Chapter 6—The Two Stories of Death The winter of my second year of middle school. There was a girl I liked very much. I wanted to tell her how much I liked her, so I wrote a novel. But my novel ended up making her suffer and haunting her, and one day early in the summer, she jumped off the roof right in front of me. “You would never understand, Konoha.” Murmuring that with a desolate smile. Now she was sitting across the table from me. We’d moved to a café a short distance from the school. My emotions had done a somersault in the taxi, and I didn’t know what I should ask first. Akutagawa had told me, his face serious, “I’m Asakura’s escort,” and Miu had spoken in a cheerful tone, saying, “Long time no see!” and “I got permission to leave the hospital this time.” “Is tea okay, Inoue?” Akutagawa asked, sitting in the seat diagonally across from me. “Uh, sure…” I nodded. He ordered for everybody when the waitress came to take our order, then turned face forward again. Miu looked at me with placid eyes the entire time. At last her cherry-colored lips curved up and she smirked. “Don’t keep that surprised look going for so long. I gave you fair warning, didn’t I? I said I would get better and come see you next time. Maybe it’s earlier than you expected, though. I’ve been doing real good since that last time we saw each other.” The brilliant smile like sunlight trickling through leaves spread over her small face, the smile I’d adored ever since we were children. I’d thought that the next time I met Miu would be a time for beginnings and a time for endings. I’d been hearing about Miu’s situation the whole time from Akutagawa, but actually seeing her, I got the powerful impression that she was different, not the Miu I’d known since we were children and not the Miu who’d hurled her hatred at me through tears on the roof as snow fell around us. She was a new, matured Miu. “Was Ryuto the one who called you here?” “Yup.” Of course. The thought made my breathing strained. Akutagawa had told me about it before with a grumpy look, how Ryuto was still visiting her. “Why would Ryuto want to make you come see me?” “I think he wants me to get you to write another novel.” A sharp pain ran through my chest. Miu’s eyes grew steely and her face stiffened. “He told me I had to be the one to convince you. Because what happened to me was the reason you stopped writing.” The novel I’d written had hurt Miu. I remembered Miu wailing torturously in the middle of a snowstorm, “I’m not clean and honest the way you wrote Hatori in your book,” and it felt as if my throat would tear itself apart. My heart was crushed. A scream, a confession, that practically brought up blood. A hopeless pilgrim who’d had their slumber stolen from them. My novel had destroyed Miu’s entire world. While I was criticizing Kanako for writing about the deaths of the Amanos and her own parents, I had done the very same thing, though there was a difference in our subject matter. Through my writing, I had shredded another person’s heart. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t resent the fact that you modeled your novel on us anymore. Or the fact that you won the prize and debuted with the pen name Miu Inoue—I mean, I would be lying if I said it didn’t bug me at all… but I don’t care if you write a new novel. It’s just—” Miu’s eyes turned steely again. “I hate going along with Sakurai’s plots,” she declared fiercely. The drinks we’d ordered arrived. Miu took a swig of her caffe latte with cream and scrunched her face up at how hot it was, then put the cup back down. She took a quick sip of water from a glass with ice in it, set that on the table too, then looked squarely back at me. “I’m not going to fall into line for Ryuto Sakurai ever again. But Kazushi told me you were acting weird, and I was worried that Sakurai was doing something to you. So I came to see you because it’s what I wanted to do. Sakurai said he would bring you to the hospital, but I told him I would go see you myself so he didn’t need to bother.” She announced this crisply, then took a slow, cautious drink of her slightly cooler caffe latte. Despite the situation, I thought, Oh, right… Miu’s tongue burns easily… “What do you want to do, Konoha?” I couldn’t answer right away. “I… don’t want to write another novel.” The words that finally emerged from my mouth shook slightly and sounded pitifully frail. “I see…” A shadow fell over Miu’s face. “That’s… for the best.” It was the same thing Kanako had told me. It was just that Kanako’s words had been as cold as ice, whereas Miu’s had a hint of warmth in them. Still holding the cup in both hands, her look dark, Miu whispered, “I… think it’s best that you don’t go back to being Miu Inoue, too. After all, if you became Miu Inoue, you’d get hurt. Everyone would be focused on you and say whatever they wanted about you—people you don’t even know would hate you. You’d get kicked around, you’d get scorned, and they’d cut you to shreds with their words. “Of course, I’m sure there would be tons of people who would love another book by Miu. There are people waiting for the next book even now—but you know what, Konoha?” Miu’s expression was grim. “Readers betray authors.” Her words shot into my chest like arrows, digging into my flesh. “You may write because you want to see people smiling, but all they do is make selfish demands. You don’t communicate your own thoughts. They selfishly adore you, selfishly get disappointed, and selfishly hate you. One day, all of a sudden, without giving it a second thought, they become indifferent toward you. And soon they forget. Then they find a different author.” I was desperately fighting back the pain as sharp as arrowheads scraping around inside my body. What Miu said was true. I knew that because I was a reader who had betrayed an author—an author named Miu. I’d felt a selfish admiration for her, hadn’t noticed how she truly felt when she put those feelings in her stories, had constantly demanded that she write the next story even after she’d lost her ability to write. Back then, I’d done exactly what Tohko was doing now. “Why aren’t you writing?” “C’mon, write what happens next.” “I love your stories, Miu. You have to let me read more, Miu. Write!” The innocent, selfish, pitiless reader—so then was Tohko the reader who had betrayed me? “Readers don’t realize that authors suffer. If you look at it from their perspective, reading the book, that suffering doesn’t matter. Just like authors write without worrying about their readers’ individual situations…” After that burst of words, she dropped her eyes. “ ‘Being an author is a line of work in which you pass through a narrow gate alone’… Sakurai’s mother wrote that in her afterword. Kanako Sakurai—you know about her, right? She wrote The Immoral Passage.” Hearing Miu speak Kanako’s name and the title of her book made me jump. Her eyes still lowered, Miu whispered, “I’ve read a lot of her books. I’ve written about my hatred for you, too, but… it was different from Kanako Sakurai’s novels. I don’t know how she can write such raw, murky stories in that cold, transparent way. There’s a little girl named Toco in the book. It’s…” Miu trailed off. She was, after all, probably hesitant to say what happened in the novel to the girl who shared Tohko’s name. She bit her lip slightly, then murmured in a voice touched with pain. “I think… Kanako Sakurai is a true author. But I think it would be tough on you to try and approach the same gate as her. That severe lifestyle, throwing everything away like she did to chase a single supreme achievement…” She gazed at me consolingly. “You’re not like me, Konoha,” she whispered. “You didn’t start out wanting to be an author…” Her face was somehow bitter and sad. We went our separate ways from the café. Miu went out leaning on Akutagawa. “I told you how I feel. If you want to write, go ahead,” she declared, casting the words at me pointedly, her face open to the end. Akutagawa, who had kept his silence at Miu’s side, turned earnest eyes on me just as we were parting and said, “Inoue, no matter how much you run around, you can’t go down two paths at the same time. You should stop here and think about which path is the most rewarding one for you until you can accept it. I’ll help you whenever I can.” “Thanks.” I watched the two of them leave. My mood was still bleak. I sat on a couch in the café and reflected on what Miu had told me. “… If you became Miu Inoue again, you’d get hurt.” “Readers betray authors.” It wasn’t just readers who betrayed people. Authors betrayed readers, too. One day, all of a sudden, they would just stop writing. Readers and authors—the thread that tied them together was extremely tenuous and could be snapped instantly. There was no such thing as a sure connection. I knew that. And yet. When I remembered the sight of Tohko, enveloped in the golden light of sunset in the tiny book club room, tearing the stories I’d written into little pieces and bringing them reverently to her mouth, my throat burned and my chest fluttered. “Yummmm! Today’s snack is a winner!” Tohko smiling contentedly. Every single day I had written improv stories as snacks for her. No matter how unappetizing the story was, Tohko had finished it. Even if we didn’t say anything to each other, I would turn to my paper and write, and beside me Tohko would thumb through a book—just that, somehow warm, easing my tension, as if we were linked by something invisible; that’s how I felt. But maybe it had all been a one-sided delusion. Just then, a voice spoke from the seat behind me. “You shouldn’t write because you’ll get hurt. Miu’s gotten pretty sappy, huh? I’m disappointed.” Behind the vivid green upholstery, I saw Ryuto and every hair on my body stood on end. I’d been hearing his voice over the phone this whole time, but I hadn’t seen him since the Sunday Kotobuki came over to my house. The sunniness that usually surrounded him and the carefree nature that was impossible to hate had vanished. He gave off an unsettling authority that glinted with danger and chilled me to the bone as he slid into the seat where Miu had so recently been. From there, he fixed his eyes on me, his gaze that of a vicious, predatory animal. I couldn’t move, as if his eyes had pinned me to the spot. I couldn’t so much as close my eyes or break his gaze. “That’d be a problem for me. There’s someone who’s gonna get hurt if you don’t write. Someone who’s gonna be disappointed. Are you gonna turn your back on a reader like that, Konoha? Miu Inoue wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Tohko Amano. You’re Tohko Amano’s author an’ everythin’.” “What do you mean, Miu Inoue wouldn’t exist?” There was a lump in my throat that made it hard to talk. The corners of Ryuto’s mouth hitched up slightly. That made him look even more threatening. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s at home right now.” He saw my hesitation and murmured, “You should go soon. ’Cos I think she got poisoned, and she’s gonna die soon.” Ole Lukøje has a little brother, you know. His name is Ole Lukøje, just like his big brother, but he comes to a person only once in their life. He wears a silver embroidered coat and a black velvet cape, and he rides a horse. Then he takes you onto his horse and tells you a story. He has only two stories. The first is a story more beautiful than any other, that none in the world could imagine. The second is a disturbing story that makes you shudder. Every living person taken onto his horse slips into eternal slumber as they listen to one of these stories. Kana, which of Ole Lukøje’s two stories is the supreme story you aspire to, I wonder? I put the sleeping powder of Ole Lukøje that the little violet bottle held within it into a locked jewelry box. Sometimes I take it out and hold it in the light and gaze at it. I stare through the translucent violet glass, entranced by the tenderly rolling silver dust. I press it to my flushed cheek, and the cool sensation heals me. As long as I have this vial, I can change my destiny. Surely I could even pass through the gates of heaven that tower so high and far away. To whom does this heart in my hand now belong? To me? To him? To you, Kana? When I reached the Sakurai home, I was coated with sweat beneath my jacket and my head was cold and soaked with melted snow. Obviously he was lying when he said Tohko had been poisoned and was going to die. But I recalled the Amanos who had died in a car accident and the novel Kanako had written, and a string of anxieties bubbled up in my mind. I thought I was going to give myself indigestion. I couldn’t focus. If things were the way Kanako’s debut novel said, the old-fashioned, Japanese-style, one-story house was also the house where her own father had strangled and dismembered her mother, then hung himself beside her. I felt as if someone was watching me, and a chill I hadn’t felt when I’d come here before shook my entire body. I rang the bell persistently, but there was no answer. The chill seemed to be crawling up my spine, and it continued the entire time I waited. Was Tohko not here? If she’d gone out, fine, but—but if by some chance she was dying like Ryuto had said— I continued to push the bell, lost in my thoughts. She wasn’t coming! I threw the sliding front door to one side, and it opened easily since it wasn’t locked. “Hello? It’s me, Inoue!” I shouted loudly, ignoring manners. “I’m coming in!” I pulled off my shoes and hurried over the squeaky boards of the hallway. Even though it was the middle of the day, the weather was bad, so it was dim inside and almost painfully cold. Just then, I heard something crash over. I pulled open a sliding door and headed intently in the direction from which the sound had come. There I found a girl with long braids lying on her face on the floor. She was wearing pale violet pajamas! It was Tohko! “Tohko! It’s me! Wake up!” When I picked her up in my arms, I could feel how shockingly hot her skin was through her thin cotton pajamas. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she looked like she was having trouble breathing. She looked like she could die any second! Had she really been poisoned? Had someone fed it to her? What should I do? They say when someone has food poisoning to make them drink lots of water to dilute whatever is in their stomach, but would that work on Tohko? Should I give her medicine? Or call an ambulance or something? As I struggled over these questions, Tohko’s eyelashes fluttered and her eyes opened faintly. “… Konoha.” “You’re awake! What kind of poison did she give you?! What should I do?!” I was shouting in her face, but Tohko spoke in a weak voice, breathing painfully. “Poison… whaddaya mean…? I just… caught a cold…” “A cold?!” My eyes popped open. “This is just a little cold?!” “Nngh. It’s not a little cold, it’s… a huge one.” She had deliberately corrected me, and I got fed up. “Then why aren’t you asleep in bed, like you should be?! Why are you lying on the floor?!” “Because… the bell kept ringing. It wouldn’t stop, so I tried to go to the door, but then my fever made me faint and I tripped on something and I fell over…” Since I’d been the one pressing the bell so persistently, ignorant of what was happening, my voice choked off. “I… I’m sorry.” Normally she would have puffed her chest up importantly and said, “You should have known,” but today she was lying limply against my shoulder. “Ack! Tohko!” Her body was so hot. I had to put her in bed at least. I circled Tohko’s arm around my neck and stood her up, half dragging her along. There was a carpet laid out on the woven mat flooring in her room. She had pale violet curtains on the window and a huge number of books on the large bookshelves, and her futon was spread out on top of the carpet. Tohko must have been sleeping there until a few minutes ago. The sheets were tangled up, and the blanket and comforter were thrown to one side. I laid Tohko down in her bed and pulled the blankets over her. When I put a hand to her forehead, it was burning hot. “Do you need medicine, Tohko?” “… I took some a couple minutes ago.” What kind of medicine? Would it actually help? Doubts crossed my mind one after another, but I decided not to think about it too deeply for now. I had witnessed plenty enough of irrationality when it came to Tohko over the last two years. Even a goat or a parrot would get better with medicine or a vaccine if you took them to the hospital. It was the same thing. I went to the bathroom and found a towel and a basin, filled the basin with water, then got ice out of the freezer and made ice water. Then I went back to Tohko’s room. I dipped the towel in the basin, wrung it out firmly, then rested it on her forehead. With a different towel, I wiped the sweat from Tohko’s face and neck, trying to keep it from coating her skin again. No matter how I daubed at her, the sweat kept coming. And the towel on her forehead warmed up so quickly that I had to change it several times. I recalled that when Tohko had returned my scarf to me yesterday morning, my hand had brushed hers. It had been as cold as ice. How long had she been standing there? In that freezing cold, alone, waiting for me to come. Could that be the reason she’d gotten sick? A long time ago, when I was still a first-year, Tohko had caught a cold and missed a couple days of school. It was right around the beginning of the third term, I think. Tohko had been acting strange a little before it happened. Not that she had swooned from a fever or anything, but the way she talked and acted toward me… She would look away suddenly, or her face would turn bright red, or she would throw a childish temper tantrum saying, “Don’t come any closer! Don’t come near me!” and start acting standoffish. “Did I do something wrong?” “Just don’t! I mean…” Never giving a concrete explanation, she would drag her chair a distance away, as if to keep an eye on me. But really, the room was so cramped that distance wasn’t worth much. “Would you rather I stopped coming?” “Y-you can’t do that!” “Then what should I do?” “This is all your fault.” “What is?” “No!” Last of all, her face would crumple, and she’d look like she was about to cry. She would spin around on her fold-up chair to turn her back on me and hug her knees to her chest. What had that really been about? Around the same time, I ended my period of resistance against Tohko and found myself beginning to head to the book club even when Tohko didn’t come to get me. It had become a ritual for me after school to listen as Tohko read a book and rambled on about it, and I had even ceased particularly questioning it when she ripped a page out of a book and ate it right in front of me. In fact, it was somehow reassuring to see Tohko sitting on a fold-up chair with her knees drawn up, happily eating a book. It was about the time that I’d started to think spending my time after school with a president who was so childish and meddling and talkative and such a nuisance to everyone around her—it might not be so bad after all. And yet, the very moment I got used to Tohko, the person who had until then held my hand without a second thought, or peeked down at the story I was working on with her face practically up against mine and nagged me, “Go faster; I’m hungryyy. I won’t make it!” now would turn bright red and whip her hand away if our fingers so much as brushed each other when I handed her a snack. Or if I got within three feet of her, her eyes would bug out and she’d leap back as if she’d seen a monster. It just didn’t make sense. Things had gone on that way for about three days, I think. When I went to the clubroom, Tohko wasn’t there yet. I waited for her, thinking she would come any second, but in the end she never appeared. And although it wasn’t as if I wanted to see her for any particular reason, still I went home feeling somehow let down. The next day, in return for standing me up, I dashed off a sloppy story while I waited her out, but again Tohko didn’t come. She’d been acting strange lately. I wondered if something had happened. Was she skipping out on the club meetings because she didn’t want to see me? I would have thought there was less than no reason for that to bother me, but it did—and on the fourth day without Tohko showing herself, I went to the second-years’ classes during a break to sneak a look at her. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted Tohko to show up at club meetings. I’d just come to make sure she was still alive since she’d so abruptly stopped coming, and after coming to see me every day. Maybe she’d gone back to the land of goblins? In which case I would be able to quit the book club, too. And yet I was nervous about going to a higher year’s classroom, and utterly unable to call into her classroom for her, I was dithering out in the hall when an older girl addressed me. “Hey, aren’t you Tohko’s kid? If you’re looking for her, she’s been out sick since Monday. I guess she stayed outside a long time that day it snowed. I called her yesterday and it sounded like she was pretty much okay, so I think she’ll be here tomorrow or next week.” Out sick? Did goblins get sick? And in any case, what was she doing staying out in the snow for so long? There had been a big snowstorm in town the weekend before. She hadn’t actually gone out that day, had she? All the trains were stopped. It would have been such an ordeal. That would be so reckless. Fed up, annoyed—and for some reason also relieved. That day, I knew that Tohko was out, but I went to book club after classes anyway and spent my time alone, thinking about her. The next day after school, when I opened the door to the clubroom, Tohko was sitting on a fold-up chair with her feet pulled up, reading a book, like always. Then she saw my face and smiled and—“Hello, Konoha. I’m hungry. Write me somethiiiing.”—she wheedled. “Is it true you got lonely because I was out so long?” As she leaned forward, tilting the chair along with her, and peeked happily into my face, I asked, “I thought I wasn’t supposed to come near you?” “Oh, it’s fine! My cold’s all gone now. You won’t catch anything.” “No, not your cold, I…” “Hmm? Hmm? What are you asking about? Forget that and get to work on writing me something. Something suuuper sweet to celebrate your president’s recovery.” Tohko had returned to her original, unreserved, unguarded self. That made me pretty angry and I made a spicy improv story Tohko’s gift for getting over her cold. Had Tohko been at home in a state like this that time, too? Breathing roughly, taking medicine all alone, lying in bed for days? Maybe Ryuto had taken care of her. But what about Kanako? The house was cold and silent within. The snow must have changed over into rain. Beyond the violet curtains I heard the faint sound of rainfall. Tohko looked like she was in pain. Her eyes were closed and she was panting. As I wiped away the sweat beading on her skin with the wet towel, I felt unbelievably restless. All I could do was pray that Tohko be a little more comfortable. I’d heard that Tohko was only eight years old when she’d started living in this old house. How must she have felt losing her parents so suddenly, and both at once? Had she been constantly ignored by Kanako, a “nonexistent child” in the house, the way Ryuto had said? When I had that thought, I hurt as if my heart were being wrenched out. When I was in elementary school and I caught a cold, my mother would gently take my temperature and give me medicine. She would smile and say, “It’s all right; you’ll be better before you know it,” and stroke my head. Then she would scoop up a spoonful of applesauce or homemade jelly and feed it to me. My room was warm, and my mother was kinder than usual and smelled good. I almost enjoyed getting sick. After Tohko’s parents died, I knew there hadn’t been any adults who nursed her that affectionately. I remembered the words Tohko had gently murmured when she’d come over to my house, gazing tenderly at every single thing in my room. “What a lovely family.” “So you grew up in this house… surrounded by these kind people.” A gentle smile—as if she was truly happy about that—as transparent as if it had leaked from deep within her heart. That smile rose in my mind’s eye and my chest clenched unbearably tight. I surveyed Tohko’s room with a feeling of chilling desolation. The wooden desk the color of tea, the chair with burn marks on the legs. An old chest of drawers. So many books lined up neatly on a huge bookcase. Old Japanese classics, famous books from the turn of the century in Japan, from modern times, from abroad, poetry collections, children’s books—I was sure that she had read and reread the old books from that wide variety of genres and ages time and again. They weren’t for eating. Among them I spotted Gide’s Strait Is the Gate. It was a hardcover with an old binding. The holy woman Alissa who left Jerome to move toward God. The author Kanako Sakurai standing frigidly in the lobby of the hotel. The Immoral Passage, the novel she’d written—and Arisa, the woman of ice and fire who hadn’t balked even from committing murder in order to reach supremacy. The three women rose in my mind and my throat grew suddenly dry. I went up to the bookcase, took the book down, and turned back the cover. Inside, I found an inscription written with a fountain pen. To Tohko From Dad There was something feminine about the beautiful, flowing letters. Had this book been a gift from Tohko’s father? I took down several other books and turned back their covers, too. But there was nothing written in them. Was it only this book? If so, then why had Fumiharu written the message “To Tohko” in this of all books? Did it have something to do with how Kanako had mingled the main character of The Immoral Passage with Strait Is the Gate’s Alissa? In fact, in The Immoral Passage, the character Haru, who seemed to have been modeled on Fumiharu, tells Arisa, “You’re like Alissa seeking the love of heaven.” Maybe that was something Fumiharu had actually said to Kanako. I turned through the pages. Deeply moved by the words of a priest in church to “enter in by the narrow gate,” Jerome prays fervently to go through the gate with Alissa. “The two of us will don white costumes as recited in Revelations, then take hold of one another’s hands and move forward, focused on the same goal…” For Jerome, the narrow gate was also the gate that led to Alissa. He had no doubt that the two of them could walk the path that led to God together. What had Fumiharu thought about Kanako? Had they been linked by a powerful bond, each of them aspiring to a single thing like Arisa and Haru from The Immoral Passage? Mr. Sasaki had said that Kanako’s relationship with Fumiharu had been a chaste union. And that she must have felt competitive toward his wife, Yui, that she would deliberately call Fumiharu away on his days off… What had Juliette—had Yui—who was married to Jerome thought of that? My hand froze. A photo had been slipped between the books. It looked like it had been taken at a zoo. A man with an intelligent, gentle cast to his face was smiling, holding a girl with braids in his arms. The girl looked like she was having fun, too. Beside them a woman with loose waves in her long, shiny hair was smiling. She was petite, cute, and seemed somewhat ethereal. It had to be Fumiharu and Yui—and Tohko. Yui’s smile looked exactly like Tohko’s. And Fumiharu’s clear gaze resembled the clear eyes Tohko sometimes had when she wore an intelligent expression. I felt my throat closing up at the sight of this family who looked truly happy and seemed to be truly close. Behind me, Tohko panted painfully. I closed the book and returned it to the shelf, then wrung out the towel that had been on her forehead and wiped off her sweat. The ice in the basin had all melted into water. I could hear nothing but the gentle sound of falling rain and the breath coming out of Tohko. My sense of time grew vague. But it ought to be evening soon. When would everyone be coming home…? Ryuto might not come home with things the way they were, although he might be watching how things were going from somewhere. According to what Mr. Sasaki had told me, Kanako had other places where she worked, so she might be there, writing. What time did she ordinarily come home? Or did she not come back for several days at a time? I opened my cell phone and found a message from Kotobuki. She was worried about why I’d left so suddenly, whether I was feeling all right, whether my relative had taken a turn for the worse. I could tell that she sensed something unnatural in my behavior and was hesitant to ask about it, even though she wanted to. It was only natural she’d find it suspicious when I’d left the classroom the way I did. My stomach hurt, like it was twisting into knots. My sense of guilt over the unforgivable things I was doing to Kotobuki cut into me. I’m sorry. Don’t worry about me. That was all I sent her. I wondered how many “sorrys” this made now and guilt dug at my chest even more. Even though I knew exactly how pointless it was to tell her not to worry. I also sent my mom a text that I might be home late, so I didn’t need dinner. I shut my phone, feeling a heavy, black lump lodged in my stomach. I changed the towel on Tohko’s forehead and wiped away her sweat again after that. It was nearly eight o’clock at night when Tohko woke up. Her fever hadn’t gone down, and I was sure she must have been in pain. She looked at me with bleary eyes, taking short, panting breaths. “… What time is it, Konoha?” “About four o’clock.” “Nuh-uh… it’s dark outside.” “Does it matter what time it is? Do you want to take some medicine? Where is it?” “Under my blanket…” “Your blanket?” I pushed back her comforter and found a silver packet of cold medicine. “I’ll bring you some water. You should have something to eat before you take… what the?” A familiar-looking book was poking out from under her bed. I tugged it out and checked the title, and it was, as I’d suspected, the copy of Alt Heidelberg she’d made me buy when we went to Maki’s estate over the summer. She’d told me with a syrupy look on her face that it was the German version of Roman Holiday, that it’s the poignant romance of a crown prince and a girl from a boardinghouse. She hadn’t finished it yet… But the other two books, Tonio Kröger and Undine, had disappeared into her stomach in an instant. When I flipped through it, there were signs that it had been exhaustively read several times, and a third of the pages had been torn out. “Do you want this for dinner, Tohko?” I started tearing a page out when—“No!”—Tohko stopped me with a desperate voice. “Not that book.” She turned her face toward me, and the sight of her murmuring with teary eyes made my heart skip a beat. “Why not?” “If I eat it… I won’t have it anymore… Alt Heidelberg is all I have left. It’s the only one. So I can’t eat it…” Her voice croaked. Tohko feebly lifted herself up, then snatched the book from me and hugged it to her chest. She’d moved so suddenly, she swooned again. I hurried to catch her, then laid her down in the bed. Tohko curled up, hugging Alt Heidelberg tightly. My heart hurt at the childish gesture. “Then what book do you want? Or should I make you regular food? I know how to make soup.” I was sure Tohko was in a haze from her fever. Still hugging the book, she gazed up at me; then her face crumpled and she whispered in a voice on the verge of tears, “I want…” “Hmm?” “I want my mom’s food…” Like a little child. Her eyes watering powerlessly. Her voice wavering, as if she was giving voice to a wish she’d long held in her heart. “My mom was a book girl just like me.” “She would always write my dad and me delicious meals.” The happy family I’d seen in the photo. The little girl, her kind-looking father, and her mother. I remembered Tohko telling me that she and her father had both loved the stories her mother wrote for them, and my heart swelled until it felt like it would burst. After her mother passed away, had Tohko thought again and again about the food she used to write? Had she wished that she could eat her mother’s food? Even though she would have known better than anyone that it was impossible… Tohko’s face pinched and she looked closer to tears than ever. She hid her face with her book and bent her head, bit down on her lip, and trembled. “… Why did you come here, Konoha?” She sounded like she was attacking me. “I…” “I gave you back your scarf… and everything. I said good-bye… I thought… as long as I didn’t eat the rest of Alt Heidelberg… So why… why are you in my room?” I was silent. “You’re so mean, Konoha…” Tohko turned her back on me. I hadn’t anticipated the words she would fire at me at a time like this. I felt an ache as if something were chafing against my heart, grating against it, and I couldn’t say anything. So instead I opened my bag and took out my math notebook. I scribbled a little story out on the white page with a mechanical pencil. “School lunch,” “snack,” and “mother”— With the stories I’d heard of Tohko’s mother hovering in my mind—the little girl with the braids and the cute, ethereal woman beside her, both with their happy smiles—I scribbled down the words. When the page was full, I went to the next. When that was full, I went to the next. I wrote a two-and-a-half-page story, which I read aloud at Tohko’s side. The way Tohko had read Yuri’s diary at my side over the summer. Like a story read by a mother before her child falls asleep— The girl had just started elementary school and didn’t like school lunches. Even when everyone else was done eating, she sat alone, staring at her plate. Scolded by her teacher and teased by her classmates, the girl pleads with her mother, crying, “I don’t want to go to school. “I’m the only one who can’t eat the lunch they give us.” The mother speaks to the girl kindly. “Are you sure you can’t eat it? You only have to eat a little bit, so why not try it and see how it tastes? If you do, then I’ll make you a delicious snack as a reward.” The next day, the girl takes a tiny bite of a carrot in her stew, then holds her breath and swallows it. When she announces that, her mother hugs the girl and lets her eat a sweet, homemade treat. The next day and the next after that, little by little, the girl is able to eat the school lunches. Each time she does, her mother hugs her, warmly tells her, “Good job, you’re trying so hard,” and then makes her a treat. And so finally, the girl finishes an entire school lunch, smiles, and says it tasted great. I can’t wait to tell my mom, she thinks… I bet today’s treat will be the sweetest one of all. With her back still turned on me, Tohko seemed to be hanging on my story. In a quiet voice… slowly, one word at a time… I continued reading the clumsy story I’d written. Hoping that it would touch Tohko’s heart just a little, that it would reawaken the taste of her mother’s stories in her heart. That it would communicate itself to Tohko’s heart, to her tongue. Filled with that wish. But even after I read the last words, Tohko didn’t turn around. I tore off a small piece of the notebook paper, then stretched out my hand and brought it to Tohko’s mouth. “You can stay that way as long as you eat.” There was a silence in which she seemed to be holding her breath; then her soft lips touched my fingertips. Flp, mnch… the secretive sound of her chewing on paper… Tohko rolled onto her back. With a hesitant face that looked like she was sobbing—“… more,” she murmured. “Here you go.” I nodded with a smile, then tore off pieces and brought them to Tohko’s lips. Like a baby bird being fed by its mother, Tohko ate the scraps of the story out of my hand. Occasionally her lips or tongue would touch my fingers. When they did, my fingertips felt hot. When her teeth hit my fingers, I warned her, “Please don’t bite.” Embarrassed, she apologized. “… I’m sorry.” After that, she took the paper timidly in her lips, and staring at me with teary eyes, her jaw bobbed as she chewed. When I slipped the last scrap in through her parted lips, Tohko gulped it down, and then her face turned sad. “Let’s get you your medicine. I’ll bring some water.” “… Konoha.” I had stood up and was about to go to the kitchen when Tohko stopped me. I turned back around, and with an expression still melancholy, she murmured, “Thank you. It was… very sweet. It tasted nice.” I smiled. “I’m glad.” Tohko watched me, her eyes near to bawling. I spent that entire night at Tohko’s side. I texted my mom to tell her I was staying the night at Ryuto’s house. Her reply asked, Are you sure it’s not an imposition? I’d like to thank them. Can you send me their name and number? but I didn’t respond to that. Tohko slept soundly, so maybe the medicine was working. I took Strait Is the Gate down from the bookcase and spent the whole night reading it. “I only want you to remember that I loved you more than any other…”
Chapter 192
35 min read