“Where’s Ryuto’s father now? Sakurai is Kanako’s maiden name, isn’t it? Did they get a divorce?”
Mr. Sasaki’s face clouded even more.
“No, Kanako and Takumi never registered for marriage. Six months before Ryuto was born, Takumi was hit by a car and killed.”
I swallowed thickly.
Ryuto’s father had died in a car accident, too? Was that a coincidence?
How had Kanako taken the death of Ryuto’s father?
Even if she ignored Tohko, did she cherish Ryuto? I couldn’t picture her showering a child with motherly affection.
Kanako, Ryuto, and Tohko.
What was their life together like, a life that had begun with the deaths of the Amanos?
At that point I realized something critical and I gasped.
Ryuto knew that Tohko ate books!
What about Kanako?
Did she know that Tohko ate books? That her father, Fumiharu, had eaten books, too?
If she did know, how long had she known?
Before the Amanos died? Or after?
“What’s wrong, Inoue? You look distracted.”
“Nothing… it’s just a lot to take in. I’m in shock.”
Mr. Sasaki frowned as if that was only natural.
“The environment around Kanako and Tohko is certainly a bit special. But Tohko really did grow up to be a kind and cheerful girl, warm just like her mother, Yui. And if you look past the fact that he’s too popular with girls, Ryuto is a good, honest kid, too. I think it was good for Kanako to have children like Ryuto and Tohko around.”
On an impulse, I asked Mr. Sasaki, who had been a close coworker of Fumiharu’s, “Mr. Sasaki, did Fumiharu eat books?”
Mr. Sasaki’s eyes popped open in shock.
Then, after looking me over closely, he laughed.
“Ha-ha-ha, of course not. Even Amano wouldn’t go that far for a book. Though he did love them enough that you wouldn’t blink twice if he did eat one. Now that you mention it, he was always saying things like, ‘This book tastes like slow-broiled beef stew’ or ‘This has the taste of stuffed waffles.’ Just like Tohko, actually.”
I thanked Mr. Sasaki, then left the café.
I was cleaning out some drawers when I found an old album that brought back a lot of memories.
There were a bunch of photos of you and me from middle school in it, Kana! I sat down on the floor and spent over an hour looking through it.
There was you, all stuck-up, with your hair arranged above your shoulders, and there was me in my braids. I’m smiling in most of the pictures, probably because I’m happy I get to be with you.
There were also pictures of the school trip we took to Nagano in the spring of our third year of middle school.
In the group photo, you bet I’m standing next to you smiling. I had a barrette shaped like a violet in my hair. It was the hair accessory you gave me as a gift!
During the free period, the two of us went to a souvenir shop in the glass music box museum, and they had sparkling, transparent accessories lined up like jewels. I was the one who suggested we both buy something and give it to each other. I said that would make the trip way more memorable.
I bought you a bright blue glass pendant, and you picked out a hair accessory shaped like a violet for me.
Then, outside the museum, we opened our packages. My heart was pounding pretty bad when I hung the pendant around your neck, Kana, and you were petulant and embarrassed when you fastened the violet barrette in my hair.
“Thank you! I’ll treasure this since you got it for me, Kana! I hope we stay friends for a long, long time.”
I said that after we took a picture, and you huffed, “We should head back,” then turned aside.
When I held your hand, you didn’t pull away until we got close to the buses where everyone was meeting.
You complained that if you were wearing something like that, the teacher would see it, then slipped it under your white camisole. I was so happy I thought my heart would tear itself apart.
When I think about the pendant I gave you glittering under your sailor suit in the group picture, even now my heart pounds loudly.
I treasured the violet barrette always.
I can’t wear it all the time like I did in middle school anymore, but sometimes I take it out and put my hair up with it.
When I do that, I feel as if I’ve gone back to those days.
“That violet is pretty, Mommy.”
Tohko looks up at me, her eyes sparkling.
“Mommy got this from someone she loves very much. It’s someone you know, too.”
And I told her the stories.
About the time I first met you, about the day we first spoke to each other, about the music box museum, about graduation…
My memories of you, Kana, so many of them, as if I were telling vivid fairy tales.
How very much I’d loved you.
About the gentle hours we’d spent together.
That we would always be friends.
Chapter 5—The Morning of Good-bye
“You should learn who Tohko Amano is…”
That’s what Ryuto had said.
But I had stalled out before I reached Tohko, without even understanding how her parents or Kanako had felt. And the whole time, Tohko’s figure seemed to be pulling away behind a pale, violet-colored curtain.
On the morning of Valentine’s Day, I went to school still feeling muddled.
I changed my shoes at the front entrance.
The girls and boys were buzzing and everyone seemed to be on edge.
Last year for Valentine’s Day, Tohko had given me chocolate.
I’d been a first-year and Tohko had been in her second year.
I’d gone to the clubroom like always and written an improv story, and Tohko had eaten it with plenty of sobbing and we’d had our ordinary interaction. And just as I’d been about to leave—“Here, Konoha.”
With a smile, Tohko held out an airy violet package wrapped in cloth-like paper she had covered with white lace paper.
It was tied up with light blue-and-gold ribbons, their ends arranged in twirling spirals, and it had white-and-yellow artificial flowers stuck into it. It was so girly and enthusiastic, I had to question if it was for real, and my face flushed red.
“Um, I…”
“Oh, come on! It’s Valentine’s Day!”
“Is it?”
“It’s a gift from your president.”
I accepted the flamboyant package awkwardly, which made Tohko beam even more. “Go on, open it,” she urged me excitedly.
There wasn’t actually homemade chocolate in there, was there?
Through my nerves, I untied the ribbons and opened the package. Laid out before me on the lace paper were milk chocolate drops, dark chocolate drops, almond chocolate drops, and on and on that all looked like they’d be sold for a dollar a bag at a grocery store.
My eyes unfocused at the chasm between the chocolates and the overwrought packaging while Tohko’s face turned toward me over the back of her chair, beaming like the sun.
“C’mon, it’s a holiday!”
Remembering that, I started to miss Tohko intensely.
Even if I saw her, I wouldn’t know what to talk about, and if what Tohko wanted was for Miu Inoue to write another book, I couldn’t do anything but deny her that.
And then we would just shout at each other again and have another misunderstanding.
Even so, I couldn’t help missing her.
Biting down on my lip, I shook off the image of Tohko’s smile that had surfaced in my memory and I headed to my classroom.
As soon as Kotobuki saw me, her expression relaxed with relief.
“Is today gonna be okay, Inoue?”
“Yeah, my afternoon’s all yours.”
When I said that, her cheeks turned bright red, and “O-okay… after school, then,” she whispered in a quiet, squeaky voice and then left me.
Aku
tagawa wasn’t at school that day.
The girls who’d wanted to give him chocolate were making a big fuss about it.
“Whaaaaat?! Akutagawa’s out?!”
“No way! How could he? I brought him chocolate and everything!”
“Agggh! I even splurged on something fancy!”
“Did they say Akutagawa’s not here?!”
I wondered what had happened. It was unusual for Akutagawa to be absent. He’d seemed fine yesterday, but maybe he’d caught a cold.
During lunch, Takeda came bearing chocolate.
“Here you go! It’s thank-you chocolate in appreciation for all you do for me.”
She said it with a bright smile as she held out a blue box with a polka-dot ribbon on it.
When Kotobuki glowered surreptitiously nearby, Takeda said, “I have some for you, too, Nanase! It matches Konoha’s!” and held out a red box with the same design.
“Wh—f-for me?”
Grinning at Kotobuki’s panic, Takeda said, “I give chocolate to my female friends, too! You’re always helping me out with my job at the library!”
“Oh… uh, I mean… thanks.”
“I’d like to see three times as much back from you for the next holiday.”
“—Is that what you’re after?”
“It’s a joke. But I’ll be hoping for it,” Takeda said with a sunny expression.
“Argh, are you actually grateful or not? I-I’ll accept it for now…”
Kotobuki muttered as she moved away.
I asked Takeda, “Are you meeting up with Ryuto today?”
“Yuuup. I’m his girlfriend. But we might be going with other girls.”
When my face clouded over, she joked, “Oh, come on, don’t look so serious! You make it look like I came to confess my love to you and I got dumped!” then smiled benignly.
“It’s fun to have a boyfriend and give away chocolate on Valentine’s Day. And having a bunch of rivals just fires me up.”
“Is that true?”
Takeda’s grin filled her whole face again, like a puppy.
“Who can say? Oh, is there anything you’d like me to tell Ryu?”
“No, that’s okay. Have fun today. And hold on to Ryuto hard enough that he can’t do anything.”
I wanted to at least spend today with Kotobuki. I didn’t want to make her feel any more nervous than I already had.
“Copy that!” Takeda replied in an exuberant voice, and then she departed with a wave.
When classes were over, Kotobuki came over wearing her coat and carrying her schoolbag, her lips pursed in a pretty, nervous way.
“L-let’s go, Inoue!”
“Huh? Weren’t we meeting at the library?”
Kotobuki pursed her lips even more.
“I don’t want us to miss each other again. Besides, today is Valentine’s Day, so no one’s paying attention to anyone else. Even Mori’s caught up in it.”
When she put it that way…
Kotobuki started walking off stiffly. I hurriedly put on my coat and picked up my bag.
“Inoue! Walk a little bit away from me.”
“I thought no one was paying attention?”
“S-still.”
Kotobuki looked embarrassed, so I dropped back slightly.
She stole a glance back, as if to make sure that I was still following her. I thought that looked more unnatural, but…
When we got to the shoe lockers, Kotobuki changed her shoes first. “I-I need to prepare myself, so I’m going outside, okay?” she said in a strained murmur, and hugging her bag tightly to her chest, she trooped quickly out.
Prepare herself? What?
When I went through the gate, she was already out of sight.
“What the?”
I craned my neck in every direction when—“Inoue…”—a quiet voice said.
When I looked in that direction, she was peeking her face around the corner. Her cheeks were bright red.
“Are you prepared?” I asked.
“Yeah…”
She nodded shyly and gently took my hand.
I squeezed hers back and we started walking like that, side by side.
Kotobuki’s house was a dry cleaner’s in a residential neighborhood. Her parents were regular office workers, but apparently her grandmother ran the shop.
The first floor of the rectangular three-story building was the shop, and the second and third floors were Kotobuki’s house. There were stairs on the outside of the building, and we went up to the second floor that way.
“Is it okay not saying hello to your grandma?”
“I-it’s fine today. Next time.”
Kotobuki pulled on my hand and went up the stairs.
“Are you an only child?”
“I have an older brother, but he’s a lot older, so he’s already got a job and he’s living on his own.”
“That’s the opposite of my family.”
As we chatted like that, we reached the front door on the second floor.
Kotobuki took a key out of her jacket pocket and unlocked the door. She looked nervous again and her movements were awkward.
When she went in ahead of me, she glared back at me and—“Come in.”—she prompted.
“Thanks.”
She kept glancing over, then glancing away, as I came in and took my shoes off.
“Oh, that’s your room, huh?”
The second door after the entrance had a pink placard shaped like an alligator hanging on it that said NANASE’S ROOM.
Kotobuki’s eyes bugged out and she covered the placard with her back.
“I… I thought I took that down. God, Grandma,” she muttered in a vanishingly quiet voice, then reached her arms behind her, took the placard down, and held it against her ribs.
“Why are you taking it down?”
“It’s not usually up.”
“When do you put it up?”
“For New Year’s, stuff like that…”
“Why on New Year’s?”
“I-it’s not important. Just get in.”
She opened the door and pushed me toward the room.
“Ack!”
“I have to get some stuff. Wait here.”
She slammed the door shut in an apparent rush, then immediately opened the door again and came back in, her face all red.
She turned on the heater, set one of the pillows from her bed on the floor, then pulled some books and comics out of her bookshelf, took some CDs from her CD stand, and piled them all up on a small table.
“Sit here, listen to these, and read these.”
With that, she left again.
I took off my jacket and settled on the pillow, just as I’d been told.
From there, I looked around the room again.
Her curtains were a soft coral color with a pattern of white tulips. Her table was a wooden school desk that could be opened and closed, and there was a red-checked cushion on her chair.
The books neatly lined up on her shelves ranged from old literary works to best sellers, children’s books, girls’ comics, and other miscellany, and on the lowest shelf she had monthly comics anthologies, fashion magazines, and art books.
As I was looking around her room at the giraffe, panda, and other stuffed animals that populated it in places, struck by how girly a room it was, my eyes came to rest on a stuffed penguin.
“Wait…”
It was set on the table next to her bed with the other stuffed animals, but for some reason it was the only one with its back turned.
I reached out for it without much thought and turned it back around and saw a red ribbon tied around its neck. In the very center hung a badge shaped like a maple leaf—could this be…?
I picked the penguin up and examined it closely.
Yup, that was it.
My middle school emblem.
Instantly, I recalled my first meeting with Kotobuki.
How I had seen a girl on the street in trouble because her skirt was
torn, so I unpinned my school’s emblem (“You can hold the tear together with this”) and handed it to her.
I didn’t look too closely at her face, so when I started high school and met Kotobuki again, I didn’t have the slightest idea.
But Kotobuki had remembered me. She told me that she’d had a crush on me that whole time.
Kotobuki… you kept my emblem…
My cheeks started to burn and my chest pulled taut, and still holding the penguin in my arms, I gazed intently at the emblem, overcome with sentimentality when, behind me—“Ah! No!”—there came a voice.
When I turned around, Kotobuki was standing there, her eyebrows hiked up and flushed all the way to her ears, carrying a tray loaded with a flat, round chocolate cake and cups filled with coffee.
Apparently she’d changed clothes. When she’d gone out, she’d been wearing her uniform, but now she had on a soft-looking short-sleeved white sweater and a red-checked skirt. I never saw her carry any clothes out, so she must have set some aside outside her room.
Kotobuki set the tray on the table, then snatched the stuffed penguin out of my hands and hugged it tight.
“I even told you not to look around my room.”
“Uh… I don’t think you did tell me that.”
“E-even so, ogling everything in a girl’s room is a breach of etiquette!”
“I didn’t mean to ogle—it just caught my eye. That’s my school emblem, right?”
“A-a-a- and if it is?”
“Just, thanks for taking such good care of it.”
When I thanked her, Kotobuki turned even redder and dipped her head in embarrassment.
“I-I didn’t really…”
She planted her knees on the carpet and hid the stuffed penguin behind her back, then started arranging the cake and coffee cups on the table.
“Eat it before it gets cold,” she muttered sharply, still looking away.
“Let’s see, then.”
I readjusted my position on the cushion and picked up a fork.
The simple chocolate cake resting atop the white plate had cool whipped cream on the side.
I stuck my fork into it and warm chocolate oozed out with a sweet billow of steam.
Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God, Part 1 Page 12