How come her intuition worked only for things like this?! Although it was perfectly natural that Kotobuki and I would walk home together since we had started going out, having my president draw attention to it was no reason to stutter. Couldn’t I just answer “yup” like a normal person? And yet for some reason my voice squeaked. My heart was racing, my cheeks grew hot, and I was flustered, which made Tohko smile at me with kind, motherly eyes. “Hurry up and go meet her. You shouldn’t keep a girl waiting.” “R-right.” I picked up my bag and awkwardly slipped my arms into the sleeves of my jacket. It didn’t go well since my fingers caught on the cuffs. Tohko watched my performance with a warm gaze. That made me even more self-conscious, and sweat beaded on my forehead. “You should go home soon, too, Tohko.” “I-I-I wiiiill.” She waved to me offhandedly, sitting with her knees drawn up on the fold-up chair, shrouded in the transparent gold of the western sun. And her expression was bright, without the shadow of a cloud hanging over it… but for some reason my heart ached. There was a lingering haze over my mind, like a fog that refused to clear. I was convinced it was because Tohko wouldn’t tell me anything important. How had Tohko known the words that were written in Miu Inoue’s first draft? After the planetarium, I’d tried again and again to get it out of her. I’d tried catching her off guard or asking her flat out, but Tohko had only smiled softly at me and managed to change the subject somehow. How had Tohko read the handwritten submission that I wasn’t sure was even still at the publisher’s office? And when? Did it have anything to do with the fact that she wouldn’t tell me what schools she wanted to get into, either? Gah. I was just going in circles. I furrowed my brow, then quickly smoothed it back out. I couldn’t let Kotobuki see me looking like this. She waited for me at the checkout desk in the library, which was dyed red by the setting sun. She had on a navy-blue peacoat, and a pink scarf was wound around her neck. She was hugging her bag in her arms, her head bowed and a brooding look on her face. Then she looked up at me and an embarrassed smile broke over her face. Her pure, sparkling smile brightened my spirit, and a smile came naturally over my face. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s go.” “Okay.” She gave a slight nod and stood up happily. “It’s almost Valentine’s Day, you know. W-would you mind if I gave you chocolate?” Kotobuki asked me this the next morning, staring at me, her face red. It was still early, so there weren’t that many people around. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And, uh… would you hate it if it was homemade?” “No way. That’s fantastic.” When I answered, she grew slightly sheepish, then abruptly turned her face away and said, all in a panicked rush, “I-I make it every year for my dad, so I’d just throw yours in, too. Oh, but I’ll use better ingredients and stuff than his, and I’ll do a different design and everything. So I’m just gonna do it as part of his, but it’s not totally the same. So, um—” She really is such a girl. Once I got used to the blunt way she had of talking and her abrupt manner, her flustered reactions could be cuter than anything. “I can’t wait. Those cookies you baked me before were really good, too.” “I made those for everyone! You just happened to be there.” It really was sweet the way she was arguing it so heatedly, and I couldn’t help but let a smile turn the corners of my mouth. “D-did I say something funny?” “No, no.” “But you’re smiling at something.” “Am I?” Kotobuki pursed her lips and glowered at me. I was struck by an urge to see what would happen if I told her it had just occurred to me how cute she was. But just then there was a bright voice behind me. “Morning, Nanase! Inoue!” Nanase’s friend Mori came up to us, beaming brilliantly. “I heard you guys are going out. I-I-I saw you two walking home together yesterday, and things were looking good. I called Nanase afterward and forced her to come clean.” “What?” “M-Mori!” Kotobuki choked and grabbed Mori’s hand. Oblivious, Mori addressed me in a cheerful voice. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep it quiet for a little while. Nanase’s so gorgeous and popular, if the boys found out, you’d be in trouble.” I was definitely wondering just how long “a little while” was going to be. I didn’t mean to hide that I’d started going out with Kotobuki, but I didn’t want to purposefully spread the news around, either. Mori bobbed her head reassuringly. “Oh, I get it. When you keep a relationship hidden from everyone, it charges it up. So I won’t tell anyone for now.” And how long was that going to be? “Nanase’s only so curt because she’s shy. She’s a really nice girl, so you take care of her. You can ask me anything, like her favorite color or her favorite food, or where she likes to go on a date, or what kind of situations drive her wild, or whatever.” I was sure Mori had good intentions. But hearing her say all this stuff to my face was pretty embarrassing. “M-Mori! Get over here.” Kotobuki wrapped both her hands around Mori’s arm and dragged her to a corner of the classroom. “Whoa, whoa, what’s wrong, Nanase?” “Just come with me.” And so she dragged her off. I watched them and saw Kotobuki’s eyebrows hike way up, yelling at Mori energetically. Mori was smiling and reassuring her. It looked like girls had it tough with their relationships, too. “Morning, Inoue. Why are you frowning?” I turned around and found Akutagawa standing there. “Morning. It’s nothing major. Just thinking how much girls seem to love secrets.” He looked in the direction I’d been facing and saw Kotobuki and Mori discussing (?) something at length. He nodded in sympathy. “Well, if that’s all it is.” Then his eyes softened teasingly. “Things are going well with Kotobuki, huh?” “Yeah, thanks.” “Well, then. The guys are crazy about her, though, so you better prepare yourself for when the news gets out. They’re going to hate you.” “Urk. You’re probably right.” “Well, that’s the problem with having something nice.” Then Akutagawa told me about how he had gone to the hospital to visit Miu yesterday. Apparently she was working hard and getting progressively better. She might be able to leave the hospital sometime in the spring. Of course, she’d have to go back to the hospital for physical therapy, and there was still the issue of which of her parents she was going to live with. “I think she wants to rent a place and live on her own. She was telling me she wanted to start studying again, even if she had to go to night school or online classes. She’s in negotiations with her folks right now. I’m sure it’s difficult for her, but I hope I can be of some help to her.” “Wow… Miu’s really doing a lot, huh?” When I listened to him talk about Miu, I felt a faint pain. An ache as if the scars that lingered on my heart were being pressed by a finger. But stronger than that was my joy because Miu was facing the future and moving toward it. Warm feelings welled up in me. “Tell her if there’s anything I can do, just ask.” With a placid smile, Akutagawa nodded and said, “Will do.” Then he drew his eyebrows together and his face turned suddenly sour. “Actually, I’m against her getting a place. A young girl living on her own has a lot of issues to deal with. And there are a lot of good-for-nothing guys like Sakurai out there.” His voice was prickly. It was strange to see Akutagawa expressing so much displeasure for another person. “Ryuto didn’t come to see her again, did he?” My question made Akutagawa’s face twist even more with jealousy. “Yeah, he did. This weekend he came with some outrageous bouquet he said a girl at a florist’s just gave to him. Asakura looked irritated, but he kept chattering at her, totally oblivious. Finally he told her that she fits his style and tried to convince her to go out with him.” “What?! Ryuto’s going out with Takeda!” Just the other day, I’d seen him with his elbows on the checkout desk in the library, talking to Takeda. I’d been flabbergasted by that. Ryuto must have worked the head librarian over somehow because he’d started brazenly visiting the library. He wore a jacket over his uniform, so I guess he hadn’t been exposed as belonging to another school yet, but he stood out anyway because he was tall and his features and the aura he gave off were both so dazzling. The girls would whisper: “Y’know, I’ve been seeing that guy a lot lately. I wonder what year he’s in. He’s sooo hot.” “Maybe we should say something to him.” “But that girl at the desk looks like she’s his girlfriend.” That just made me even more nervous. With an incorrigible smile, Ryuto had said, “Well, I’m goin’ out with Chee an’ all. If you like a girl, you wanna see her every day.” And then to ask Miu if she wanted to go out—he hadn’t changed at all! What about Takeda? “I pointed that out, too. And he said he’d be going out with Takeda, too. Without even blinking. And there’s more. I heard a girl from another school came to the library the other day and slapped Sakurai.” “Whoa…” I’d actually witnessed a girl hitting Ryuto before. Although he’d brushed it off, like he was used to it. Was he doing the same thing at our school now? And in the library of all places! But Kotobuki hadn’t said a word about it. “I heard he got into it with that third-year Himekura, too.” “Maki?!” I was even more blown away by that and had to clarify. “At the library? Maki went to the library?” Akutagawa nodded, his brow furrowed. “I heard she decked him right in the face.” “Are you serious?!” My eyes bugged out. Kotobuki hadn’t mentioned that, either! According to Akutagawa, Maki had smiled brightly and then immediately left the library. He said Ryuto had been knocked back and fallen to the ground and that he’d looked upset. Upset—that part tugged at me. Ryuto, the one who reveled in the battles, who grinned and said, “I’m a masochist,” even when girls hit him or told him off. Ah, but Ryuto and Maki didn’t get along. Maybe because they were so similar, both in appearance and in personality, they seemed to consider each other natural enemies. Even at Maki’s villa over the summer, there had been an altercation. Maki had dealt Ryuto a kick and knocked him to the floor then, too. And I was pretty sure he’d shouted, “Bully!” at her. “I’m sure Ryuto said something that made Maki mad. It’s his own fault.” “Absolutely. By the end of things yesterday, I wanted to hit him, too. Not that that’s a surprise. But of course, no matter what Sakurai said, Asakura wouldn’t engage him.” Akutagawa really was annoyed. What are you doing, Ryuto? Actually, what does Takeda think about how you’re acting? Thinking about it made my brain feel muddled. When I asked Kotobuki about it during a break between classes, her face stiffened and her eyes darted around in distress before she dropped her head. “It’s true. All that stuff did happen, but… it… it looks like it doesn’t bother Takeda.” “Oh.” “She was talking about it and laughing. She said, ‘It’s ’cos Ryu has lots of girlfriends.’ ” “Hmmm…” Kotobuki stole a worried glance at me as I murmured, my face grim. “Did you hear about it from Sakurai? Have you seen him?” “Huh? No, Akutagawa told me.” “Oh…” Kotobuki’s face was still somber. It got to me, so— “Uh, I’m not like Ryuto. You know that, right? I only have one girlfriend,” I rambled inadvertently. Instantly, she turned bright red. “Ack! What’re you talking about?! I wasn’t asking that, obviously! You moron.” She pursed her lips and turned her face away. “A-anyway, I promised Mori and the others that I would go eat grilled pancakes with them, so I can’t go home with you…” I nodded with a smile. “That’s fine. You have to make time for your friends, too.” “Urk…” Kotobuki choked and she looked up at me. “Hey, are you mad that I told Mori?” “Why would I be mad?” “Well, I mean… I just thought you might not like it.” “No way. After all, I told Akutagawa that we’re going out.” When I said that, Kotobuki’s face shone. “Really! So you told him about us?” “Do you want to go somewhere on Sunday? Are you free?” “Yup, I’m free.” “Where should we go, then? Is there somewhere you’ve been wanting to go?” “I…” Kotobuki’s eyes glistened again. “I want to see your house.” “My house?” “I-i-i-i-if you don’t want me to, that’s okay. It’s not like I have to see it. We could go to the movies or the aquarium or whatever. I totally don’t—” A chuckle slipped out of me. “It’s fine. There’s pretty much nothing in my room, but if you don’t mind that, you can come over on Sunday.” She looked up at me, and her face was bursting with sunshine. A candid, girlish smile spread to fill it. “Okay! Thanks. I definitely will.” After school, I watched Kotobuki leave the classroom with Mori and her friends, looking happy, then went to the book club room. When I opened the door, to my utter exasperation, yet again today the book girl, with her long braids, dressed in her school uniform, sat with her feet drawn up on a fold-up chair, reading a book she had spread open on her lap. When Tohko saw me, she beamed. “You’re here again?” “Why would you say that to me? After I stole a few precious minutes between studying for exams to come see you.” “You came yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, too. I’m running low on gratitude.” “Grrr, you’re no fun at all.” Tohko pouted. “But it’s perfect timing. There’s something I wanted to ask about Ryuto—” “Konoha? Could I come over to your house this weekend?” “Wha—?” I said stupidly. I’m sure my face was equally blank. Why did she want to come over all of a sudden? And on the weekend to boot? “I was thinking I ought to visit your house at least once. What do you think?” “What do you mean what do I think? I mean…” Tohko looked at me pleasantly. “Do you have plans?” “No.” “Then it’s settled. I’ll come by your house at two o’clock on Saturday.” While I struggled through my daze, Tohko’s visit was swiftly decided. I wasn’t able to ask about Ryuto. Or rather, I completely forgot to continue with my question. And so it was that Tohko was to come to my house on Saturday and Kotobuki on Sunday. Ack… what was I going to I tell my mother? “Oh, that Amano girl?” On Friday night when I told my mother that Tohko was coming over, she responded with an embarrassingly overblown reaction. “My, my, my, I can’t believe the girl who’s done so much for you is coming over!” She was so excited, her eyes sparkling in a shockingly girlish way. “It’s thanks to her that you’ve cheered up. I’ve never done more than answer the phone when she calls, but I’ve been impressed at how polite and upstanding a young lady she is. I’ve wanted to meet her for the longest time. We owe her so much.” “It’s not that big of a deal.” Since my mother was in such a stir, even my father, who often went out for business on Saturdays, was seized with curiosity and wound up declaring, “What’s this? The girl who helped Konoha is coming over? Well, then, maybe I should be here tomorrow, too.” “Mommy, who’s coming over?” “Ho-ho. Someone very important to your big brother,” I heard her tell my elementary school–aged sister, Maika, her voice spilling over with joy. I thought my face might burst into flames. “Mom! It’s not like that!” “Look at how embarrassed you are, Konoha. Oh, I can’t wait for tomorrow. Her voice is so pretty. She’s a very slender and lovely young lady, isn’t she?” “How do you know what Tohko looks like?” “Of course I would. When I was cleaning your room, I saw a photo of her. She has long braids and she was wearing a swimsuit—isn’t that her?” She said it offhandedly, but I was horrified. Was that one of the ones Itagaki from the photography club had forced me to buy, with Tohko in a swimsuit or gym clothes or whatever? The ones I had bought an entire set of because her chest was so absolutely flat that I couldn’t bear to let her be exposed? “I don’t have that for any perverted reasons! It was purely out of obligation! Besides, now he can’t give them to people!! I had to take them.” Even my father was grinning at me trying so desperately to defend myself. Then Maika asked me, “What does perverted mean?” in her innocent voice, and I choked. My mother was full of enthusiasm, saying, “What should I make for snacks? I’ll have to go get ingredients in the morning. Oh, do you think she’ll stay for dinner? You do your mother a favor and invite Amano to dinner, Konoha.” “I… don’t think she can do dinner. And really, you don’t need to bother with snacks, either.” “What? But why?” “She… she doesn’t eat much. She only eats about a sheet of paper for lunch. I think her stomach is smaller than most people’s.” It was true that she lived off paper, so it wasn’t like I was outright lying. “Oh… I suppose that’s why she’s so thin,” my mother murmured disappointedly. “Someone’s coming over on Sunday, too, so you can cook for them.” “Oh? A friend?” “Uh… someone from my class.” It was so hard to tell her that it was the girl I was dating. Added to the fact that it was another girl coming over the very next day after Tohko was visiting. “Who is it? Akutagawa?” “No, not Akutagawa…” “So you have more friends now! We really do have Amano to thank. Oh, but if it’s a boy, he’s going to eat a lot. I should make filling food.” As my mother gleefully planned the menu, I found it impossible to tell her that it was a girl coming over. The next day, Saturday, was a bright winter day with a clear sky. “Hello. I’m Tohko Amano, president of the book club. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Tohko came over dressed in a navy duffle coat over her school uniform—not a detail different from usual—and greeted us formally at the front door. Her voice was soft and restrained, too. Her gaze was open and unaffected, and there was not a hair out of place in her long, tightly woven braids or a pleat amiss on the hem of her skirt. At the sight of the sage, old-fashioned beauty that was Tohko, my father and mother both gasped in deep admiration. “Come in, come in. I’m Konoha’s mother. Thank you for all you’ve done for him.” “I’m Konoha’s father. I hope you’ll continue keeping an eye on our son.” I watched as both of my parents bowed deeply to Tohko, and then all I wanted was to get out of there. “Hello, my name is Maika.” Maika gave a neat bow, too. “Hello there, Maika.” Tohko knelt down to bring her eyes to Maika’s level to greet her, and my parents looked on with even greater approval. Tohko had brought a paper bag that she now held out to my mother. “I made some cream puffs, and I’d like for all of you to have them. I’ve heard that you’re very good at cooking, ma’am, so I hope you don’t compare them to yours. But I enjoy making sweets, too,” she said, acting bashful. I felt light-headed. She’d never made sweets in her life! How important was it to her to show off?! My mother was moved as she accepted the cream puffs. “Well! What a very polite and elegant young woman you are. And you’re even prettier than in your picture.” “My picture?” Tohko quirked her head to one side mildly. I grabbed her arm before the fact that I had photos of her in a swimsuit could be revealed. “Okay, Mom, now you’ve met! Let’s go to my room, Tohko.” I went upstairs, dragging along a very confused Tohko, and as soon as I closed my door, I broke out in a sweat. “Konoha! That was so rude to your family.” “Don’t you mean, that was such a performance? That was almost criminal fraud! Where did you buy those cream puffs?” “How rude. I made them myself, out of a book.” “Wha—? You mean you didn’t just buy some and put them in a new box?” Tohko bonked me on the head. “I would never do that.” “You’re saying you know how to make sweets?” “Heh-heh. Nothing is impossible for a book girl. I gave you those madeleines I made in home ec and that seasoned rice salad, remember?” “We did that together. All you did was measure the butter and wash the carrots.” “I also mixed in the butter and peeled the carrots! Y’know, if you eat my handmade cream puffs, they’ll be so good they’ll make you weep.” As we engaged in our conversation, utterly unchanged from when we were in the clubroom, my door sloooowly opened. Tohko quickly brought her performance back out with a giggle. “That’s how it stands, Konoha.” What was standing where now? Maika was watching us from behind the door, her eyes wide. When Tohko realized that our visitor was a girl in elementary school, she dropped her shoulders back, pulled her face into a smile, and walked over to Maika. Maika stared straight up at her. I guess it was weird for her to see a girl other than our mother in the house. Tohko crouched down and smiled, just like she’d done before. “What’s wrong, Maika?” “… Are you… the preznent?” “That’s right. I’m Konoha’s beautiful, reliable president who’s great at cooking and also a book girl.” “That’s going a little far.” “A book girl?” “Yup. That means a girl who loves books so much she wants to eat them up.” Maika tilted her head in confusion. Then she suddenly murmured “oh!” and turned around and pattered down the hall. “Wouldn’t it make it easier for an elementary school kid to understand if you just told her you’re a goblin?” “How mean! I am not a goblin.” Just as Tohko had swung her arm over her head, Maika returned with flushed cheeks, cradling a picture book in her arms. Tohko quickly hid her fist behind her back. “Here.” Maika held the book out. “You’re like Anne, Miss Preznent.” The book was an edition of Anne of Green Gables written for little kids. There was a girl with braids wearing an old-fashioned dress and smiling on the cover. Tohko smiled fondly at it. A pretty smile like a violet touched her lips. “Oh, this book looks delicious,” she murmured in a gentle voice that suggested some memory she treasured was surfacing in her mind. “This tastes good?” “Oh yes, Anne of Green Gables is like an all-you-can-eat cake buffet, with the flavors of all kinds of desserts in it. There’s a tart piled high with freshly picked strawberries on top of custard. A charlotte with soft Bavarian cream surrounded on every side by slender, finger-shaped biscuits. A torte with layers of bittersweet caramel and sugary chocolate… The part where Anne refuses to be nice and can’t help snapping after she stops speaking to Gilbert is exactly like a sweetly sour lemon meringue pie.” “Really? A lemon pie?” Maika hugged the book tightly and her eyes grew wondrous. “That’s right. Lemon is the flavor of youth… and the flavor of ‘first love.’ ” Maika was looking up at Tohko’s smiling face, her eyes round and wholly absorbed. Just then my mother appeared carrying a tray loaded with tea and sweets. “Oh, Maika! You shouldn’t be bothering your brother! I’m so sorry, Amano.” “Not at all. We should talk about books again sometime, Maika.” “Okay! You have to tell me more about dessert!” Maika pattered away again. My mother had served the tea with bite-sized fruit pies and Tohko’s cream puffs. “Your cream puffs are so lovely and light.” “Making sweets is my hobby, after all.” Tohko was going to ride this performance of hers to the end. “Well, you two enjoy, then.” “Thank you so much.” The door shut quietly. Tohko gazed in the direction my mother and Maika had gone with an open, gentle look. I found it a little odd and was just starting to wonder if anything was wrong when she murmured in a soft voice. “What a lovely family.” It caught me totally off guard to hear something like that out of nowhere. Then she murmured in an even gentler voice, sounding deeply emotional, “Your mother and your father are both so warm. And your little sister is such a cheerful little girl. Everyone seems to get along so well.” Tohko slowly shifted her gaze around the room. She gazed slowly—affectionately—at the bright window with afternoon sunlight spilling through it, at the moss-green curtains my mother had made, at the bookshelves with comics and books mixed together indiscriminately, at the desk I’d used since elementary school, as if she wanted to burn each and every one of the images into her memory. “You grew up in this house… surrounded by these kind people.” My heart squeezed tight. Why did she look like this? Why was she saying something like that? And why had she come to my house today? “… What’s your family like, Tohko?” I’d never asked her that before. Somehow I had the feeling that I shouldn’t ask why she was boarding at Ryuto’s house or where her parents were and what they were doing. A sharp anxiety slowly bloomed inside me. My heart was thrumming the whole time. Tohko looked at me and smiled gently. “When I was little, I would taste test books with my dad a lot. I would sit on his lap and together we would tear into a book—I went from the bottom and he went from the top—and we would talk about it… how it tasted like a fluffy rice omelet or a freshly baked doughnut or whatever. We would be eating the same book, but sometimes my dad and I would taste different things. When I was even smaller, my dad would feed me books and tell me, ‘Hamburger tastes like this’ or ‘Stew tastes like this.’ ” She looked and sounded happy. It showed how much Tohko loved her family. “So your dad eats books, too?” “Yeah. Although my mom could only eat regular food. She would always write my dad and me beautiful meals. My mom was a book girl like me, and when she was in school, she wanted to be an author.” Tohko gave a smile like a budding flower. The steam from the tea rose gently from the white teacups. “When my dad proposed to my mom, he said, ‘I want you to be my author. Just mine.’ ” A sweet yearning came into her clear, black eyes. “ ’Cos you’re Tohko’s author, Konoha.” The words Ryuto had said to me came suddenly back to mind, and my heart leaped so hard I thought for sure Tohko must be able to hear it beating. Were those really the words Tohko’s dad had used to propose? This was bad. I couldn’t get my heart to slow down! The heat rose all the way to my face. I hurriedly reached out for the cream puffs piled on top of a lace-patterned paper napkin. My mother’s praise hadn’t been exaggerated. The surface of the cream puff was golden brown and beautifully puffy and it was heavy with cream. “Considering you made these from scratch, they turned out great,” I joked as I bit into the cream puff. The supple custard from within the crispy shell spilled into my mouth. The next instant, a shock like lightning shot through me from the tip of my tongue to the top of my skull. “Urrrrrrgh!” What was this? It was so salty—no, there was a sharp sweetness, too! And it wasn’t the sweet bite of grilled, glazed rice dumplings; there was something more astringent or pungent, as if someone had dumped a ton of coarse salt on top of pudding. A trendy taste—wait, what was I saying? Nothing edible tastes like that! “What’s wrong, Konoha?” Tohko asked me uneasily since I was frozen, still holding the cream puff. At long last I was able to swallow what I had in my mouth. I drank the burning hot tea, and then finally I was able to get my voice out. “Tohko! You switched salt for the sugar in this custard!” “What?!” Tohko’s eyes popped. “I couldn’t have—I paid close attention—are you sure you’re not tricking me, Konoha?” “I’m definitely not. If you tasted it, you’d be able to tell in a heartbeat.” I spoke without thinking and quickly shut my mouth. Tohko looked hurt. “I’m sorry…” “It’s fine.” She shook her head awkwardly, then yelped, “Oh no!! I told your family to have some, too!” We burst out of my room and ran downstairs. When we opened the door to the living room, we saw my mother and father each holding the cream puffs they’d just bitten into and wearing conflicted looks on their faces, not saying anything. Maika was crying, “It’s too saaaaltyyyy.” “Don’t get so down.” “I’m sorry…” When Tohko got back to my room, she hugged her knees and dropped her head on them. She was so glum, it was as if a shade had been pulled over the window behind her. “My parents won’t care.” They had both told her, “It’s fine” and “People mistake salt for sugar all the time,” and laughed it off. Maika had cried the entire time, though… “Tohko?” Even when I called her name, she kept her head down. She seemed pretty depressed. She probably thought her image as a wise and put-together president had been shattered. Just then, she said in a cheerless voice, “I wanted you to have cream puffs that tasted good.” A stab went through my chest. Tohko didn’t know what the things we ate every day tasted like. She probably didn’t usually have any reason to use sugar or salt. And yet she had made cream puffs from a recipe so that she could give them to us. Even though she couldn’t taste them herself. I picked up the half-eaten cream puff I’d tossed aside and bit into it. “It’s pretty decent.” “Konoha…!” Tohko looked up and her eyes widened. The grotesquely sweet but oh-so-salty taste spread thickly over my tongue. I kept eating anyway, and when I’d swallowed the last bit of it, I reached for a second. “Stop. You don’t have to force yourself to eat them.” “… I’m not forcing myself.” I bit into the second one. “But—” Tohko looked like she was about to cry. “I’m just eating them because I want to.” “You’re going to give yourself a stomachache.” “My stomach’s not that delicate.” Even though my mouth was coated in salt, the cream was also sweet and sharp and was turning into something amazing. I reached for the third cream puff. “That’s enough. You can stop.” “… You’ve always finished everything.” Tohko’s eyes widened. “You’ve always finished everything I’ve written, without leaving a bite of it uneaten.” Her face crumpled, her eyelashes fluttered, and her eyes filled with tears. I swallowed the third cream puff, and calming my stomach, which felt like it was about to convulse, I slowly brought the fourth and last cream puff to my mouth. If I didn’t do this fast, I was sure the contents of my stomach were going to come back up. They say that when you keep eating spicy food, your tongue goes numb and you can’t feel anything anymore, but maybe because I tasted some sweetness in the cream, the stabbing sensation of the salt continued the same as ever. A cold sweat gathered at my temples. I recalled Tohko weeping pathetically and eating the bizarre stories I wrote in the book club after school. “Ugggh. This tastes weird! Instead of condensed milk on top of this strawberry shave ice, it’s topped with mayonnaise.” At first I did it to be mean. Then because I enjoyed her reactions. Each and every day, I wrote a twisted story. And yet no matter how Tohko wailed, no matter how many tears fell from her eyes, she would never leave something I wrote uneaten. She would swallow the last bite and—“Thank you for making that. You’re coming to the club tomorrow, right?”—she would smile cheerfully. How had she been able to do that? How had she kept on eating stuff that didn’t even qualify as food every day? When I thought about that, it wasn’t just my stomach that grew full and hurt because of it; my heart did, too. Tohko watched me in silence as I fought to finish off the last cream puff. When I finally forced everything down, my stomach felt like it was going to rupture, my heart felt queasy, and my throat was strangely prickly. “Thank you for making these.” When I said that, Tohko gave a slight smile, her eyes still watery. “… Thanks.” Tohko poured me a second cup of tea from the teapot. I sipped timidly at the tea, which had cooled and felt nice on my tongue. My stomach was convulsing again. I could never, ever repeat that performance. Tohko picked up one of the bite-sized strawberry and orange tarts that my mother had made. “These are so cute.” She smiled and popped it into her mouth. A mysterious almost poignant, almost warm silence filled the room, and then Tohko murmured wistfully. “Do you remember how you were so dark and rebellious and mean when you were a first-year?” I almost spat my tea out. “What are you saying?! Is that what you thought of me?” Still smiling, Tohko said, “But you were mean. You would try to ditch club meetings, you acted cold when you talked to me, you would get sarcastic, you would write nothing but weird stories and mess with your president.” “That’s because you dragged me into the book club against my will. I never wanted to get involved in clubs and I never wanted to write stories.” At the end of a long, long winter. Spring had come very late that year. After my life as a shut-in, I started high school still dragging behind me what had happened with Miu, and every day went by in gloom. I didn’t want to interact with anyone. I didn’t want to get hurt again. I would be happy to have my days go by ordinary and peaceful. That had been my wish when Tohko appeared before me. An old-fashioned girl from the next year above mine with long black braids, reading a book below a snow-white magnolia tree in the schoolyard. When the apparently graceful young lady suddenly tore a page out of her book, I gawked at her. “I’m going to keep you nearby so you don’t spill my secret.” “I am Tohko Amano in class eight of the second-years. As you can see, I am a book girl.” She gave her name, like a violet announcing the spring, sunnily and prettily, then took hold of my hand and led me to the cramped clubroom in the western corner of the school’s third floor. I was frantic. Under those circumstances, there was no way I was going to open my heart to the older girl who defied all logic and ate paper. I’m sure the improv stories I jotted off, ignoring grammar and muddling the progression of the story, had a badly degraded flavor. “Awww, so you really did do it on purpose.” Tohko pouted and glared at me. Then her expression softened again. “But every once in a while you would write me delicious, heartwarming stories. Sourly sweet stories that made my heart clench tight and then stories that tasted just a little bitter… You’ve fed me a lot of stories, Konoha.” The air grew poignant once again. Tohko’s face—it struck me as somehow different from normal and that made me nervous. “Where are you going to get your snacks when you go to college? You’re not going to tell me to send you letters every day. Right?” Tohko smiled kindly. “I won’t tell you to do that.” My throat grew dry and my anxiety swelled even further. The mood permeating the room was light and gentle. And yet something dark and heavy was gathering inside my chest. As if Tohko would vanish any moment from right in front of me… Tohko was staring straight at me, her eyes clear, as if she were watching something important. I couldn’t look away, either. “I won’t be able to have snacks anymore. But when you write your novel, let me read it, okay?” A visceral pain shot through my heart, as if it had been grabbed all of a sudden by a clammy hand. Tohko looked at me kindly. She had said the same thing several times before. How she wanted me to write a novel. The pain continued to constrict my chest—enfolding it gently but firmly. I was unable to answer, just as I had always been. My voice was lodged in my throat. Tohko looked at me with a peaceful expression, like a much older person. When the sun had set and it was starting to get dark, Tohko left my house. “We’d love to have you again, Amano.” “Thank you very much.” She dipped her head politely to my family, and her cheeks flushing, she added in a murmur, “I’m sorry about the cream puffs.” My parents both said jovially, “Oh, it’s fine.” “Bye-bye, preznent.” Maika waved energetically and Tohko gave a little wave back, said, “Bye-bye, Maika,” and left the house. I went partway with her. “Let’s stop here.” Under the sickly glow of the streetlight, Tohko smiled, then held out the other paper bag she had brought to my house. “It’s the scarf and gloves I borrowed from you. And the mechanical pencil, too. I’m sorry it took me so long to return them.” I accepted the bag. Inside I could see a snowy-white scarf. “You still have exams. Don’t you still need the pencil?” It’s a charm to make miracles happen. I had offered it to Tohko, my cheeks burning, on a cold night when the north wind was blowing. A grown-up smile came over Tohko’s face again. “It was very helpful already. Thanks. I’ll work hard, so the rest is actual ability instead of a miracle.” She was talking as if we were never going to see each other again— As if she knew that and so was returning to me everything that she had borrowed. It was the same sensation I’d had in my room that afternoon. As if Tohko’s figure would dim and then disappear at any moment. It was like… this anxiety—as if my feet were slipping out from under me—crushed my chest. As Tohko started to leave, I grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Wait—it’s still cold out!” Why was I so panicked? A human being would never just disappear right in front of somebody one day! When I pulled the scarf out of the bag, I smelled flowers, as if it had been freshly washed. Just as I’d done that night, I wrapped it around Tohko’s neck. “I’ll let you borrow it again. Wear it home.” Tohko’s eyes widened, then abruptly grew poignant. She seemed on the verge of crumbling. Then she smiled joyously. “Thank you. A scarf really does keep you warmer.” “I’m not giving it to you, though! You have to bring it back to me!” “Okaaay,” she responded jokingly, then headed off into the darkness. I watched her go, the paper bag still in my hand, feeling like I was going to cry. Tohko is Fumiharu’s daughter after all, Kana. On his days off, he sets her on his lap and they eat a book together. They look so happy. Fumiharu’s face is kind and enraptured as he tears the pages into little pieces and feeds them to her. She beams and stretches out her hands and turns her face up to his and pesters him mightily, “More, Daddy, more.” The sunbeam by the window in the living room is their favorite spot. They set a pillow down there, and as long as the golden light spills through the window in the evenings, they read a book, munch on the pages, and talk. Things like “I got it, Daddy! Mrs. Pepperpot tastes like soup with lots of milk in it!” or even “The Tales of Ise is like sushi rice with mustard flowers draped on top of it.” She says the prickly interaction between Anne and Gilbert in Anne of Green Gables is like sour-sweet lemon meringue pie. That it tastes like “youth,” like “first love.” Tohko tells Fumiharu those things with a clear, beautiful gaze while he ruffles her bangs with his fingers. I complained to Fumiharu that he should be more judicious with their snacks because if Tohko ate too much, she wouldn’t have room for dinner. He laughed and told me, “Nonsense. She’ll never run out of room for dinner. Tohko and I love the food you write more than any book.” Fumiharu always knows exactly what to say and he always wins me over. But it’s true that he and Tohko have polished off every meal I’ve ever written them. The other day Tohko tried to eat a book in the children’s corner of the library, and she got scolded by the librarian. The young man was kind and wore glasses and Tohko liked him very much, so it was a blow for her. She was still crying when we got home. “All I did was try to eat the book.” “The books at the library belong to everybody. You can’t eat them. You can’t eat the books they sell at bookstores, either. You can’t eat a book unless you paid for it and it belongs to you.” Fumiharu took Tohko onto his lap and hugged her. As he gently instructed her, he stroked her bangs. “And from now on, you can’t eat books except with people you care about. What Daddy’s telling you is very important, so you need to pay attention.” “People I care about?” “Like Mommy or Daddy—one day someone you truly care about—you should only eat with your author.” “My author?” And then Fumiharu told Tohko the story of how he proposed to me. Tohko listened, enthralled, her cheeks flushing. “Mommy is your author?” “Yes. She’s my author and yours, too.” When Fumiharu told her that, her face lit up with an excited smile. “That’s great, Daddy. That’s really great.” I wonder whether Tohko will ever meet someone who writes just for her. I wonder what sort of person they’ll be. Tohko’s hair has grown longer, so I braided it for her. “I wore braids when I was in school, too. Braids are proof that you’re a book girl.” When I told her that—“Just like you, Mommy”—she rejoiced. I let her hair down and it billowed out—“Exactly like you”—and she danced around with even greater joy. Sunday arrived, and I still hadn’t been able to tell my family about Kotobuki. She came over before noon—at eleven o’clock. “H-hello! I-I-I’m your son’s classmate. Nanase Kotobuki!” My parents stared at her with ambiguous expressions, struggling for words, as she gave her stuttering, stiffly nervous introduction. Seeing those looks, I could tell exactly how confused they were, and I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. “Um, h-here. I mean, I made this. I’d like all of you to have it.” Just as Tohko had done the day before, Nanase held out a paper bag. “Well… thank you for going to all that trouble.” My mother rushed to take the bag from her. But her voice and expression were awkward and she was shooting glances at my father. “I enjoy making sweets. I don’t know if it’s any good, though.” At this statement that was again word for word what Tohko had said, my parents’ expressions became even more ambiguous. “Kotobuki really does enjoy making sweets. And she’s good at it.” I hurried to back her up and—“Oh, geez, I’m not that good,” she said, turning red. “Just don’t expect too much. I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing you like. Um, it’s a lemon meringue pie.” “Wow! Lemon meringue pie!” Maika, who was totally unable to pick up on the weird atmosphere, jumped up and down excitedly. “Anne and Gilbert taste like lemon meringue pie! They taste sweet and sour! I want some lemon meringue pie. Thank you, Miss Nanase. Yaaaay, I got lemon meringue pie!” Kotobuki’s eyes widened at Maika’s excited display, but still her expression brightened. I guess she was glad she’d made Maika that happy. “Now, Maika, you need to behave in front of our guest,” my mother scolded. But Maika was utterly consumed by the lemon meringue pie, and she peeked into the paper bag in my mother’s hand with glittering eyes. “Come in, Kotobuki. Let’s go to my room.” “O-okay.” Kotobuki excused herself and took off her shoes. Maika sniffed deeply at the aroma from the paper bag and shouted. “It smells goooood! The other girl’s cream puffs were so salty yesterday, but today’s girl brought lemon meringue pie! It looks sooo good.” Kotobuki started. “What… other girl?” My mother, my father, and I all stiffened. With an innocent, childlike grin, Maika unleashed the final blow. “The preznent! She had braids and looks like Anne!” A few minutes later, Kotobuki and I were alone in my room. “Um…” Kotobuki sat stiffly on the rug with her legs tucked under her. She had her hands squeezed tightly together in her lap. The air was unbelievably loaded. “Do you want to take off your coat?” I asked. She stood up and took off her girlishly flouncy white coat, leaving her standing in a light pink sweater and black miniskirt. I tried to offer her a hanger, but before I could, she’d bundled her jacket up and set it down beside her. Then she sat back down stiffly and gazed tensely at her knees. Uh-oh. I needed to come up with something to talk about to cheer her up. I was racking my brains for something when she whispered, “… So Tohko was here.” Aaaaaack. It felt like my heart was going to jump out of my mouth, and I broke out in a sweat. I explained it away quickly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. But it just so happened—I mean, yeah! It just so happened that she needed to talk to me about something for the club and she came over here for a little bit. It was purely a coincidence.” “… And she brought salted cream puffs?” “Hold on, they weren’t salted cream puffs—they were over-salted cream puffs. Nothing fancy. She mixed up the salt and sugar when she made them.” “… So Tohko happened to come over with cream puffs she’d made from scratch. Does she come over often?” “Th-this was the first time! Yesterday was a first, and her making something from scratch was a first, and everything else was a first, and it was totally impossible to predict!” Geez, what was I saying? Just as I’d worked myself into a corner, my mother came in. I was relieved. Her tray held the tea set, slices of Kotobuki’s lemon meringue pie, and also crispy sesame dumplings piled up on a plate. Great, now we’ll have some tea, eat some snacks, and it’ll change up the mood a little— “I’m sorry. I wish I had prettier snacks for you. Konoha didn’t say that you were a girl, so I thought a boy was coming over.” I saw Kotobuki’s shoulders twitch, and I felt as if a knife had been thrust into my neck. Why would you blab about that, Mom?! “No, these are great. I love sesame dumplings, so this is perfect. Thank you.” Though her words were polite, her voice was shaking. And her face was as hard as a rock. As if sensing the turbulent mood, my mother practically fled the room. “Um! Well! When he told me a classmate was coming over, I must have misunderstood and thought he meant a boy. And then he never denied it, and in any case, I wouldn’t know for sure until you actually came over, so I thought, Why not?” Kotobuki was quiet. “Your lemon meringue pie sure looks good, Kotobuki! I’m going to try it!” I pulled a plate over, rattling it against everything, and plunged my fork into the pure white meringue. The pie was extraordinarily soft, the crust crisp, and my fork cut through it effortlessly. When I brought it to my mouth, the fluffy meringue and, beneath that, the mixture of lemons and custard in the sour-sweet lemon cream combined with the crispness of the crust to spread across my tongue a delicious flavor that lived up to how good the pie looked. “Wow! This tastes like a lemon meringue pie a pastry chef would make!” My honest impression of it spilled out of me. Kotobuki lifted her face and looked at me cautiously. Her lips were still pursed, but her cheeks were faintly flushed. “It really is good. Mmm.” She stared straight at me, her face turning redder and redder, as I cut out big pieces and took one bite after another. When I started to laugh, she looked away, kind of flustered, and then suddenly her face fell and she looked like she was about to start crying. “… There’s some cream on your face.” “Wh—” I rubbed it away quickly with my hand. Her head still bent, Kotobuki said brusquely, “I-I get jealous really easily. They said Tohko came over, and I’ve felt sick over it ever since. Smiling was just impossible. I-I’m sorry. I bet it’s annoying. But you always act so natural when you’re with Tohko, and I feel like she understands you way, way better than I do—” “No way! Tohko’s just my club president. It’s not like that with us at all.” I leaned forward and put a hand on her thin shoulder. Actually, I’d lied to Kotobuki about one thing, and it stabbed me through the heart. Tohko wasn’t just my club president. She had been at my side for two years and become deeply linked to me. Not like family, not like a friend—she was special. But I wasn’t in love with her. Kotobuki was the one I was dating! “Inoue…” Kotobuki caught her breath. Our eyes locked, and it was so hard to breathe it felt like something was lodged in my throat—the atmosphere made me think we were about to kiss when— “Oh, I can find the way! Don’t even worry about it.” I heard a familiar voice downstairs. Then the sound of feet pounding up the stairs. Suddenly the door opened without so much as a knock, and Ryuto came in with a cheery smile, wearing bleached jeans and a down jacket. “Comin’ in!” “Ryuto!” We stiffened, still close to each other. Kotobuki paled and my hand stayed where I’d left it, resting on her shoulder. “Oops, am I interruptin’ somethin’?” He leered at us and we hastily moved apart. “Wh-what are you doing here, Ryuto?” “Oh, I was in the neighborhood, so I figured I’d swing by. You mind if I hang out with you guys?” Without waiting for our answer, he pulled a pillow over and settled himself on it, then started grabbing my mother’s sesame dumplings. When Ryuto’s butt hit the floor with a thump, Kotobuki jumped slightly. “Whoa! These’re great. Your mom made these? And I’m guessin’ this pie is Kotobuki’s.” “Um, Ryuto…” Why? What was happening? Questions flooded my mind. He’d never once come to my house before. And anyway, how could he be kicking back and this relaxed with Kotobuki clenching her jaw and glaring at him on her way to tears the way she was? When my mother came into the room with tea and a piece of pie for Ryuto, he stuffed a third dumpling into his mouth. “You’re sure good at cookin’, Mrs. Inoue.” “Why, thank you. There’s plenty more downstairs, so eat up. Lunch is ready, too. I’ll bring it up soon.” “You’re the best, Mrs. Inoue! You’re gorgeous!” Ryuto had really warmed up to my mom. And she was talking to him more casually than she had with either Tohko or Kotobuki. I couldn’t believe it, but her cheeks were flushing at his bald-faced flattery. Ryuto picked Kotobuki’s lemon meringue pie up in his hand and bit into it. Kotobuki flinched again. “Whoa…,” he murmured, impressed. He kept on eating, savoring every morsel of it. Kotobuki looked away from Ryuto as if she couldn’t stand to watch him and dug her fingers into the fabric of her skirt, her entire body stiffening. Each time Ryuto murmured something or shifted his legs, her shoulders shrank in on themselves slightly, and she looked as if she was fighting back tears. Kotobuki seemed to be caught up in the prickling tension of the atmosphere. Watching her made me feel uneasy. Once he’d polished off his piece of pie, Ryuto licked his fingers. “That was great, thanks. If it were just a contest of cookin’ skills, you’d have Tohko totally beat. She went to all that trouble to make Konoha cream puffs, and then she switched up the salt and the sugar on ’em. She was in the dumps the whole rest of the night. I took a nibble off one of the ones she left for us, and it was absolutely disgustin’. No way you could eat that. I wouldn’t even feed it to a dog.” The air grew even more tense. I was flustered, but Ryuto stared at me with a mockingly sweet look. “But you ate every last one of them, Konoha.” Kotobuki’s face twisted almost to the point of shattering. “Ryuto, don’t—!” I tried to stop him, but he talked right over me. “No one coulda finished that stuff without somethin’ special. I guess there was some payoff for Tohko goin’ to the trouble of makin’ cream puff shells every night, huh? At first they didn’t puff up at all. They were as flat as Tohko’s chest. She remade them a bunch of times—so for a while there, I got to have burned, deflated cream puff shells for breakfast. By the time they finally started fluffin’ up right, she was bustlin’ all over in front of the oven. “If only she hadn’t mixed up the ingredients for the custard, they woulda been perfect. “Well, I guess that’s Tohko’s style, to end on a punch line by mixin’ up salt and sugar. And thanks to that, we got a great look at how you feel, Konoha.” He curled his mouth into a sly smile. “I wanna thank you for eatin’ all those horrible things, K.” Kotobuki was trembling. My stomach felt like it was on fire, too. I didn’t know what Ryuto was trying to accomplish. But I had to do something to protect Kotobuki. Consumed by that sense of purpose, I spoke up fiercely. “If Kotobuki had mixed up the salt and sugar in her lemon meringue pie, I would have finished that, too!” Kotobuki’s face jerked up. Her eyes looked shocked, then shifted, brimming with tears. “Kotobuki put a lot of work into making this pie for me, too.” At that, she nodded, her face bright red. “I-I wanted you to enjoy it.” “Ooh, this is gettin’ steamy,” Ryuto said, his voice deliberately loud, and thunked his elbows roughly down on the table. “I guess every couple is cutesy when they first start goin’ out. But from what I’ve seen, you two ain’t very compatible.” He got a mocking look on his face. “I-I don’t need to hear that from someone like you!” Kotobuki stood up, her fists clenched, as if she was reaching her limit. I watched astounded as she yelled shrilly at him, her entire body shaking, her face pinched into a tight glare, fixed with burning intensity on Ryuto. “Why—why do you keep saying how Inoue and I aren’t good for each other?! How Inoue’s forcing himself to be with me, or—or that he doesn’t look like he’s having fun, or that we’ve got different styles, or that we’re not on the same wavelength! What right do you have? How dare you force your way into Inoue’s house to harass us! What a terrible person! Do I bug you that much?” “Oh no, I love good-lookin’ girls. But gettin’ mad shows you got no confidence. You know that, too,” Ryuto told her bluntly, a mocking smile still plastered on his face. I watched their exchange, conflicted. What did she mean, “keep saying”? Had Ryuto routinely been telling Kotobuki stuff like this?
Chapter 182
49 min read