When I started trying to drag her upstairs, Tohko yanked hard on my arm and moaned.
“Why… why did you tell Mr. Sasaki that you were never going to write again? Are you really never going to write another novel?”
The shock cut through my body like a knife.
Mr. Sasaki?!
Why was his name coming up at a time like this? Not to mention—! How did she know that I’d run into Mr. Sasaki or what we’d talked about?
Did Tohko know Mr. Sasaki?!
The events of today, the events of the past, names, faces swirled chaotically in tendrils of fire inside my mind.
I stood rigidly, unsure of what I should say or how, and Tohko screamed shrilly at me.
“How could you—to think that you’d never write again—why?! Why, Konoha? Why would you say that you won’t write?”
Grabbing hold of my arm, Tohko swung it back and forth with all her strength. She asked me, “Why? Why?” over and over, her eyes tinged with despair and pain.
How? How did Tohko know about Mr. Sasaki?
Letting myself be shaken, her unraveled braid and thin shoulders jumped in and out of my line of sight again and again. Tohko’s face was twisted and she was screaming!
“Why would you say that you wouldn’t go back to Miu Inoue?! Didn’t Mr. Sasaki tell you that you could probably write another book now? That you should try writing again—”
How did she know this? How was it possible?! How did she know that I’d seen Mr. Sasaki?!
My heart lurched.
Tohko who always smiled so placidly, Tohko who murmured kindly to me when I was in pain—she was criticizing me, assaulting my emotions, attacking me, looking like she was going to cry!
“Why, why did you turn him down?! Why did you throw it away?! How could you possibly say that you have no talent?!”
Her body was freezing cold, but her grip on my arm was hot and painful. It felt like my brain, my heart, everything was burning. My throat ached.
Footsteps approached us. “What’s all this noise, Konoha?”
I shouted, “It’s nothing!” then shoved Tohko through the door; I went out, too, in only my socks, and shut the door.
The fierce sounds beating at me erased my mother’s voice calling, “Konoha!”
“You knew about Mr. Sasaki?!”
My voice was so harsh it even made me shudder.
In the darkness faintly illuminated by the streetlight, Tohko’s eyes opened wide.
The wind swirled around us with a moan.
“Have you always known that I was Miu Inoue?!”
Tohko didn’t answer.
Her brows still firmly knit, she looked at me with an expression of intense anguish.
“Is that true? Did you know? And you got closer to me in order to make me write another book? And when you dragged me into the book club and made me write improv stories and kept me with you all the time, you had your eye on my next book!”
It wasn’t true! It couldn’t be that simple!
Why wasn’t she saying anything?
Why was she looking at me with such pain in her eyes?
I wanted her to tell me it wasn’t true, that I’d made a mistake. Tohko had been at my side whenever suffering had debilitated me. She had clasped my hand in her own gentle grip, had embraced my spirit and helped me to stand.
My mother had said that we owed Tohko a lot. And she was right; without Tohko I never would have made it this far.
However broken I was, however dark and unknown the path, even if I felt that I was isolated and alone, Tohko smiled the same as ever and she at least would reach her hand out to me.
No matter who got tired of me, no matter who cast me off, no matter who forgot me, Tohko would always be on my side.
At some point, that conviction had put down deep roots in my heart.
Because Tohko had always helped me out.
The person I thought I could trust more than any other, the person I thought would absolutely never betray me—she was speaking aloud of her betrayal, right to my face.
Saying the things I least wanted to hear in all the world—“write a novel,” “be Miu Inoue again,” “be an author.”
Telling me that she had guided me to this point for that very reason.
“You knew about Miu Inoue’s first draft because Mr. Sasaki showed it to you, didn’t he? Why didn’t you tell me?! Because you were keeping your guard up against me?! Were you tricking me?!”
I didn’t want to say these things. But I couldn’t stop myself.
It seemed as if Tohko was growing smaller and frailer. Her lips pressed shut and she looked up at me in agony under the moon and lamplight. All the strength went out of her grip, and her hands fell away from my arm.
I grabbed her shoulders—they felt so thin they might shatter—and as I shook her, my heart continued to scream at her. The words were all but a prayer.
Please! Make some excuse! Deny what I said! Tell me it wasn’t a betrayal!
I didn’t think that the love and kindness that Tohko had shown me up till now had all been faked. She had been like a mother or an older sister to me. She couldn’t have worried about me or helped me like that purely for a lie! There must have been something real there.
Explain yourself! Make me understand!
But Tohko didn’t say anything. No matter how I berated her, no matter how I grilled her, she kept her jaw clenched, knit her brows tightly, and looked at me, as if to withstand the pain closing in on her.
It felt like an admission to my suspicions. The world went dark. My throat stung as if it were tearing itself apart.
“I… will never write a novel.”
Then, with a sense of despair that could have torn my heart to shreds, I looked down upon the fierce disappointment, the pain, the scream that found no voice, which appeared instantly in Tohko’s eyes, that she wore on her face.
Terror, pain, sadness entirely cloaked in inky darkness and crumbling away.
My voice croaked; neither insults nor pleas would come anymore.
I wouldn’t write! I would never write!
Novels would always take so much from me. I was tired of losing things. What was so wrong about wanting to live my life as Konoha Inoue?!
With a look of utter, bone-deep exhaustion on her face, Tohko released her grip on my arm.
In the darkness where the cold wind blew, Tohko murmured, her voice catching, her eyes hollow, as if she were speaking the words of a final prayer, as yet undaunted, to a merciless god.
“… Even so… even so… you have to write.”
Her unraveled braid fell feather-like over her shoulder. She turned around listlessly, keeping her head bowed, pushed aside the gate, and left.
I stood rooted in place and listened to the faint creak of the gate, watching the slender figure disappear into the darkness.
Then, once I’d completely lost sight of her, the strength went out of my knees, and I huddled down in front of the door and bowed my head.
My mother peppered me with questions, asking me, “Who was that? What happened?” but all I could say was “It wasn’t important.” Seeing how very pale I’d become, my mother pressed her lips together worriedly.
I turned out the lights in my room and lay down, but I didn’t have a chance of falling asleep.
Pain pulsed through my chest like a searing flame, my throat felt like it was going to pull itself apart, and Tohko’s voice played on an endless refrain in my ears.
“You have to write.”
“You have to.”
“Have to write.”
“You need to.”
Just stop!
I don’t want to write! I don’t want to!
I dug my fingers into the sheets and ground my teeth together. Just then, my cell phone rang with an incoming call. The solemn, dignified tune reminded me of a hymn as it echoed through the dark room.
I’d forgotten to silence my phone.
I sat up and grabbed the phone off my
desk, then looked at the caller.
It was Ryuto!
I held my breath and pushed the call button.
“… Hello.”
“Tohko is depressed, y’know.”
I heard his low, muffled voice on the other end of the flimsy phone, and my heart clenched.
“She’s locked in her room… lookin’ sick—I even offered her a book, and she just said, ‘No thanks.’ ”
There wasn’t a trace of Ryuto’s usual cheerfulness in his voice; it was dark and harsh enough to make my skin prickle.
“I’m pretty sure I can guess what went down.”
“Tohko said—”
She lied to me! She told me to write!
I was just about to let my emotions take control and tell him everything when a voice beat against my ear as heavy as lead.
“You runnin’ away?”
My mouth dried out instantly.
“You’re the one who let her dream. You wrote her those stories and let her read ’em and made her get her hopes up—and now you’re gonna say no more writin’ and back out?”
The cold night air rolled over my skin, quickly stealing the heat from my body.
What… what was he saying?
“You gonna just… forget all about it? Treat it like a memory, and let yourself be the only one who’s happy with your beautiful girlfriend? Juliette got shredded and went crazy. Jerome took poison. And Alissa went through the narrow gate alone!”
His voice was getting progressively sharper and more violent.
“What are you talking about? Alissa or Juliette or whatever—what does that mean?!”
“Of course, you don’t know a thing, do ya, Konoha? She shielded you and coddled you that way. And yet you’re gonna betray her? You’re gonna shut Tohko out before she even exists? I’m not gonna let you do that!”
Before she even exists? Did he mean Tohko doesn’t?!
I didn’t understand.
My heart was pounding wildly, and my hand was sweating against the cell phone.
Ryuto spoke once again, his voice deep enough to furrow the earth.
“Up till now, I’ve been readin’ the story of Tohko Amano and Konoha Inoue. But from now on, I’m gonna be the writer and I’m gonna make the story. Miu Inoue needs to write. Otherwise Tohko Amano’s gonna disappear.”
The call ended with an abrupt click.
When I came to my senses, my throat was sticky and dry and my entire body was soaked in sweat. My pajamas clung to my skin.
“Tohko Amano’s gonna disappear.”
Ryuto’s voice echoed unpleasantly in my mind.
“Tohko Amano’s gonna disappear.”
Please, Kana?
Could you stop looking so annoyed whenever Tohko calls you “Aunt Kanako”?
You stared at Tohko once when she was eating, and when she held out a piece of paper and asked, “Do you want some, too, Aunt Kanako?” you scowled and turned away.
From Tohko or little Ryu’s perspective, you and I are grand old dames.
It’s bizarre how much you let it bother you when she calls you “aunt.”
And I think it’s childish of you to make Ryu call you “Kanako.”
After Tohko started elementary school, she became much more obsessed about food. She would devour the stories I wrote her every single day.
“I want more, Mommy. What happened to the brother and sister squirrels next? Please, Mommy, write it, write it!”
She would pester me with her sparkling eyes, so I was in a tough position. No matter how much I wrote her, it was always “more, more.”
But I do think she’s having a hard time with lunchtime at school. She still comes home crying.
“Everybody was saying how good the stew was and how good the pudding was. But I couldn’t taste anything. When I said that, they told me I was weird and they laughed at me.
“Why am I different from them? Doesn’t everybody eat books? If I eat stew or pudding, am I not gonna know if it tastes good?
“I don’t want to eat the school lunch anymore. But if I don’t eat it, I have to eat by myself after the very end of cleanup after school. Otherwise the teacher scolds me.
“The boys tease me about eating lunch alone all the time.
“And if I act very brave like Bastian in The Neverending Story and tell them that actually books taste waaay better, they call me a goblin for eating books.
“Am I a goblin, Mommy? I hate the boys because they tease me. I hate lunchtime, too. I don’t want to go to school!”
She hunched up into a ball at the front door and let her tears fall.
And so I held Tohko in my arms and stroked her head and gently told her this: “You were such a good girl to stick it out and eat your lunch. You aren’t a goblin. You’re an ordinary little girl. You’re just a book girl who loves books so much she devours them.”
Chapter 3—A Very High Place Filled with Light
“I’m trying to figure out what kind of chocolate I should make for Valentine’s Day. Do you prefer chocolate that’s not too sweet? You don’t hate it if there’s dried fruit in it, right? If you have any requests, let me know.”
“No, I like dried fruit. I’ll eat anything.”
When Kotobuki started talking to me excitedly in class the next morning, I answered halfheartedly. My mind was taken up by Tohko’s visit the night before and Ryuto’s phone call.
Tohko was going to disappear? What did that mean? Ryuto said he was going to become the writer—what was he planning to do?
“Inoue? Are you listening?”
“Huh?”
I snapped out of it and saw Kotobuki glaring at me, her lips pursed.
“Oh, sorry. We were talking about chocolate. Anything’s fine with me.”
“Argh! Telling me anything is fine makes me do more work than anything else you could say.”
Her lips pursed even more.
“Um, well, I guess I like bitter chocolate better. Something simple without nuts or anything in it.”
She gave me an instantaneous, excited smile.
“O-okay. Some simple, bitter chocolate. I can do that.”
The number of people in the room was increasing and it was getting louder. Ordinarily she would suddenly start acting gruff and hurry to get away from me, but today she didn’t budge from my desk. She kept on standing there, her cheekbones flushed in embarrassment.
“Mornin’, Nanase! Mornin’, Inoue!”
Mori called out to us chipperly.
“What’s going on? You guys talking about Valentine’s Day? It’s pretty early in the morning for things to get so steamy.”
“M-Mori! Let’s go over there.”
Kotobuki put an arm around Mori and tried to pull her away from me.
“Y’know, if you guys are planning things out, you might be able to swing trying Nanase’s chocolate cake at her house, fresh out of the oven,” Mori said brightly as she was being dragged away.
“Mori!”
“You visit the boyfriend’s house, then next is the invitation to the girlfriend’s house, right? Valentine’s Day is the perfect chance to take the next step in your relationship. You should use any move you’ve got.”
“L-let’s see if we got the same answers on our homework, Mori.”
Her face scarlet, Kotobuki yanked Mori away.
Once I was alone, I sank back into thought. About Tohko… about Ryuto…
About how Ryuto had mentioned Juliette and Jerome and Alissa…
“Juliette got shredded and went crazy. Jerome took poison. And Alissa went through the narrow gate alone!”
What had he meant by that?
Was Juliette the one from Shakespeare? But what about Jerome? And Alissa?
“Konoha?”
Someone called my name and I jumped.
I turned around and saw Takeda sticking her head in the back door, waving at me to come over.
When I’d hurried out to the hall, she handed me a book with a library sticker on it.
I saw the title The Narrow Gate and my heart leaped into my throat.
Alissa went through the narrow gate! Was this—?
Takeda beamed at me like an innocent puppy.
“I’m bringing a message from Ryu. He asked me to give you this book.”
“Takeda, what is Ryuto thinking?”
“I don’t know. I’m just a tool for him,” she answered, all smiles. “Oh, but I’m using Ryu, too, so I guess it’s fair.”
“Using him?”
“ ’Cos Ryu asked me to go out with him even though he knows what I’m really like. I can relax and I have fun when I’m with him. He lets me pretend to be his girlfriend.”
“Doesn’t that mean you’re starting to like him?”
The smile slipped from Takeda’s face and she became a blank.
“… I… don’t think so. Besides, there’s someone else Ryu likes.”
“What?!”
Takeda’s voice was filled with such certainty that I was drawn in despite myself.
She put her mask back on and laughed innocently.
“Not any of the girls he messes around with. He’s definitely got someone special who he actually, honestly likes, but he can’t tell her how he feels. And since he can’t have her, he’s looking for a girl who’ll love him and him alone. Everybody is just a replacement for her.”
My heart rate sped up and my brain grew hotter.
Was she talking about Amemiya?
No.
Ryuto had said that Amemiya “might have become someone special.” So then the person Ryuto truly loved was—
With a shock like a slap in the face, I remembered Ryuto gazing glowingly at Tohko. He would make breezy excuses to Tohko, who pouted and scolded him every time he flirted with girls, and when he got smacked on the head yet again, he seemed to be enjoying it.
The two of them had grown up together, and they still lived in the same house.
Could it be that Tohko was the one Ryuto loved?
“I’m going to head off now, okay? Homeroom’s about to start.”
Takeda’s voice was bright before she drew her face close to my ear and whispered, “Ryu can be scary when he gets serious about something. So please be careful.”
Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God, Part 1 Page 6