Pain shot through my arm. I thought it was funny that the pain jolted my thoughts out of the past and back to the present.
“We can’t talk with other people around. It’ll be quick, I swear.”
He stared down at me, his eyes as glassy as those of a dead fish. There was something odd in his voice, and I realized in that moment just how great and frightening was the threat that had hold of me.
“Not the roof—”
“What are you afraid of? What’s wrong with the roof?” He jerked on my arm as he spoke, his voice trembling. “After all, you wanted to talk to me about something, too, didn’t you?”
“Please let go of me. I don’t want to go on the roof!”
The man gripped my arm with terrifying strength and pulled open the door to the roof with his other hand.
I felt wind pelt my face.
It had been windy that day, too. She turned around when she reached the rails and a gentle summer breeze played through her hair and across her skirt.
No!
No!
Stop—
The man dragged me out to the middle of the roof despite my thrashing and shouted, “You sent me a letter!”
What was this guy talking about? Did I write a letter? Was he talking about the love letters I’d written for Takeda?
Fear from both past and present mingled, making my fingers ache and my breath come in short, painful bursts. My head felt like it was being pounded from every direction at once. Cold sweat broke out on my forehead and dripped into my eyes, clouding my vision.
Unable to draw a full breath, I gulped down quick gasps of air. It was happening again. I had forgotten about it all this time.
“You sent me a letter! Didn’t you, Shuji?”
I felt him grab the collar of my uniform. He pushed his twisted face closer to mine.
“No, Soeda! I’m not Shuji Kataoka!”
“Then why did you keep looking at me?” Soeda bellowed. “With those mournful eyes that told me you knew everything?”
When I’d first seen him at the archery team, he struck me as placid and intellectual. This total reversal inspired a depthless terror in me.
Who was this person? Was this really the same man?
“You were always—always!—looking at me! Even after Sakiko died! Never saying a word, just looking at me! That’s how you punished me for killing her!”
Alternating between hyperventilation and asphyxiation, I croaked out a question.
“I thought—Sakiko—died—in an—accident?”
Soeda’s eyes were shot through with his pulsing blood. He spat back, “So innocent! And after you told us you were staying late for club business, after you asked me to take her home. After you said, ‘I’m trusting you with my girlfriend,’ with that unguarded, ever-present smile of yours.
“I was the one who liked her first. You knew how I felt, but you seduced her anyway. You made her fall in love with you and then you started dating. Then you dared to tell me that she had begged to go out with you. What else could you do, right?
“You were always like that! Irresponsible, blowing everything off, always joking around—but you still had to come up behind me and swipe the things I wanted. You would have overtaken me in archery by the end, and the girls I liked always wound up falling for you.
“I hated you for that, more than I can even bear to think about. I struggled to keep it from showing on my face; but you just watched me keep my cool with a little smirk.
“I loathed that caring look you could assume—and how you smiled!
“ ‘I’m trusting you with my girlfriend now’—how could you say that? If it weren’t for you, she would have been going out with me! But you have the nerve to tell me, ‘I’m trusting you with my girlfriend now’?
“You knew how I felt about her. You were so sure that I could never win her over. You were mocking me!”
Soeda tightened his grip on my collar, and it dug into my neck.
Soeda’s face swirled through my mind, clouding my thoughts, as images of Shuji Kataoka and Miu, the girl I’d seen for the last time on the roof, rose up beside him.
Hey, how come you never talk to me? Are you ignoring me? Do I look like I’m in that much pain?
When I followed her up to the roof, Miu had smiled at me sadly.
—Konoha, I don’t think you would ever understand.
“You could never understand what I’ve been through! I told Sakiko how I felt about her that day and begged her to break up with you. She pushed past me and ran away—she ignored the traffic light and tried to cross the road just to get away from me. That was when the truck hit her. When she died. I got scared and I ran; I was a coward.
“If I—if I hadn’t said anything… If it weren’t for you, that never would have happened! I never would have killed her or acted like a coward.
“You never talked to me about her after that. Even though you knew that I should have been with her when it happened. You just looked at me silently and never questioned me about it.
“That was how you got your fun tormenting me!”
Whistling sounds escaped my constricted throat. I couldn’t catch my breath. My fingertips were trembling and numb.
No! Shuji wasn’t enjoying it! He was always alone, always in pain.
I wanted to tell him that, but I couldn’t speak.
Soeda’s face twisted in anguish, and his grip tightened around my throat.
“I brought a knife up to this very roof that day, and I stabbed you. I don’t remember if you tried to call for help. You walked over to the railing and threw yourself over. So why? Why are you here now? I’m going to have a child next year! I just want to forget about you and live my life. Why do you haunt me? You’ve lived in my thoughts these ten long years! And now you’ve reappeared! Why? Why won’t you let me be free? I’m going to have a child! I thought I would finally be able to relax. As long as you live, I will kill you! As many times as it takes!”
The collar of my shirt bit into my neck. Soeda’s fingers were shaking.
A kaleidoscope of images flashed through my mind.
Miu poking her head out in front of me to look up at me teasingly. Her sweet smell of shampoo mixed with sweat.
The serene smile Shuji Kataoka wore in his picture.
Miu bent over a pile of paper, focused on a story she was writing during class. And myself, gazing at her slender back adoringly.
Soeda’s face, twisted in pain; Shuji’s face; Miu’s face.
Soeda, stabbing Shuji. Shuji, falling to his death. Miu, turning to look back at me in front of the railing.
Konoha, I don’t think you would ever understand.
You would never understand.
You would never understand.
Still looking straight at me, Miu’s body arched slowly backward and over the railing.
A line from No Longer Human came to mind.
The woman died.
The woman died.
Maybe I’ll die, too.
Just then, I felt a body strike mine.
“You let go of Konoha!”
Takeda forced her tiny body between me and Soeda, shoving him away.
My legs crumpled, and I fell into a sitting position, but Takeda helped me back up.
“Konoha, are you okay? Konoha!”
Breathing wildly, I managed a quiet, “Takeda…”
Takeda’s face was pinched, on the verge of tears. She gently helped me lie down on the concrete, then turned to face Soeda with a harsh look. “I knew you were the one who killed Shuji. You were S, weren’t you, Mister Soeda?”
“Who are you…?”
“Chia Takeda, a first-year student. I wrote you that letter in Shuji’s name. And I’m the one who told you to come to the roof today.”
“You what?”
Soeda’s mouth dropped open.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I wanted to know who S was. Because he was with Shuji at the very end.”
I heard a rustling noise. Takeda had pulled a folded-up letter from her pocket and was showing it to Soeda.
“Shuji left a second suicide note—the real one—besides the one he left at his house. It was inside a book in a basement storage room. It had been withdrawn from the library and gone unnoticed by anyone for ten whole years. I found it.
“Shuji knew that S was involved in the death of his girlfriend. But the reason he never said anything was because he’d sent her with S on purpose, to test her. It led to Sakiko’s death.
“He confesses in this letter. ‘I killed her. I tested her faithfulness out of some dark emotion, and I watched her die.’ So he thought he deserved to die, and he wanted S to kill him!”
Takeda read from a part of a letter that Tohko and I had never seen, her voice as bleak as a storm gusting through dead branches.
“ ‘S is cornered.
“ ‘It was S’s scheme which led to Sakiko’s death. S knows the stain of that crime can never be erased and fears being implicated in it.
“ ‘I treated S as I always have. I look at S and even smile. I’m watching closely as S’s mind twists, little by little, as it creaks and screams.
“ ‘I’ve seen S’s murderous impulse, finding no other outlet, turn toward me—I’ve prayed that S would kill me.
“ ‘That will be my atonement.
“ ‘S is my enemy, my friend, and the person who best understands me. So I’m sure S has realized my intentions. I pray that S will send me from this world.’ The letter ends when Shuji calls S up to the roof.”
It was the second letter.
There was another installment to the first letter, after all.
Takeda had only shown us the first part.
“After I read this letter, I talked to some of the teachers and looked some stuff up, and I found out that Shuji Kataoka had been a student here and that ten years ago he’d committed suicide up here. I wondered if it had really been suicide, or if maybe S had killed him. That was the day that Shuji was supposed to meet S on the roof. S knew the truth. I needed to know it, too.
“And since you are S, Mister Soeda, I sent letters to you signed as Shuji. Because when you saw Konoha, who looks exactly like Shuji, you were the calmest one. I thought your reaction was unnatural. And you never looked at Konoha again, did you? Mister Manabe was so disturbed that he couldn’t stop looking at Konoha. But you kept your eyes away because you didn’t want to risk seeing him. So I kept sending you letters under Shuji’s name, about things only Shuji and S would know. Please tell me—what did you and Shuji say to each other that day on the roof?”
“Say?” Soeda mumbled, his voice now depleted of all its force. “We didn’t say anything. I stabbed him, he got stabbed without saying a word, and then it was over.”
“No—” Takeda’s voice was tinged with despair.
“He can’t answer your question. That’s not S.”
I craned my neck as far as it would go to look toward the voice.
I saw a thin figure standing perfectly straight. Black bangs swept over a pale forehead. Two long braids danced in the wind like cats’ tails. She had a clear, intelligent gaze.
My vision was clouded by sweat, but Tohko’s shape as she stood in the doorway to the stairwell was starkly, vividly familiar.
My heart swelled instantly. I thought I might cry.
Takeda—
Soeda—
They stared at Tohko in surprise.
“W-who are you?” Soeda asked, his voice trembling.
Tohko’s stalwart answer was, “I’m the book girl.”
Geez, what was she doing? This was serious.
I felt the last of my strength leave me and pressed my cheek to the warm, sunbathed concrete. Tohko never stopped being Tohko.
“I am also the kind and charming club president to whom that boy on the ground over there turns for support.”
Please don’t speak for me… Soeda and Takeda didn’t seem to know what to make of her, either.
Tohko stalked over to us, sending her long braids flying.
“Your wife and friend came looking for you at the book club, Mister Soeda.”
Manabe and Rihoko appeared behind Tohko. Soeda paled at the sight of them, taken aback. “Rihoko… Manabe! What are you doing here?”
Rihoko looked down. “You’ve been acting strangely. Restless, as if you’re afraid of something. And then today I found a stack of letters while I was cleaning your room. I was so surprised to see that they were from Shuji Kataoka that I read them. I tried to call you at work, but they told me you’d left early. I started to worry.”
“Rihoko called me and said she thought you might be coming here to see Konoha—or rather, Shuji. So you killed him, Soeda…” Manabe’s voice was pained, too. “I knew you liked Sakiko. And I suspected that you had some sort of fixation on Shuji. But that you’d killed him? If I’d known that…”
Manabe looked at Rihoko and bit his lip, unable to go on.
Her eyes still downcast, Rihoko rested her hands tensely on her stomach.
His crime revealed to his wife and friend, the people closest to him, Soeda’s face shuddered in despair.
“What choice did I have?” he pleaded. “There was no other way for me to find peace. I had to kill Shuji…”
Tohko spoke up once more in her lofty tone. “No, Soeda’s not the one who killed Shuji. He isn’t S. It’s someone else.”
“That can’t be!” Takeda countered. “When Soeda saw Konoha, he acted the most suspiciously. Besides, my letters had an effect on him!”
“You overlooked something very important, Chia. While it’s true that S was Shuji’s enemy, it was also the person who best understood him. I haven’t read anything but the very beginning of the letter that you showed us, so I can only draw my conclusions from that. But Shuji writes again and again that S sees through everything, that S is the only one his clowning doesn’t work on.
“So S can’t be Mister Soeda.
“If he understood Shuji, he wouldn’t have to hate him or have this obsession with him.”
Takeda was flustered. “Then… who is S?”
“I’m not a detective from Baker Street or an old lady who solves crimes while she’s knitting in an easy chair. I’m just a book girl. So I can’t make a deduction, only take a flight of fancy—er, forget I said that. I meant, I can only take a guess.
“Shuji Kataoka was a huge fan of Osamu Dazai, and he left the record of his true feelings in a suicide note tucked inside a copy of No Longer Human. You can feel Dazai’s influence on him throughout the letter. The opening line, ‘Mine has been a life of shame,’ is a direct quote. I think that Shuji must have read No Longer Human and seen himself in its protagonist, who ‘cannot guess at the nature or degree of people’s pain,’ and who talks about his inability to ‘give up on humanity, despite fearing it with all my being.’ He can only attempt to win people’s affection by playing the fool. I think Shuji must have identified with that very deeply.
“In No Longer Human, there are two characters, each of them totally unlike the other, who realize that the protagonist’s clowning is only an act. One of them is the protagonist’s classmate from middle school, a boy named Takeichi. He’s described as a bad student who wears clothes that are too big for him, can’t study, and always sits out of gym class. One day this unimpressive boy, who the protagonist never would have thought needed watching, points out that his disarming behavior is totally premeditated. This shocks the protagonist, who feels as if the fires of hell are burning the world to cinders around him. He decides to become friends with Takeichi so he can keep an eye on him.
“The other is the detective investigating the protagonist after he attempts double suicide and is the only survivor. He’s an impressive man who gives off ‘an air of enlightened calm and who anyone would call handsome.’ He immediately sees through the protagonist’s act and gives him a look of quiet contempt, which allows the protagonist to taste the shame of a ‘cold sweat.’ �
�
Tohko expounded seamlessly on the roof of the school, her long braids streaming around her in the breeze. Something more compelling than usual animated her manner, and no one attempted to interrupt her revelations.
“S would neither have admired Shuji Kataoka nor hated him. It would be someone who saw Shuji with innocent, unsullied eyes, or someone who was able to observe him critically.
“It was someone Shuji was always with. Someone who watched Shuji, criticized him, and occasionally gave him advice.
“Rihoko—your maiden name was Sena, correct?”
Soeda’s wife, Rihoko, started, then nodded, her face taut. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Ten years ago you were the manager for the archery team. I’ve heard that girls would flock around Shuji at team practices and the manager was always yelling at him for it. You were the only one Shuji never rebelled against.
“You’re S, aren’t you?”
Rihoko gasped. Her hands tightened against her stomach. Then she looked right back at Tohko. Her voice was hard with resolve when she spoke. “Yes. I’m S, and I killed both Shuji and Sakiko.”
“Rihoko!”
“What are you saying, Rihoko?”
Manabe and Soeda cried out in the same instant.
Soeda ran to her side. “Don’t be ridiculous! I stabbed Shuji! And Sakiko—I watched Sakiko get hit by the truck, watched her blood spill onto the road!”
“But I was the one who kept Kataoka back and made sure that you took Sakiko home. And don’t you remember? When you told me how you felt about Sakiko, I only pretended to care and suggested that you force Sakiko to hear you out.”
“You only—” Soeda’s voice choked off.
“I was also the one who dared Kataoka to bet whether Sakiko would switch to Soeda. Kataoka took the bet and sent Sakiko home with him—with you, dear. Then Kataoka and I followed the two of you in secret.”
“No… Then when Sakiko was killed, you two were—”
“Yes. We saw it happen. We saw her body leap into the air, saw it strike the ground, saw you run away—everything.”
Soeda was struck utterly speechless.
Manabe turned on Rihoko in his place. “Why would you do something like that, Rihoko? I thought you hated Shuji for being such a slacker. And besides, back then we were—”
Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime Page 10