well, in any case, let’s get started. Oh, why don’t you take a seat over there, Konoha? Then you can fully appreciate the view.”

  “I said I wasn’t doing nude!”

  I calmly replied, “Tohko has no breasts to speak of. She’s perfectly flat-chested. Are you sure you want to use her?”

  “Konoha!”

  “Oh my. Have you already seen Tohko naked?”

  “You can tell that much with her clothes on. There’s not a bump on her. I think someone with more curves would make a better model.”

  “You’re sooo mean! I… might not have much, but there’s at least something there! I’m not totally flat!”

  Maki sputtered, then hugged her stomach and exploded into laughter.

  “Ahahaha! Hah… hahahaha! You’re an interesting one, little man. You’re right, Tohko is com-plete-ly flat… Hahahaha!”

  “Maki, if you don’t stop laughing this instant, I’m leaving!”

  “Mmf… heh-heh… understood.”

  “Geez, everyone makes fun of me.”

  Pouting angrily, Tohko tugged her ribbon from her shirt.

  Then she popped her top button open, and her pale white collarbone flashed into sight.

  “But you know, Tohko, I really am ecstatic to be able to draw this picture of you.”

  Maki crossed her legs and propped her open sketchbook on one knee, then turned a sharp eye on Tohko.

  “I wanted to join the art club, not orchestra. But Grandpa and the others forced me into it because of their stupid tradition. I got this room as my condition for joining the orchestra. Half the time I’m here drawing pictures after school. I find an interesting subject and study its every aspect. The time I spend here in trial and error trying to render something’s true form is nearly heaven for me.”

  Her voice was impassioned as she sketched Tohko’s figure with a charcoal pencil.

  Tohko was sitting on a chair with one knee drawn up. She pulled the shoe off her foot and plunked it onto the floor.

  Then she took her sock off, too. With a smooth whisper, her pale ankle and beautifully aligned toes were revealed. The nails were painted the same light pink as her fingernails.

  Resting her cheek on her knee, Tohko murmured in a calm tone so utterly unlike her usual voice, “Tell me, Maki. Did Shuji really commit suicide? Before he fell off the roof, he stabbed a heavy-duty knife into his chest, right? Isn’t it possible someone else stabbed him?”

  Her hand never stopping, Maki replied, “Apparently they pursued the theory that it was a homicide, too, but they only found Shuji’s fingerprints on the knife. Besides, he had a motive for suicide, and they found a note at his house. That’s what made the police decide it was a suicide.”

  “He had a motive?”

  With another whisper, Tohko unraveled one of her braids and fanned her hair out. Her glossy black hair rippled like a soft wave in the ocean. I leaned forward, feeling as if it were sucking me in.

  Maki took in a soft breath.

  Tohko’s expression was shockingly mature. Her lips were loosely closed and she looked straight at Maki with an almost drowsy expression.

  Who knew Tohko was capable of looking so… sexy?

  “At… the time, Shuji was dating a girl named Sakiko Kijima. Apparently they were a good couple. Sakiko was a beautiful girl, kind and soft-spoken, and they say that Shuji loved her very much and would gush about her to anyone. Shuji liked to give people more than they asked for anyway, and he talked in a cheerful, offhanded way to everyone, so whenever anyone asked him about Sakiko, he would go on forever about where they’d gone on a date or what they’d talked about on the phone the night before. He’d talk about anything.

  “Sakiko was completely devoted to Shuji, too. Apparently she would wait for him after archery, and the two of them would go home hand in hand every day.”

  Plunk.

  Tohko dropped her other shoe onto the floor.

  “But one day right after they’d started their third year, Shuji stayed late for team business. Sakiko went home by herself for once and, as luck would have it, she was hit by a car and killed.”

  “That’s awful… Really?” Tohko murmured, her eyes still drowsing.

  “The light was red and everything, but Sakiko apparently ran out into the road anyway. She was hit by a truck coming around a curve. They said she was killed instantly.”

  Tohko said nothing and only unraveled her other braid. Waves of black hair spilled down to her waist, cloaking her slender body bewitchingly. She embodied a muse of the arts.

  I felt my throat parch suddenly.

  “I wonder why Sakiko tried to cross the road when the light was red.”

  “Who knows? Maybe she was hurrying on her way to an errand. Or maybe she didn’t see any cars, so she thought it was safe. In any case, Sakiko died and Shuji lost the love of his life. They say he suffered more than a little because he blamed himself for not going home with her like they always had. One month later… he killed himself.”

  The image of a boy falling off the roof started running through my mind. The tips of my fingers tingled and my mouth drew tight.

  Uh-oh.

  It had happened ten years ago. It was utterly unrelated to that.

  I struggled to get my breathing under control so Tohko and Maki wouldn’t realize that anything unusual was happening.

  Tohko asked her next question philosophically. “What was in the suicide note they found at Shuji’s house?”

  “That it was his fault she was dead, that he couldn’t bear to live without her, that he was going to be with her soon. And then—” Maki stopped abruptly.

  Pop.

  Tohko undid a second button.

  “He apologized for ever being born.”

  I felt as if I could hear his voice in my mind, and goose bumps prickled my skin.

  Tohko rested her face on her knees and touched her index finger to her lips thoughtfully.

  Fighting back the tightness in my chest, I asked, “What exactly was Shuji Kataoka like?”

  “He was easygoing and always telling jokes or messing around. Really popular. Whenever he was around, people couldn’t stop laughing. But then, when he was alone he looked very serious and a little brooding. Girls love that kind of thing. And they really went for him, apparently. They say he was a very kind person… and that the look of shame he sometimes got was unbelievably hot.

  “They said so many girls would flock around him during archery that they couldn’t actually practice and the manager scolded him all the time. But he would just laugh it off, which made the manager even angrier, and then everyone would laugh. As you can imagine, it was always a lot of fun with Shuji around.”

  It was exactly the same image of Shuji that Takeda had first given us.

  A cheerful, fun, and kind upperclassman.

  Usually upbeat, but whenever he was shooting an arrow, his face became hard.

  But the effervescent, popular boy was a mime’s disguise that he himself had created and not the real him. In the letter Takeda had shown me, he had said over and over that he was a monster incapable of loving people. He was ashamed to be alive, he couldn’t stand for everyone to find out, he swore he would rather die first.

  The letter had been stuck inside a copy of Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human.
/>   Why had Shuji prepared a second, different suicide note?

  Who was the letter intended for?

  Maybe for S, the person who understood him and who was going to destroy him?

  Or was it for someone else?

  Tohko undid the third button on her shirt.

  Pale, white skin and a glimpse of white lace peeked out from the opening in her jacket shirt, making my heart pound.

  “Did Shuji have any particularly close friends?”

  Maki’s hand never stopped moving as she stared hungrily at Tohko.

  “Apparently he had quite a lot of close friends; but particularly close… that’s harder. There were Shigeru Manabe and Yasuyuki Soeda, who were in his class and on the archery team with him. Apparently the three of them were together a lot. Manabe was their leader, Soeda was the sage and lackey, and Shuji was the one who caused all the trouble and other fun. At the time, Manabe was dating the team’s manager, Rihoko Sena, and they and Sakiko would all go out. After graduation, Rihoko broke up with Manabe and started dating Soeda. They got married, so now she’s Rihoko Soeda.”

  Shigeru Manabe. Yasuyuki Soeda. Rihoko Sena. And his girlfriend, Sakiko Kijima.

  All of their names started with “S.”

  “Oh, and I got a picture of him for you guys.”

  Maki paused in her drawing and held the photo up, its face turned toward her. Then she asked meaningfully, “Wanna see it?”

  “You deviant,” Tohko muttered, defeated. She unfastened her fourth button.

  A smile came over Maki’s face, but she didn’t move.

  The front of the shirt was completely open, exposing the slip that covered Tohko’s chest. A pale violet bra showed through the white silk. I didn’t know what to do with my eyes.

  When Maki still didn’t move, color flashed into Tohko’s cheekbones.

  “I’m just getting over a cold, you know. If I take off any more, I’ll get sick again.”

  “If that happens, I’ll make arrangements for you to stay in a private room at the hospital my family goes to and nurse you back to health myself.

  “C’moo-n. If you don’t show me, the deal’s off.” Tohko pouted.

  I spoke up.

  “Tohko looks like such a kid, it’s basically breaking the deal anyway. Even if she takes off more, it’s not going to magically give her a chest. She’s amazingly flat, even with the slip.”