Book Girl and the Captive Fool (9 page)

But I couldn’t stop myself from going to you. I wanted to see you and receive your cold gaze. I wanted to hear your voice hurl abuse at me.

Perhaps I wanted you to blame me.

Everyone heaped praise on me for being an honorable and upstanding person. So maybe I wanted to be reminded that it
wasn’t true—that I was a despicable person who deserved your abuse.

You wanted to ask me about school.

How did I spend my day? Did I have any friends? Did I have a girlfriend?

You asked, claws hidden in each word, and listened to what I told you with a pale, tense face. Then in the end, you would always get upset and say, “Go away.”

So gradually I started to say ugly things about what I’d done in the past, until one day you pressed me for a decision.

I know what it was that set you off. I also know that you were still fighting memories of the past, trapped by them, slashed by them, while you writhed in pain in an unescapable, pitch-black labyrinth.

I want to grant your wish.

Because it will be my atonement.

But even if I can save you, I’d still be a contemptible traitor if I did that.

Your wish is dirty! It’s not right! It hurts people!

And yet you want me to do it? You order me to do something that’s not honorable?

Please stop sending me letters. Stop writing things that test my spirit.

I know I’ll be taken in by you. I recognize that. But I can’t be any more foolish than I already am.

“Wow, you two are
adorable
!”

Kotobuki and Takeda had changed into kimonos with long, trailing sleeves tucked into empire-waisted and full-pleated pants, and when she saw them, Tohko gave a shout of joy.

Kotobuki had clipped extensions on either side of her head and tied red ribbons in them. She fidgeted in embarrassment.

When classes ended, I’d been conflicted over whether or not I should go home when Kotobuki planted herself in front of me, her arms crossed over her chest. “We’re doing costume fitting today. You can’t skip.” Then she pursed her lips and glared at me.

“Hey Akutagawa! Don’t drag your feet, either! We’re going to rehearsal.”

Somehow she managed to settle things and chased me and Akutagawa into the auditorium.

Dressed up as Sugiko, she was like a different person. Her cheeks were delicately flushed, and she kept her eyes down. Apparently they had asked a third-year who did tea ceremony for the clothes. I was busy being impressed by how clothes could change a girl when Kotobuki glanced over and stuck her lip out.

“Wh-what are you looking at? You got a problem?”

“No, I was just thinking how good you look in old-style clothes,” I told her honestly, but she turned bright red.

“You—you jerk! Why would you say that?! You’re just giving me more empty flattery! I—I can’t believe what a jerk you are!”

“But… it’s the truth.”

“What?!”

Kotobuki was speechless. I smiled. “You and Takeda look really good.”

“Yaaay! Thank you, Konoha!”

Takeda wore a trailing, navy ribbon in her hair. She swung her long sleeves and giggled.

In contrast, Kotobuki grumbled discontentedly. “I
really
hate you, Inoue!” And she turned away pointedly.

Huh? Wh-why was she mad at me?

I was confused. But Tohko came bouncing over to me, elated.

“Oooh, I was so conflicted about whether we should do elegant
young ladies in fluttering kimonos or go with the pants, too, but this is a total blowout! A 1920s romance simply demands ribbons and billowing, high-waisted pants!”

Tohko was wearing a Western-style shirt with a stiff collar and a resist-dyed kimono over it. Akutagawa and I were dressed similarly.

“Heh-heh. You look totally different, too, Tohko! It looks great!”

“Ohh, you mean it?”

“Yup! I feel faint!”

“Oh, stop! Maybe girls will send me bunches of love letters.”

Tohko’s eyes glazed over dreamily, probably imagining the love advice mailbox in the school yard stuffed full of sugary, handwritten love letters. The shirt and kimono over her chest lay perfectly flat, and that didn’t look strange in the slightest, just as I had expected, but her long braids swinging like cats’ tails made her look nothing like a Japanese boy. Just as this thought crossed my mind, she pulled on a dark brown tweed cap and stuffed her long braids into it.

“Now I look even more like a beautiful young man, no?”

“Yes! It makes me want to sigh your name all dreamily!” said Takeda.

“Do it, do it!”

“Ohhh,
Toh
ko!”

“Oh, Chia!”

The two were completely into it. They fell into each other’s arms and shrieked and everything.

“You’re getting a little carried away, Takeda.”

Kotobuki looked sullen, but then Takeda threw her arms around her.

“Ohhh, I love you, too, Nanase! My big sister!”

“Hey—quit it! Let go of me!”

Nanase’s eyes darted around in panic as Takeda embraced her.

I tried to keep a low profile in the midst of that animated scene and furtively watched Akutagawa.

He seemed to be thinking about something, a bleak expression on his face. The dark colors of the clothes suited his ramrod straight height, and he gave off a straitlaced charm and sexy self-denial. I was sure the female audience members would be transfixed. But shadows darkened his downcast eyes.

I felt a twinge in my heart. I was afraid if I watched him too long, I would be drawn in by the pain he faced, so I quickly looked away.

“All right, let’s start practicing,” Tohko called out, beginning the dress rehearsal.

We started with the Ping-Pong competition between Sugiko and Omiya, where Sugiko defeats her older brother’s friends one after another with her astute Ping-Pong skills and everyone cheers for her.

“Why not have Nojima try next?”

Nojima was nonplussed by the suggestion from Hayakawa, who was a rival for Sugiko’s love. He wasn’t good at Ping-Pong. But everyone goaded him on, and he was on the brink of being forced into facing off against Sugiko when Omiya stepped forward.

“Why don’t I stand in for him?”

Just then, the chest of Akutagawa’s kimono vibrated.

Akutagawa’s face tensed. My breath caught, too.

“Sorry,” he murmured angrily, then took his phone out to check the screen.

The very next moment, his eyes seemed to pop out of his head and he gulped.

“I’ll be right back. Sorry, really,” he offered hurriedly; then he bit down on his lip and left the stage.

“Oh—Akutagawa!” Tohko called to him, but he didn’t turn around. He ran up between the seats and left the auditorium.

We all looked at each other uneasily.

“He did that before, too. Looked at his phone and then ran out.”

“I wonder what happened.”

Takeda’s gaze landed subtly on me. I recalled Akutagawa groveling behind the school. Igarashi had been hitting him, and Akutagawa had offered no resistance.

If Igarashi was the one calling him…

Whatever.
It was none of my business. There was nothing I could do anyway. Don’t think about it anymore.

Just then, something fluttered across the stage.

By the time I realized it was the long sleeve of Tohko’s kimono, she was already running frenetically down from the stage. Her cap flew off and her supple braids danced behind her.

“Konoha, let’s go!”

“
Where
exactly?”

I gaped. Lifting the hem of her kimono and cinching it up between her thighs, she answered, “After Akutagawa!”

With her legs now exposed, Tohko ran up the aisle between the seats.

I hurried off the stage and chased after her. When they saw that, even Kotobuki and Takeda followed in their trailing sleeves and billowing pants.

Tramping down the hallway outside the small auditorium, passing through the atrium, bursting out of the building, and then running off again, Tohko was far from the beauty in men’s clothing or the modest book girl. She was more like the fishwife carrying a scale over her shoulders in a samurai drama or a female firefighter running to the site of a conflagration.

As I ran, I wondered how I’d managed to jump straight into the fire even though I had meant to stay out of Akutagawa’s business from now on. I also thought about how I really ought to just go back.

But since Tohko was running on right ahead of me, her braids streaming behind her, I could hardly go back by myself. Who knew
what
Tohko would do if I took my eyes off her!

The students we passed looked at us in shock.

“Wait! Tohko, wait!”

Tohko was sprinting and apparently didn’t hear me. Not that it mattered, but did Tohko know where Akutagawa had gone? She was running pretty hard.

But it looked like Tohko had made another one of her guesses, and once outside the school building, she plowed through to the back. She probably wanted to peek behind it into the back of the school yard.

Just then, we heard an earsplitting scream.

“Noooooo!”

That was a girl’s voice! It sounded like Sarashina!

The moment we rounded the corner of the building, Tohko stopped and stood rooted to the spot. Once again, my heart was pierced by a scene out of a nightmare, happening right before my eyes.

Behind me, Kotobuki let out a squeak as she gulped back a scream.

Akutagawa stood with a chisel in his hand. Blood dripped from the V-shaped blade. A muscular boy had fallen to his knees in front of him. A pool of blood was spreading over the ground, and Akutagawa looked down at it blankly.

Sarashina was beside Akutagawa, kneeling on the grass, the front of her uniform splattered in blood. She was holding her head and sobbing.

“
No!
Why! Why did you do that?! It’s that girl’s fault! She did this! That girl
stabbed
him!” said Sarashina.

Suddenly someone grabbed my arm.

It was Kotobuki.

She was trembling, her eyes wide. She staggered and almost fell, but I supported her.

Takeda watched the scene, her face calm. Tohko stood perfectly still, her back to me.

People started to gather, drawn by Sarashina’s cries. Several girls behind us screamed. Teachers elbowed their way through the crowd.

They fell speechless and gasped at the carnage before them. Akutagawa stood up straighter, and in a brittle voice devoid of emotion, he said, “I stabbed Igarashi.”

I’ve reached my limit. I can’t sleep. Even when I lie down in bed, despite being so tired my body feels like it’s made of clay, my mind is ringing and alert, and a ferocious creature rampages through my heart.

There was another letter from you today. How much time you must have spent in writing it. Was that also because of your hatred? Do you hate me that much? Can’t you forgive me? Please, don’t blame me. I’m a weak human being. I can’t stand to be blamed anymore.

At home, I’ve tried sticking my box cutter into the tatami floor, into the sliding doors, into my notebooks, into my textbooks, into the rabbit. I cut my English book to shreds and scattered the pages around my head like confetti; I carved crosses into the sliding doors; I cut off the rabbit’s feet.

But the mist doesn’t clear. The bellowing in my heart never
stops. And the girl with the chisel stabbed into her chest continues to blame me.

I want to cut them out, cut them apart, break them into pieces, all of it, everything, you, the world, the past, the future, truth, lies; I want to cut them apart, cut them apart, cut them apart, cut them apart—

Mother, I’ve gone crazy.