“Alissa?”
A chill shot through my chest and the question slipped out of me. The heroine of Strait Is the Gate was named Alissa, too. And the title The Immoral Passage evoked Strait Is the Gate.
“Did the character resemble Kanako?”
Mr. Sasaki started, and he became suddenly evasive.
“Well… of course any character will have some things in common with the author. But she’s hardly an exact duplicate. And of course not all of the things she wrote in that book are true. A book is never more than fiction after all, unlike a newspaper article…,” he murmured hesitantly, then changed the subject.
“Konoha, where have you been? Why didn’t you call?”
When I reached home, my mother came out to the front door looking worried.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I decided to go to the movies with a friend. My phone’s battery died and I couldn’t call. I looked for a pay phone, but I didn’t see one…”
“You should have borrowed your friend’s phone, then.”
“They don’t believe in cell phones.”
Fighting back the throbbing pain that cut through my chest, I added to my lies.
I wonder what kind of face my mom would make if I told her that I’d been with Mr. Sasaki.
If I told her that he’d made me that offer—“Won’t you write again?”
Would it end with her saying I was better off not writing? Or would she reply that I should do what I wanted?
Either way, my mother would probably suffer like she had two years ago.
If I weren’t Miu Inoue—if I hadn’t written a novel—my mom and dad could have lived in peace as the parents of ordinary high school student Konoha Inoue.
“What about dinner, Konoha?”
“Thanks. I’ll have some. I’m gonna go change first.”
I climbed the stairs and headed to my room. The heater hadn’t been turned on, so the room was freezing cold.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and listened to Kotobuki’s voice mail.
“Um… it’s me. Did something happen?”
And to the next two.
“I didn’t see you in the book club room, either. Where are you? You can just text me, but let me know.”
Kotobuki’s voice was hoarse with uncertainty.
Her last message was a text.
I’m going home now.
Still waiting to hear from you.
As I gazed at the words on the screen, my heart was crushed and my throat and eyes burned. The time stamp on the text was when the library closed, an hour later. Had she waited for me all that time?
Just as I was about to call Kotobuki’s number, a solemn ring tone started playing all of a sudden and I nearly dropped the phone.
A call!
Kotobuki?
No, Kotobuki’s ring tone was the theme song from Beauty and the Beast, so it couldn’t be her. It was someone else.
I checked the caller and a shudder prickled the back of my neck.
Ryuto!
My cold, trembling fingers pressed the talk button and I put the phone to my ear.
I held my breath until I heard a low voice accompanied by a muffled laugh.
“Good to be home, huh, Konoha?”
A chill went through me, as if I’d been slashed by a pointed chunk of ice.
How did he know I was home?!
Thinking about it calmly, I realized Mr. Sasaki could have called Ryuto after I’d left, or Ryuto could have checked with him.
But just then I had the feeling that Ryuto was somewhere nearby keeping an eye on my movements, and even the line of darkness I could see between the curtains made me shudder.
“Did you enjoy the party?”
“How could I enjoy that? Getting stranded somewhere like that in my school uniform?”
“It’s good you stood out, though. What exactly are you afraid of? At a party like that, you shoulda been soakin’ up more accolades than anyone, shoulda gotten more jealous looks than anyone, and been able to shine. And yet you snuck around and then ran off. Do you ever get sick of yourself?”
“What are you getting at?”
Was he trying to make me mad? Or was he just mocking me?
“The reason you’re afraid of workin’ as an author is ’cos you’re runnin’ away from it. You oughta take a stand and face it boldly. Your talent would do the rest. It could push you to the very top. To such glorious heights that nobody’s criticism and no stupid sentimentality would reach you. Where you could look down on the common people from above—if you think about it, a life like that sounds pretty good, right?”
“I don’t want anything like that. Not the lonely life of going through the narrow gate alone—”
My chest was thrumming with anger and my head was so hot it ached. I spoke in a strong tone.
“That’s what your mom called it. She said that’s what it’s like to be an author. That you can’t survive by being spoiled with reliance on your family and friends. I prefer to be with my family and friends! So I don’t care if I never become an author. Your own mother told me to my face that I’d never be able to be one!”
“… And that made you give up?”
“I don’t have any reason to keep going, do I? What are you trying to accomplish, making Takeda give me Strait Is the Gate and everything? What do you want to make me do? What’s the meaning behind that book?!”
“You don’t get it?” Ryuto muttered darkly. “Why don’t you think about it? If Juliette and Jerome got married, how would it have turned out?”
“If Juliette and Jerome…?”
Jerome was the protagonist who narrated the story, and Juliette was Alissa’s little sister, who had a crush on Jerome.
Alissa had wanted Jerome and Juliette to get married, but Juliette stepped aside without ever telling Jerome her feelings.
In the book, Jerome sought Alissa so intensely that he loved only her. He didn’t have a shred of feeling for Juliette.
If Juliette had been married to Jerome like that?
“Do you think maybe Juliette could have been happy? Even though Jerome had given his heart to Alissa?”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Don’t you think Jerome is kinda like you? All wishy-washy? Sensitive and yet so stupid he never even noticed that Juliette liked him. Didn’t have the guts to go after Alissa. Nothin’ but excuses.”
“Urk—”
“That’s why Alissa got snatched away by God. She disappears from Jerome’s life and he never gets to see her again. If you keep up like this, you’ll be the same way, Konoha.”
In the cold, unheated room, with my phone pressed to my ear listening to what Ryuto was saying, the air weighed heavily on my body. My fingers tingled painfully with cold as they gripped the phone.
“Are you talking about Tohko? Are you doing these things for Tohko, Ryuto? Aren’t you the one who likes her?”
There was a brief silence on the speaker.
He finally answered in a quiet voice.
“You’re right… I like her a lot.”
My heart wrenched painfully. So it was true!
“Tohko is different from other girls… she’s special. Her mom was the first woman I ever loved.”
Tohko’s… mother?
I was caught off guard by this unexpected confession, but Ryuto’s voice went on, tinged with melancholy.
“I wanted her ever since I was little. I’d think how amazing it’d be if we could be together forever. But… she couldn’t be happy.
“She got betrayed in a way that could never be taken back, by someone she trusted. She fell into a black, lonely darkness… and it ate away at her heart.”
His voice was transforming into something more and more pained.
The words Ryuto had uttered at the planetarium.
“I wanna be the kind of man who can protect the girl he’s into to the very end.”
Was the person he’d wanted to protect Tohko’s mother, Yui?
&n
bsp; But Yui had died with her husband, Fumiharu, in a car accident.
So was he trying to protect her daughter, Tohko, in her place?
“Everybody is just a replacement for her.”
Takeda had told me there was “someone special” that Ryuto couldn’t tell how he felt.
Was Tohko a “replacement” in Ryuto’s eyes, too?
Ryuto’s voice grew strong again.
“Alissa told Jerome that if he had a daughter, she wanted him to name her Alissa after her. But do you know what happened to that little girl—to Juliette’s daughter, Alissa?”
His voice was so low it made me shudder, sweeping into my ear with a chill breath.
“Her existence was erased.”
Up until now, Ryu has called Tohko “cousin Tohko,” but as soon as he started elementary school, he started to call her just Tohko and that infuriates her.
Ryu says, “Saying cousin Tohko is what babies do. It’s stupid.”
“You’re younger than me, Ryu, and you’re my little brother. You don’t get to decide! I’m not gonna call you Ryu anymore, either, then! I’ll just call you Ryuto, like I don’t even care about you! I’m not gonna call you any nicknames anymore!”
Tohko must have believed that Ryu would cry at that and start saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’ll call you cousin Tohko. Please call me Ryu.” But Ryu was blasé about it, so she got even more upset. She looked pretty frustrated.
Kana?
Doesn’t hearing about the kids arguing over names remind you of middle school when we became friends?
When I first saw you reading a book in the library, you were so pretty and mature and majestic that I thought you were in one of the higher grades. I was captivated.
When I found out you were a first-year like me, I was shocked and became even more curious about you.
Since we were in different classes, I was only watching you from afar, but I was always fascinated. Gym was the only time our classes mixed, so of course I looked forward to it. Seeing it on the schedule the day before thrilled me. I was terrible at exercising and I hated gym class the whole time I was in elementary school. The fact that I could look at you and how pretty you were was enough to make me happy.
And so when I got to be in the same class as you in second year, I was so overjoyed I thought my head would explode.
I’ll be friends with Kana! I want to get to know her! I want to get closer to her!
Cherishing those ambitions, I would practice talking to you over and over at home, dreaming breathlessly of the day I would do it for real.
“Sakurai? You borrowed Ogai Mori’s Dancing Girl from the library before, right? I’ve been thinking of reading that, too. How was it?”
Actually, I’d already read and reread Dancing Girl and wept at Elise’s sad fate. It had twisted my heart.
I was hoping that you would say the book I loved was interesting, but your answer was curt.
“It was boring.”
“What?”
“Elise got on my nerves.”
Then you left the classroom. So our very first conversation that should have been so memorable was left at that.
I kept employing the tactic of making casual conversation about the books you checked out of the library, but…
“Sakurai? What did you think of Schau Penn’s The World’s Will and Portrait?”
“It’s The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer. It was fascinating, but I think you’d find it boring, Satomura.”
It didn’t work out too well in the end.
I loved books and wrote some stories in secret and considered myself a book girl, and yet the books you read were sometimes gibberish to me.
Even so, I was tenacious. That’s probably why it happened.
Gradually, you started to talk to me, Kana.
You were aloof and mature and you didn’t smile at me very often, but when my council meetings ran late, you would wait for me in the classroom, reading a book. That made me so happy!
You were also the first person to read something I’d written.
You wouldn’t tell me it was interesting, but… “Is there more?” you asked, and I was as thrilled as if I’d gotten a piece of the most exquisite chocolate. I was so excited.
“If I wrote more, would you read it?”
“… All right.”
You telling me that so bluntly has always driven me to write books.
Even after we got more familiar and started to huddle at my desk during lunch to eat our boxed lunches and started going home together after school, we still called each other Sakurai and Satomura, remember?
I’d always yearned to call you by your first name, so one day I burst out with “Kana—” and you stiffened for about three seconds; then you made a disgusted face and said, “You’re making my skin crawl. Please don’t do that.”
I was devastated, but I knew I couldn’t back down now, so I scraped together my courage and kept on calling you—“Kana! Kana!”
Eventually you caved and stopped saying anything about it.
The first time you said Yui and called me by my first name was at our graduation ceremony from middle school.
I’ll never forget it as long as I live, Kana.
The high school you wanted to go to was too hard for me, but I wanted to stay with you so I studied really hard. Ultimately I didn’t get in. It hurt so much that we were going on to different high schools and it felt like my heart was being ripped apart, so I said, “You’re going to forget about me once you start high school. I know it. I care about you so much, but you don’t care at all!” like a little kid, tears rolling down my face, and you said my name, “Yui…,” with a serious look on your face.
“I won’t forget you, Yui. We may be going to different schools, but we can see each other after school and on our days off. That way I’ll be able to read the rest of your book.”
The way the white snowflakes danced around us that day, like petals on the breeze.
How perfectly blue the sky was, arching above the branches loaded with snow.
How intent your eyes were, Kana, as they stared at me.
And the freshness of the breeze stroking my cheek and how cool and nice your fingers felt when you wiped away my tears. And how happy I was and how I thought I might melt away with the snow.
I remember it, over and over.
Kana.
I want to talk to you more, like we did then.
Are you still busy with work?
Chapter 4—An Author’s Lies
The next day.
When we saw each other in class, Kotobuki looked troubled and hung her head.
“M… morning.”
“Sorry about yesterday.”
“No… it’s okay. You did call…”
Last night, after a lot of thought, I called Kotobuki.
“Sorry it’s so late. I thought about texting, but…”
I told her a lie, that I’d gotten an urgent call from my family and I’d had to rush home. If Kotobuki found out that Ryuto was involved, I knew it would worry her. It was better not to tell her.
“I heard a relative was really, really sick and so… I was just so upset… I’m really sorry. Yeah, everything’s okay… They pulled through. Yeah… uh-huh… thanks. I’m sorry again…”
Kotobuki hadn’t gotten mad; actually, she’d been concerned about me.
My chest felt like it was being crushed by guilt, but I didn’t want to hurt Kotobuki more than I already had.
“Um, I have to go home with my friends today… We’re, uh… going to go buy chocolate together,” Kotobuki murmured apologetically.
“Oh, right, it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow.”
When I said that, she turned bright red.
“E-everyone’s got their real chocolate already. Mine’s all ready, too. It’s just that the department stores give out samples of the chocolate the day before Valentine’s Day, so you can eat a bunch of high-end chocolate…”
“I don’t necessarily want to eat it. I’m just going along. Maybe I shouldn’t?”
Kotobuki stole a glance at my face.
My chest ached with the sharp pain of telling lies and of her going to so much trouble for me, but I smiled awkwardly.
“No, go ahead. It’s the one time you can eat all the expensive chocolate you want.”
“… O-okay.”
She nodded, still looking nervous, then grabbed the sleeve of my uniform tightly.
“Oh! But since it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, keep your schedule open after school, okay?”
“I will.”
“A-and, um…”
Kotobuki turned even redder.
“Would you… come to my house tomorrow?”
“Huh?”
“It—it—it—it—it’s not because Mori said we should! I don’t have any weird plans—I mean, anyway, I wanted you to have some warm chocolate—th-that’s all! Don’t get the wrong idea or anything.”
She explained herself rapidly, still holding on to my sleeve.
A smile slipped out of me despite myself.
“Sure, okay.”
Kotobuki’s eyes went wide.
“After school tomorrow, then. I can’t wait to try the chocolate.”
She must have been embarrassed because she dipped her head and murmured, “… I’ll do my best,” in a quietly happy voice.
Her friends had gotten to school by then, so Kotobuki went over to them.
My heart felt just a little bit lighter.
I thought fondly of the warm glow of a life where I didn’t get hurt and I didn’t hurt anyone else.
I wanted to cherish it. I didn’t want to lose it. I was living in this spot where Kotobuki was.
But a dark shadow fell immediately back over my heart.
There was still time before homeroom started…
I left the classroom and went to the library.
The book that Mr. Sasaki had told me about yesterday, the book Kanako Sakurai had written, had been nagging at me.
That the protagonist’s name was Arisa.
That he said the author had served as the model for the character.
Could the scenario that Ryuto had told me about, where Juliette is married to Jerome, be the story of the novel Kanako wrote?
Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God, Part 1 Page 9