Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God, Part 1

by Mizuki Nomura

  It was a fondant au chocolat.

  I took a bite and a rich acidity spread through my mouth.

  When I tried it with some whipped cream, the warm chocolate and the cool cream blended together nicely and it tasted even better.

  “H-how is it?”

  “It’s really good.”

  “I-it’s not too sweet?”

  “Nope, it’s just the right amount of bitterness.”

  “Good.”

  Kotobuki’s face relaxed and a relieved smile came over it.

  When I saw her face, even though I had dark chocolate in my mouth, I started to feel incredibly sweet.

  “Um, do you… want to listen to some music?”

  “Sure.”

  “What do you want to listen to?”

  “Hmmm. Beauty and the Beast?”

  “Th-th-th-th-that’s not—”

  “You don’t have it?”

  “I-I do! But—”

  “Then let’s listen to that.”

  “O… okay.”

  Kotobuki rummaged through her CD tower.

  I watched her as I ate my fondant au chocolat, and once again I discovered something unusual.

  “I didn’t know you collected coins.”

  “Wha—?”

  Holding the soundtrack for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in her hand, Kotobuki started and spun around.

  She followed my gaze, then blanched for some reason.

  I was looking at the second shelf from the top of her bookcase, where some books were leaning to one side because Kotobuki had pulled those paperbacks out, leaving an empty space. A placard about the size of a bookmark with a five hundred–yen and ten-yen coin in it was sticking out behind the leaning books.

  “Were those coins from a limited minting or something?”

  “Uh, well—”

  Kotobuki opened her mouth, then shut it again, then opened and shut it once more.

  “Do you mind if I look at them?”

  “You can’t do that!”

  Kotobuki stood up suddenly, and just as she’d hugged the stuffed penguin before, she grabbed the placard holding the coins in both hands and pressed it tightly against her chest to hide it.

  “Why not?”

  “You just can’t!”

  She refused intently.

  “Um… that reminds me, right after we started school this year, you made me pay to replace a library book. The Great Gatsby, remember? I’m pretty sure that was five hundred yen, too.”

  Kotobuki had forced me to compensate her for a book Tohko had eaten.

  “I paid you the money and the next day you brought me fifty yen in change, and I paid you back the ten yen change for that.”

  Was that—?

  Kotobuki pulled her face into a frown and glowered at me, her face bright red. She had the very beginnings of tears in her eyes.

  “That five hundred–yen…”

  And ten yen on top of that…

  “Is that five hundred yen?”

  Actually, 510 yen.

  “I-I don’t remember!”

  Kotobuki was breathing very faintly now, and she turned her face to one side, the coins still pressed against her chest.

  Judging from her reaction, I saw that it pretty much had to be the same coins, and my cheeks instantly grew hot, too.

  It wasn’t just my school emblem; she’d held on to things like that, too. She was probably embarrassed to have me see the coins, so she’d hidden them behind the books.

  “Why do you care?! I don’t remember, okay?!”

  She hunkered down on the carpet and wailed, her face bright red, and I scooted over to her on my knees and brought my face close to hers. She became instantly quiet and her eyes widened.

  “Um, I…”

  Kotobuki’s hair had the sweet aroma of chocolate followed by the slight smell of citrus. It must have soaked it up when she was getting everything ready.

  My face was burning, too.

  “I guess… that makes me happy.”

  Kotobuki’s eyes widened even further and then—“R-really?”—she looked away shyly and her lips curved into a small smile.

  As I, too, flushed, as if a light had turned on in my heart, I asked, “Could we listen to the CD?”

  “Okay…!”

  Finally, the theme song from Beauty and the Beast started to fill the room.

  It was our song.

  On that snow-piled roof, this clear melody had pulled me back and given me courage.

  “This is the English version, huh?”

  “I have the Japanese one, too.”

  “When the English one ends, let’s listen to that one then.”

  “Okay.”

  Sitting across from each other at the little table, eating cake and drinking coffee, talking as we listened to the music.

  That’s all we did, but it was a lot of fun and a little bit ticklish.

  Each aware of the other’s existence, heart fluttering.

  Kotobuki seemed to be wondering about what kind of chocolate Takeda had given me, so—“Let’s open it and see.”—I said. She untied the ribbon on the chocolate Takeda had given her, too, and started loudly pulling the paper off.

  “She said they matched.”

  “I just don’t know if that’s true. There could be an eraser in mine that says YOU LOSE.”

  She doesn’t trust Takeda at all…

  When we got all the wrapping paper off, two perfectly square boxes were revealed with the same design in different colors. Mine was blue and Kotobuki’s was red. Just like the wrapping paper.

  “Let’s open them at the same time. One, two—”

  At Kotobuki’s mark, we lifted the lids off simultaneously.

  We each found a half-missing chocolate heart.

  Kotobuki had the right half of the heart. I had the left.

  “So this is what she meant when she said they matched. I’m glad it’s not an eraser.”

  “Urk… I-I was joking when I said that.”

  I suggested we try fitting them together, and Kotobuki reeled with a “Huh?!”

  “Look, Kotobuki.” I picked up my heart and reached out a hand, which Kotobuki blushed at and brought her heart closer.

  The two halves fit together and became a single heart.

  “Perfect.”

  “Yeah.”

  We smiled shyly.

  Then we carefully returned the hearts to their boxes and our eyes met and again we both looked embarrassed.

  “Did you know that I had chocolate to give you last year for Valentine’s Day, too?”

  Kotobuki made an unexpected confession.

  “What? Really?”

  “I thought you might not accept it if it was homemade, so I bought it at a store… but I put a lot of effort into choosing it! But still, I didn’t manage to give it to you. I made it all the way to the classroom, but then I got embarrassed and held back. I think I ate half of it by myself at home.”

  After she’d said that, her face became suddenly sad and she dropped her gaze.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “… I was just remembering Yuka.”

  My heart clenched.

  Yuka Mito was a girl who’d been Kotobuki’s best friend, a classmate from middle school. She’d died the year before, before Christmas.

  “… When I was stuffing myself with chocolate, I got a call from Yuka and she told me, ‘You can’t eat all of it by yourself. Leave me some, too.’ And then, the next day… she ate the chocolate with me.”

  Seeing Kotobuki drooping made it hard for me to breathe, too.

  Kotobuki blinked, as if chasing away her tears, then lifted her face and smiled.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring things down. Yuka would be angry at me. She’d say this was no time to talk about stuff like that.”

  “It’s fine. She really cared about you a lot, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah. And I liked her a lot, too. I’ll be best friends with Yuka forever,” Kotobuki declared,
her gaze clear—her voice cheerful—and it made her look strong and amazing.

  For only a moment, Tohko’s mother, Yui, and Kanako flashed through my mind.

  Mr. Sasaki had said they were best friends.

  Had Yui and Kanako’s relationship been as strong and certain as Kotobuki and Mito’s? Or…

  “Oh! That’s right! There was something else I never managed to give you.”

  Kotobuki stood up, interrupting my thoughts.

  She opened a drawer on her desk and pulled out a postcard, then held it out to me in both hands, fidgeting.

  “It—it’s pretty late now, but it was to say hi over the summer. You can… take it now, if you want.”

  The postcard was printed with a drawing of pink and pale green morning glories, accompanied by a message in light blue pen.

  Thank you for coming to see me in the hospital.

  I’m really sorry I chased you off.

  I was actually really happy you came.

  I hope we can talk more next term.

  The feelings the postcard revealed seemed to echo through my heart.

  Her youthful emotions spread through my chest to fill it. Just looking at the faint writing on the postcard in my hand, I started to feel indulgent and affectionate.

  Kotobuki was looking at me nervously.

  I looked at her and smiled.

  “I got it. Thanks.”

  Kotobuki smiled happily.

  I thought it made her look very cute and dear.

  That term was over and only a little time was left in the last one, but I hoped we would talk more and that I could find out more about her.

  While I was looking down at the morning glories and the warm words written on the postcard, I suddenly realized something.

  “Oh yeah—there’s something I never gave you, either.”

  “Really? What?”

  “I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

  She broke into a smile, and excited, she asked, “Whaaat? It’s going to bug me.”

  “Then let’s meet up halfway tomorrow and go to school together.”

  When I said that, Kotobuki smiled way more and nodded. “Okay!”

  When I got back home, I ran up the stairs and started searching my drawers without even changing clothes.

  “I was sure I stuck it in here somewhere.”

  As I went past handkerchiefs and belts, I focused my eyes, feeling the same butterflies as if I were searching for treasure.

  Finally, the package I sought appeared among my socks.

  “There it is!”

  I cheered despite myself.

  When I tore open the wrinkled bag with the name of a souvenir shop on it, a phone strap with a pink woven ball on it spilled out.

  It was the one Tohko had made me buy when we’d stayed at Maki’s villa over summer vacation. I hadn’t had a chance to give it to Kotobuki and it had ended up stuffed away in my drawer.

  I grabbed it and held it up in front of me, making the pretty little ball dance.

  I hope you’ll like this, Kotobuki.

  The corners of my mouth relaxed and I gazed at the ball with ticklish feelings.

  The pink ball swaying and twisting.

  The fragrance of grass.

  Summer vacation, trembling at the waterside.

  Suddenly—

  Something stroked a soft spot deep in my chest.

  H-hey—what was this feeling?

  It hurt—the same instant I felt that, the estate deep in the mountains, lit by the setting sun, resurfaced vividly in my mind.

  A scarlet ball rolling energetically over the grass.

  A wide street lined with souvenir shops.

  Masses of almost stifling green. The mysterious pond filled with deep, silent water, as if hiding among the trees.

  The songs of birds. The refreshing summer breeze running over the back of my neck.

  A fluttering white dress. Long, dancing braids—

  Once I’d remembered one thing, the rest floated up in my mind like flipping through the pages of a book.

  Tohko bathed in the burning evening sunlight, her loose hair swaying, her eyes shining, running toward me, saying, “You came!”

  Tohko so afraid of ghosts that she huddled in my bed, not moving, looking like she was about to cry, quaking and telling me, “I’ll keep watch for you to make sure no ghosts come in here.”

  Tohko excitedly choosing books in a small bookstore. Tohko, her voice exuberant, as she told the cashier, “Can you gift wrap those, please?” Wrapping paper the color of dark tea. A golden ribbon.

  Yuri and Akira’s book room. Tohko skimming through the pages of a book on a chaise lounge, her contented smile. How we had sat in the same chair and read a book together, reading the character’s lines aloud.

  The feelings were bubbling up unstoppably, like the cascade of a waterfall spilling violently into a deep pool.

  That mysterious summer.

  The eerily beautiful story of flowers and moonlight.

  Tohko putting on a raincoat and frantically coming to search for me in the rain and thunder, despite her fear of the darkness.

  Her voice calling my name.

  Her hand holding mine.

  And then the sadness of her gaze tinged in the pale white light of dawn.

  Tohko, her eyes lowered, looking at me as I slept.

  The evanescent murmur that had dropped from her lips.

  “I wonder… how much longer… can I be here?”

  Tohko, who seemed as if she might melt away at any moment into the space between reality and fiction.

  She had turned her back on me and said, “I can’t tell you,” over and over and clung to me as if her feelings were spilling over, then complained through gritted teeth, “All you do is torment me.”

  That day, Tohko bit my hand, and it had been swathed in a searing heat and started to throb.

  “I won’t forget it.”

  “After all, you were here with me.”

  Tohko smiling, her eyes warm and her hand locked with mine on a moonlit path.

  “I won’t forget it.”

  A summer like a dream—like a story.

  “I won’t forget it.”

  My heart trembled and several times a hot lump rose in my throat. My eyelids burned.

  Why hadn’t I remembered until now?

  Why was I remembering now, like this, here?

  Tohko had been hiding something from me that day.

  She’d been sad and alone.

  And yet she’d pretended that nothing was wrong and smiled kindly for me in the moonlight, like a pretty flower.

  How had I forgotten?

  Even though Tohko had looked so sad that morning when she’d murmured and brushed her trailing hair from my cheek.

  Still clutching the phone strap in my hand, I crouched down on the carpet.

  As I fought back the memories and the stabbing pain pressing in on me, I grit my teeth and hung my head.

  At the base of the stairs, my mother called, “Time for dinner!” But I couldn’t go right now. I couldn’t let them see my face so twisted with suffering. My throat burned. My eyelids felt like they were on fire, too.

  Fighting the continuing ache, stifling my voice, what ran through my mind were Tohko’s white hands and her gentle smile.

  I couldn’t sleep that night.

  Even though I’d had such a good time with Kotobuki, all I thought about was Tohko. My body hurt all over, as if it were being pulled apart.

  When it started getting light beyond the curtain, my eyes were all puffy and my throat was sharply dry.

  I climbed out of bed with sluggish motions, went down to the bathroom on the first floor still in my pajamas, and washed my face in the tepid water. The mirror showed my face looking utterly exhausted.

  I was supposed to meet up with Kotobuki this morning…

  I tried again—this time I washed my face with cold water, like slapping myself in the face, and tried to change the course of my feel
ings. But Tohko’s phantom clung to my mind.

  I changed into my uniform and forced myself to take bites of the bacon and eggs, salad, and toast my mother had made.

  Something like this had happened before.

  The morning of the culture fair.

  When I had overlaid myself on Akutagawa’s suffering and fled, afraid of getting hurt.

  Tohko had stood in the road, just after a rainstorm, bathed in pure light with a collection of poems by Robert Browning in her hand. And then she had smiled at me.

  “Good morning, Konoha.”

  I put my coat on and left the house earlier than usual.

  Outside, the sky was covered in ashen clouds, and the air was cold enough to make my hands numb.

  Even after I’d cut through the mazelike neighborhood and come out on a perfectly straight tree-lined road, there was no sign of a book girl reading a book.

  There was no reason to think Tohko would be there.

  This fact made it feel like my heart was tearing in half.

  Soon I would be at the convenience store where Kotobuki and I were meeting. I had to smile.

  I clenched my cold hands tight, tensed the muscles in the corners of my mouth, and turned the corner, when—

  “Good morning, Konoha.”

  Tohko was standing there.

  Wearing her navy-blue duffle coat over her school uniform, holding her schoolbag and a paper bag in her hands. Breathing in white puffs. With a gentle smile—

  I stood there in a daze; then my head and cheeks grew hot, as if they’d been lit on fire, and my heart pounded in a frenzied dance.

  What was Tohko doing here?! Was she an illusion? No, she was real.

  Tohko, who had appeared at my house a few days before, her face as pale as someone deathly ill, and railed at me in a trembling voice. She looked at me now with the same peaceful gaze she’d always had.

  “I came to give you back your scarf. I’m busy studying for my exams, so I won’t be able to see you pretty much at all.”

  She held the paper bag out to me.

  “… Have you been waiting for me long?”

  Tohko’s voice and the way she looked at me were so exactly like usual that I was confused as I asked her that.

  “Just for a bit.”

  But when I took the bag and brushed her hand for an instant, she was as cold as ice.

  “Your eyes are swollen, Konoha. Did you get enough sleep?”