Chapter 198

Chapter 2—Poison Dripping from the Hand I went to school with Kotobuki the next morning, too. When I told her I would meet her at her house because I was worried about her, she refused vehemently. “No, don’t! Then my whole family will find out I’m going out with you.” “I introduced you to my family.” “You told them I was a girl from your class…” “Th-that’s ’cos my mom got this idea that a boy was coming over. Besides, I promised that next time I would do it right and introduce you as my girlfriend.” “Urk. That’s true… but you still can’t come to my house.” “Even if I introduce myself as just a guy from your class?” “It’s not normal for a guy who’s just from my class to come all the way to my house in the morning. I said you can’t!” We talked it over heatedly on the phone that night until I broke. Even so, I was worried, and I got to our meeting spot thirty minutes early. But Kotobuki had gotten there first. I saw her breathing in white puffs, the scarf I’d given her wound around her neck, and my eyes went wide. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so early, Kotobuki.” “S-so are you. You’re here too early!” I guess she felt awkward because she pursed her lips and turned her face away. “I just had something else I needed to do and ended up getting here early, that’s all.” I held on to my smile and murmured, “Oh, okay. You had something else you needed to do,” and Kotobuki peered up at me through her eyelashes. “But that works out, since I came early, too. Now I can be with you that much longer.” When I said that, she turned bright red and murmured quietly, making an excuse, “I swear, it just happened this way. It’s not like… I th-thought you might come early or anything…” “Oh, so that’s what it was.” “I said it wasn’t!” Kotobuki had shouted this and whipped her face away again. “T-today it just happened that I came early, but I might not tomorrow… So you have to come at the time you said you would. I swear I’ll be fine. I let my guard down, too, yesterday. I’m being careful so that doesn’t happen again. I’m not going to make you worry.” She’d experienced something terrible because of me, but still she was being considerate of me. My heart clenched sweetly, and I squeezed Kotobuki’s hand firmly. Kotobuki jumped and looked up at me. “Thanks. Maybe you can’t rely on me yet, but I’ll be able to protect you eventually. I’ll be the one who gets stronger so I don’t make you worry. I’ll work hard at it, so I hope you won’t give up on me.” After I said it, I realized something. Aha, this is a sensation I never had when I was with Miu. Having something I wanted to protect felt so warm and happy. A smile spilled shyly over Kotobuki’s face. “I won’t.” Seeing her face, I felt another thrill and warm feelings filled my chest. We started walking, our hands linked. Even so, that didn’t mean I was slacking on my caution about Ryuto. After we reached the classroom, I reminded Kotobuki, “When you’re at school, do everything with someone.” “I will.” “And please put my cell phone number in your speed dial. When Inoue can’t pick up the phone, you can call me. I won’t mind.” “Thanks, Akutagawa. You should do that, Kotobuki.” “O-okay…” “I also got some self-defense stuff from my older sister. You can use it if you want.” Akutagawa laid out sprays and alarms and whatever else on his desk with a serious look. “… Thanks.” Kotobuki didn’t seem very into it, but she thanked him and put a bottle of spray and an alarm in her pocket. Maybe since the three of us were whispering in a tight little clump together for so long—it was so bad that Mori asked me worriedly at lunch, “Hey, are you guys in a threesome? Are you and Akutagawa fighting over Nanase?” “What?! No way!” “But yesterday the three of you all skipped class.” “We just went to the nurse’s office.” “I think it’d be pretty bad for you if Akutagawa challenged you, but you’ve got your own qualities. So try not to let Nanase go, okay? For me? I’m rooting for you, Inoue.” She gave me those words of encouragement and then left. Yet another bizarre misunderstanding… I was sure Mori would interrogate Kotobuki about it, too, and get her all flustered. That was the extent of the peril (?) and lunch ended without incident. It was during cleanup after school when Ryuto showed himself. When I was wiping the window that faced the balcony, I saw Ryuto cutting through the school yard. I thrust the window open and leaned out. The cold wind buffeted through my hair, stabbing at me. Behind me, a classmate yelled, “Eek! That’s cold! Shut the window, Inoue!” Ryuto was approaching the school building in agitated strides. My entire body tensed and my throat clenched tight. Was he planning on doing something to Kotobuki again? The scene in the underground room replayed in my mind, and I thought my body might rip itself apart with rage. I wouldn’t let him do anything like that again! But Ryuto didn’t go into the school building; he headed in a different direction. Huh? The only thing over there was the music hall that belonged to the school orchestra. Why was he going to the music hall? Had he come to see Maki, by some chance, and not me? But Ryuto and Maki were at each other’s throats. And I’d heard that just recently Maki had decked Ryuto in the library. That she’d knocked him onto his butt and it had made him sullen— Still not understanding the situation, unable to ignore it, I closed the window and put my cloth back in its bucket. Kotobuki was sweeping the floor, talking to Mori and her other friends. I drew up to Akutagawa, who had been carrying desks, and whispered in his ear. “Ryuto’s here. I’m going to go see what’s going on. Can you keep an eye on Kotobuki for me?” “You gonna be okay on your own?” Akutagawa furrowed his brow. “I’ll be fine. I need you to worry about Kotobuki instead.” With that, I ran out of the classroom. I bolted down the hall and headed for the music hall. The core of my brain was shrouded with a sizzling heat. I didn’t think it was possible, but if Ryuto and Maki joined forces, it would be a disaster. The two of them were identical when it came to brazenly ignoring logic and decency, and they weren’t choosy about their methods. Maybe that was why they hated each other so much. On the other hand, you’d expect there to be a lot of common ground between them precisely because they resembled each other so much. If I had to face Ryuto and Maki as enemies simultaneously, things would get scary. As my chest smoldered with an uneasy premonition, I went into the music hall and climbed up to the workroom where Maki painted her pictures. Takamizawa was standing in front of the door and he stopped me. “I’m very sorry. Miss Maki is with a guest.” “Ryuto is in there, isn’t he?!” “I am not at liberty to answer that.” Just as Takamizawa informed me of that in a mild tone, we heard the sound of something breaking and Ryuto yelling angrily from within. “Gimme a break, lady!” Takamizawa’s face pinched up, as if he thought things were going badly. “Why didn’t you tell me about the baby?! What d’you mean it’s none of my business?!” Baby?! Whose baby?! Ryuto’s voice was audible with such force it could have broken the door down. “That’s my baby inside you, right?! So, yeah, that’s my business!” “You”—did he mean Maki?! And “my baby”—! Takamizawa’s face looked like he was throwing his hands up in defeat. I opened the door and burst into the room. There were puddles of water on the floor, and a broken vase, flowers, and even art supplies were scattered flagrantly around the room. To one side of all that, Ryuto was storming up to Maki. He was pale, and wild rage and agitation had risen to his popping eyes. He had a threatening air, as if he was on the verge of strangling her. In contrast, Maki, who wore a work apron over her uniform, was facing Ryuto with a haughty look, as if she was looking down her nose at him. Still gaping, I asked, “Is that… true? What you just said? That she has your baby inside her?” They both turned to look at me. After a brief silence, Maki was the one who spoke. “It’s true that I’m going to have a child.” Her voice was calm and quiet. She proclaimed it with a mature expression that radiated with dignity. “But this little man has nothing to do with it.” “You bet I do! Who got you pregnant if it wasn’t me?! You’re not sleepin’ with anyone but me, are ya?!” Ryuto shouted, the words like beats of a fist. It was different from the black rage he’d turned on me because of Tohko. It was a fiercer anger, one that flashed into flames more openly. I was bowled over even more by the raw words he spat out without any hesitation. “H-hold on! Are you saying—something like that happened between you two?” “There wouldn’t be a kid if not, would there?!” Ryuto moaned. “I guess not, but—Ryuto, aren’t you going out with Takeda? I mean, I know you’ve got tons of girlfriends besides her, but—but—! I didn’t think you and Maki got along! Every time you see each other, you trade insults, and then when you went to Maki’s estate over the summer, you guys had a huge fight! She kicked you and told you to get out or whatever, and you said you were gone, and—hold on.” Just then my thoughts came to a stop. I thought back more carefully over the events of the summer. Ryuto had left the villa as if he’d been driven off by Maki, but during the morning two days later, he’d been walking down the hall with his hair looking as if he’d just taken a shower somehow. “Did you stay the night here? Didn’t you go into town?” “Y’know, there was all this stuff goin’ on.” That day, an ambiguous, inscrutable smile had come over Ryuto’s face, and he had deflected my question. And then there was Maki… She had appeared in a bathrobe, as if she had just that second gotten out of the bath, and had marks like bugbites on her chest and neck, and it had been incredibly alluring— Now I recalled that Ryuto had the same marks on his neck, too, and I froze. Had the two of them been together that night?! My cheeks burned and my heart pounded loudly. Then I remembered something even more important. The night before, I had taken a walk with Tohko to the lake. We saw Yuri and Akira’s ghosts there. But no, Tohko had screamed, “It’s a ghooost!” all on her own and ran off, so that’s how things wound up, but maybe it hadn’t been a ghost— Maybe the man and woman tangled together naked in the moonlit pond had been— “R-Ryuto, you two didn’t… uh… go for a swim at the lake near the estate over the summer, did you?” “Yes, we did. We went for a swim and something else, too,” Maki answered freely. My eyes bugged out, and my mouth opened and closed wordlessly. The two of them really had been together that night! But Maki, heir to the Himekura Group, a privileged princess to the core who seemed like she had no time for men, had done it outdoors! And with Ryuto of all people! “So if the baby is from that night, that’s almost seven months already!” I’d heard that babies are born at ten months and ten days. If the birth was premature, it might slip out at seven months. This was bad! I wasn’t the one who was going to give birth or anything, and yet I was rattled. I looked at Maki’s stomach. There was a seven-month-old baby in there—it probably already looked like a person. Huh? But Maki’s stomach was perfectly svelte. It didn’t look like there was a baby in there. I’m sure different people show differently, but was this what a stomach looked like at seven months? Looking fed up, Maki said, “Calm down, Konoha. It’s going to be a long time before I give birth. It’s fine.” “Three more months is nothing!” Maki sighed in exasperation. “Three months is three months, but I’m not giving birth in three months. I just started the third month.” “Huh?” My jaw dropped. “It’s not from the summer?” “No.” “Then it’s not Ryuto’s baby.” As soon as I said it, Ryuto wailed. “That is my kid! Third month means it was that one time, right? Or maybe that other time? Dammit, you said it was okay!” “What was okay?! Are you saying you’ve been seeing each other that often?! It wasn’t just one time over the summer because you got confused?” Agh, Did you do it? Did you? I feel like I’ve been babbling about embarrassing stuff for too long now. “I’ll leave that to your imagination,” Maki stated bluntly, as if it was nothing. I felt as if I was about to collapse. Ryuto bit down fiercely on his lip and glared at Maki with wild eyes that were filled with rage. Uneasiness and perplexity steadily colored his expression. He squeezed his fists so tight that his nails must have been digging into his hands, then whispered in a muffled, rasping voice, “… You gonna have it?” His face looked tortured, as if he was desperately holding up under a pain that threatened to drive him crazy. The next moment his face twisted intensely, he howled, and then shouted, “I said, ‘You gonna have it?’! You gonna have that thing in your belly?! Answer me, Princess!” Maki looked at Ryuto with a straight, unfaltering expression, then coldly said, “That is none of your business. This is my problem.” Ryuto’s face drew tight. Maki’s voice echoed majestically in the quiet workroom. Her face and tone of voice were almost heartlessly clipped. “I’m the only one who’s going to make decisions about myself. Now and for the rest of my life. So leave.” Ryuto made a face like he was about to cry; then a shudder ran through his shoulders, and his eyes became wild and filled with rage once more, and he growled, “… Don’t have it. You cannot have it!! It’s—that kid is—” His voice was stretching higher and higher, his eyes sparked, and he made a grab at Maki. Takamizawa had stood silently until then, but he put Ryuto into a full nelson and pulled him away from her. “I’m very sorry. I need to ask you to leave for today.” Takamizawa was slender and gave an impression of being more intellectual than anything else, so it didn’t seem like he’d be that strong, and yet Ryuto was unable to free himself from his hold. His face twisted. And so he was dragged out of the room. “Maki! You don’t know what you’re doin’! I’m not gonna let you have that kid! I swear it!” His howling voice grew distant until it finally disappeared. I was utterly stupefied and could do nothing but stand there. “So? What was it you wanted, Konoha?” When Maki spoke to me, I came back to my senses. Maki was looking at me with a smirk. “Wh—no, I… I saw Ryuto and followed him. And then I… I’m—I’m sorry.” “You don’t have to apologize. You would have found out anyway. Just don’t tell Tohko about it yet, okay? It would just make her angry, I’m sure.” How could she be this calm? Graduation was looming, but she was still in high school, and plus I was sure Maki’s family was incredibly strict. “I won’t tell anyone.” “Thank you.” Maki looked no different than usual. It was only when her lips softened into a smile and she gently rested her right hand over her stomach that a shudder went up my spine. Even after I left the music hall, I was confused and my feet wobbled unsteadily. Maki and Ryuto had been getting together and now they had a child—I wondered if Maki intended to have it. I remembered how she’d told me yesterday, “There are women who can have a man’s child without being in love,” and my breathing grew strained. “It could be… for revenge?” My heart chilled, as if someone had pressed ice against it. No, Maki hadn’t been talking about herself. No matter how much she disliked Ryuto, I didn’t think she had a reason for something like revenge… But if Maki went ahead and had the baby, what would Ryuto do? He’d told her not to have it, with that tortured look on his face—Ryuto wasn’t happy to have a child. In fact, he seemed terrified, seemed to hate it. And what about Takeda? There were only a few people left in the classroom. Akutagawa and Kotobuki had waited for me, and they looked nervous. “Inoue!” “Did you talk to Sakurai?” “Are you okay? You look out of it. Did Sakurai hit you in the head or something?” “I’m fine,” I said, evading her question. “I didn’t manage to… talk to Ryuto. But I’m pretty sure he didn’t come here to do anything to us.” “How come?” “Uh… he seemed pretty busy with girl problems.” When I told them that, Kotobuki and Akutagawa both gaped at me. Akutagawa went to his club and I left school with Kotobuki. I went with her on a shopping trip; then afterward we got a drink at a fast-food place and talked. Occasionally I would remember about Maki and Ryuto and— “Geez, you’re spacing out again.” There were occasions when Kotobuki pursed her lips curtly, and I would hastily apologize, but… We passed some time amicably, and after I’d seen Kotobuki off, I went home, too. “Welcome home, Konoha. One of your friends is here.” “Huh? Who?” I saw the basketball shoes next to the door and cocked my head to one side. These probably weren’t Akutagawa’s shoes… “It’s Ryuto.” “What?! Ryuto?!” I shouted, shocked. “He’s been waiting in your room for you this whole time. Poor thing.” “P-poor thing?” Thrown off by my mother’s strangely intense feelings, I climbed the stairs and entered my room. “Ryuto? I’m coming in.” I opened the door. When I did, the smell of alcohol hit my nose. “Yer late, Konoha,” Ryuto said in a loud, upbeat voice, sitting cross-legged on my floor. His eyes were bleary and his cheeks were red. Several empty cans of beer lay on the table and carpet. There were even bottles of whiskey and brandy, and even those had broken seals! “Ryuto, you’re not old enough to drink!” He didn’t look it at all, but I was pretty sure he was younger than me. “Don’t be so hard on me, okay? You sure are uptight, ain’cha, Konoha?” Ryuto waved around the whiskey bottle he was holding, and I moved in from the side to swipe it from him. “If you want to get wasted, do it at your own house. Why are you here?” With what he’d done to Kotobuki, blustering around without any consideration for me, then getting drunk in my house—I didn’t get it. When I got angry and spoke to him in a strong voice, his eyes suddenly became melancholy and uncertain and his head dropped. “Are you gonna say that to me, Konoha?” he asked in a whisper, his shoulders slumped. “Are you kidding me? Did you forget what you’ve done to me?” “… You’re a cold one, Konoha.” “Excuse me?” “… You take forever to come home, for one thing.” “We didn’t make any plans. You just barged in here.” “… The alcohol’s not even that strong.” “Then don’t drink it! I mean, you’re underage! You have to be twenty to drink!” “… It’s your fault I drank so much.” “Everything you’ve said to me so far has been a total joke.” Suddenly Ryuto’s shoulders shook dramatically. Shockingly, he seemed to be crying. Salty drops pattered onto his knees. It was bizarre seeing a man burlier than me sobbing like a child. Even more so, the terrifying guy who until very recently had tenaciously pursued me with eyes flashing like a wild dog’s. Now he was crying defenselessly. “… You wouldn’t kill me, Konoha—even though you might as well kill me if you don’t wanna write— “Nobody’ll kill me. Everyone tosses me aside. Maki’d never tell me she cares about me or loves me—does that mean she only wants my body? All she wanted was my sperm?” “H-hold on, Ryuto—” I wish you wouldn’t say that so loudly. There’s a girl in elementary school in my house, too. “My mom is going to come if you aren’t quiet.” “Ah, she’s great. Your mom’s so bubbly and nice, and she’s great at cooking… nngh… She’s really great. A kid would have to be happy being born to a mother like that. Your mom is kinda like Aunt Yui. I used to wish I was born to Yui… If I had been, I woulda eaten tons of great food every day, she woulda patted me on the head and hugged me and been able to say stuff like, ‘Have a good day,’ or ‘Welcome home,’ with a smile, and I woulda been crazy happy. I woulda been able to call Yui mom…” “Ack, hey, Ryuto…!” He came at me, clinging to me, and I reeled back. Ryuto circled his hand around the back of my neck in a steel grip and sobbed, his breath stinking of alcohol. “God… why did Jerome love Alissa, y’think? Wasn’t Juliette a thousand times better than that joyless stuck-up cow? Juliette was in love with Jerome even. All that moron did was tag after Alissa, tryin’ to get with her. Even though Alissa was cold and egotistical and spun up some crazy justification for herself and went through the narrow gate alone to go to God, that horrible, selfish woman.” “R-Ryuto—that hurts. Don’t squeeze so hard. And you reek of alcohol. Don’t get your face so close—ugh, you’re heavy.” When I tried to push him off, he clung to me harder instead and wailed. “That’s how Alissa pushed Jerome away, too! She had the nerve to tell him, ‘Don’t taint our love,’ actin’ like a saint. Wasn’t she the one who was taintin’ it?! “But Jerome wouldn’t quit moonin’ over her. What a total idiot.” Ryuto snuffled grandly. Ugh, he got snot on my uniform… “Did you know that the guy who wrote Strait Is the Gate was gay? He married his cousin Madeleine, and they were together forty years, but he never touched her! “He loved her, but he wrote in his diary about how he felt no desire for a refined lady like her, without givin’ her a second thought. “He published memoirs about how he liked men, or about how he did it out in a field on a trip he took, or a story about how he went with Oscar Wilde, who was a famous pederast, to buy a little boy together. He killed a character in one of his stories that was pretty obviously modeled on Madeleine. He did whatever he wanted. He’d write just about anythin’ about his private life in his diary or his novels, and the feelings he wrote about are the most thoughtless ones. “They say Alissa and Jerome are modeled on Madeleine and Gide, too. The way she’s his cousin and two years older than him and the way she turned down Gide’s marriage proposal are exactly the same. But Madeleine wasn’t as selfish as Alissa. She was reserved and kind—she was a lovin’ wife, but Gide wrote it the way he wanted it to be! And then Alissa became a selfish woman who chooses God and casts Jerome aside. “Alissa’s cruel, but Gide is the worst. You agree! Don’cha, Konoha?” I helplessly, emptily murmured, “Yeah, you’re right,” patting Ryuto on the back as I said it. What was I doing? How had I been reduced to comforting the guy who’d been threatening me mercilessly up until yesterday? Ryuto buried his face against my neck and wept. The thing with Maki had really upset him… I recalled the frigid reaction I’d seen Maki give him in the workroom, and it made me sympathize with Ryuto a little. If I’d been tossed out like that, I’d probably want to cry, too. Though with Ryuto, there was a little bit of just deserts involved. “… They’re all awful. Gide an’ Alissa an’ Jerome an’ Princess Himekura, too. “The reason Maki did all that with me was to rebel against her family. “By goin’ out with me, she just wanted to prove that she wasn’t gonna do whatever they told her to, since I don’t fit in with them at all. She used me.” Yeah, that might be part of it… From what I’d glimpsed of the situation in Maki’s family at her estate over the summer… I recalled her relationship with her grandfather, who ruled with absolute authority, and I had to agree. Maki seemed like she wanted to be free of the Himekura family. “—Chee doesn’t care about me, either,” Ryuto proclaimed between sobs. “After Maki chased me off, I went to Chee’s class, but she’d already left with her friends.” “Well, that… she can’t help that. You guys didn’t have plans to meet up or anything.” “But when I called her and told her I wanted to see her, she said she couldn’t ’cos she was gonna go see a movie with her friends. And then she hung up! She was like, we were together a whole bunch yesterday, so I’m gonna pass today—even though her man was hurtin’ so bad and torn up and puttin’ out the SOS!” He seemed genuinely in despair somehow. I was fed up. “Y’know… it’s wrong to try to get Takeda to comfort you. If you tell her you got another girl pregnant and she was mean to you—any normal girl would get mad and break up with you. Well, Takeda might be forgiving about it, but…” “I mean, she doesn’t care no matter who I go out with, so she’d be able to just watch a blowup with another woman totally calmly. Chee doesn’t wanna tie me down or monopolize me or nothin’ like that. Even though I told her that she could if she wanted… Even if it is just pretend, she’s my girlfriend, so she oughta at least be nice at a time like this. Even if it is a lie! I care about her! And I care about Maki, too. But it doesn’t even matter.” “Whaaaa—? Really? You care about Maki?” “I do. That wrong?” “I, uh, didn’t mean—” But he cared about Takeda, and he cared about Maki, and he cared about Amemiya, who had passed away, and he probably cared about other girls, too. He just had too big of a heart. I couldn’t handle the fact that he had no sense of guilt. Ah, but… Takeda had said as much. That there was someone special that Ryuto truly cared about. That he couldn’t have that person and so everyone else was a replacement for her. Someone that Ryuto had truly cared about. It was probably Tohko’s mother, Yui. The woman who had been Ryuto’s first love. “Everyone tosses me aside in the end. Yui’s the only one who ever loved me. Yui gave me everythin’… kind words, warmth, all of it. And yet because Jerome cared for Alissa, Juliette couldn’t help but get hurt and broken. If I were Jerome, I woulda loved Juliette. I woulda made Juliette happy.” A chill went through my heart. When Ryuto had talked about Juliette before, I hadn’t known whom he meant by “Juliette marrying Jerome.” But now that I knew Fumiharu was Jerome, Kanako was Alissa, and Yui was Juliette, Ryuto’s words became cloaked in a different meaning. Jerome loved Alissa and didn’t love Juliette. Which meant Fumiharu Amano loved Kanako Sakurai and wasn’t in love with Yui Amano— It was as if a pitch-black shadow had fallen over me; I could barely breathe, and I quickly denied the thoughts rising in my heart. I didn’t want to think that the memories of her parents that Tohko had recounted so joyfully were a lie. Her voice kind, as if a tender past had risen in the back of her mind. Sweet yearning coloring her eyes. “When my dad proposed to my mom, he said, ‘I want you to be my author. Just mine.’ My dad and I both loved the meals my mom wrote for us.” The photo of her parents that I’d found in Tohko’s room had looked happy, too. But immediately after denying this, doubts bubbled up once more. How my literary agent Mr. Sasaki had said Fumiharu and Kanako’s relationship was a “chaste union.” And how he had said that maybe Fumiharu understood Kanako as an author better than anyone and also how Kanako had often done things to rub Yui’s nose in her relationship with Fumiharu— A shuddering chill crawled up my spine. As I wavered, Ryuto whispered the seeds of a fresh doubt into my ear with his humid breath. “Juliette was such a truly kind woman. She couldn’t take it forever, the way Jerome had eyes only for Alissa… In order to have Jerome all for herself, she poisoned him.” Maybe he was worn out from crying, but he didn’t wail the way he had been. Instead, he whispered in a low, rough voice, almost a pant. It was pretty unsettling, and I had the impression that poison was being dripped into my ear, drop by drop. Drip… drip… “Konoha… Juliette kept the violet, heart-shaped bottle full of poison in a drawer of her dressin’ table in her bedroom. She put it in her jewelry box and locked it. “Takin’ it out when no one else was around, she would gaze at it, entranced—and one day she mixed it into the coffee she and Jerome were gonna drink.” Reality was probably getting mixed up with fantasy because he was drunk. He described the scene back then as if speaking in a dream. “She stuck a spoon into the coffeepot and swirled it around… and the silver dust spun in a smooth circle, dissolvin’ into it. “Yui’s hands were pale and silky—the sleeve of her sweater ended in a bloodred cuff, and the poison cascaded down from it… “Spilling… spilling… shining silver sand… “Yui watched it with a soft smile. Now I won’t have to suffer. I’ll be able to sleep in peace… Her face joyful with that thought… When I tried to help her put it in the cups, she told me I was too little and I might hurt myself. Then she picked up the coffeepot and poured it into some cups with flowers on them. That’s when the earth cracked open and turned dark. “Every day… I have the same dream… every day. “I dream that I give Yui the bottle. “I dream that I die alone in a hospital. “And then someone points at a shelf—” Ryuto lifted his face and pointed unsteadily toward the top of the wall. “—and they tell me. The sleepin’ powder of Ole Lukøje is up there—” I gulped at the dangerous look in his eyes, as if he was possessed by something—as if he was seeing a vision. But it didn’t feel right. “I thought the heart-shaped bottle was shut inside a drawer in her dressing table? That’s what you said before.” “That’s true… I wonder why that is.” Confusion came over Ryuto’s face. But his eyes immediately turned dark and dangerous again, as if he’d slipped back inside himself, and his gaze fell to the carpet. With a frightened expression he murmured, “I’m positive… it’s gonna happen again. If I… have a kid with Maki, it’s gonna be a boy.” The air grew thick and murky. I could feel my skin humming and the dryness in my throat. His head still bowed, Ryuto shook it side to side. “No… if I don’t cut this off somehow… there’s no meaning in getting reborn…” No… no… I listened to the words Ryuto continued to groan in a low voice, as if listening to an ominous prophesy, my body growing cold and stiff. Even after Ryuto fell asleep, his voice lingered in my mind. No… no… Happiness as an author—I wonder what that is. Last night I reread Strait Is the Gate. Something more important than happiness—Alissa’s answer was sanctity. I wonder why she had to go so far in turning her back on Jerome when she did love him. The stories you make with Fumiharu are more and more luminous and you’re getting closer to the supreme story. No matter how repulsive the thing you write about, there’s no immediacy. It stabs straight into the reader’s heart and excites a transparent ache. But I feel as though the more you write, the more alone you become, and I worry. I get so uneasy I can’t stand it, like Juliette who could do nothing but stand by and watch as Alissa went through the narrow gate. In my head, I understand that going down that path is the right thing for you, Kana, but my heart is practically being torn apart. I’m practically screaming at you, with all the strength in my voice, “Don’t go that way! Don’t go through the gate! Please, come back!” I was the one who brought you and Fumiharu together. Fumiharu read an essay you had in our club magazine and said he wanted to meet you. The first time all three of us ate out together, you barely spoke and you glowered at Fumiharu, so I was on pins and needles. I knew you were shy in front of strangers, so I thought you wouldn’t really want to meet Fumiharu, either. And yet when I said, “Do you want to get something to eat, the three of us?” you agreed without any fuss, so I was relieved. And then you were sullen as soon as we sat down, so my stomach was really tight and I could hardly taste the food. Though it didn’t look like Fumiharu was worried about it. He was smiling placidly. “She’s a lovely woman. And extremely intelligent to boot.” When he complimented you afterward—“Isn’t she?!”—my voice rose accidentally. I was thrilled that Fumiharu was taken with my best friend, whom I was so proud of. I never thought he would contact you… That he would have you write that novel. That the two of you were meeting up in secret. I became Fumiharu’s wife, and you, Kana, became an author. Was that truly the best thing for you, Kana? Fumiharu gently admonished that pestering you about all this would only interfere with you. It was the same with Takumi. He said you could make decisions for yourself, so I shouldn’t meddle… But…