“And he drew a monstrous bird on it. I drew it on a New Year’s card and sent it to you. You saw it, right? That bird is me.
“When people suffer setbacks, they can become ugly monsters…from jealousy or anger or disappointment. When morning came, I realized I’d become a monster, and as I gazed at the pure white sky…in as loud a voice as I could…I cried out.
“The truth is…you’re the only one I didn’t want to see me transformed into a monster.
“So…why was I left alive? I changed hospitals and went far away. I became truly alone.
“The world without you was dirty and dark.
“Even so, when I thought how you must still be thinking of me, I could bear it.
“When I was in pain, you were remembering me and in pain, too.
“When I was crying, you thought of me and cried, too.
“My pain was pain that you felt in the same exact moment, and my sadness was your sadness.
“I could believe that, so I was okay.
“There was no lie in reading the book you wrote. While I wrote the ‘true’ story…every day, every single day, night, noon, and morning, I was thinking only of you, Konoha.”
Miu’s voice as she continued to whisper fell like light snow in my heart and melted fleetingly away.
Miu’s truth.
Miu’s wish.
Miu’s sadness.
“When my grandma died and I came back here, I wanted to see you, and it got to be more than I could bear. Even when I knew it was wrong to see you, I couldn’t stop. I called the middle school, and when I asked our head teachers what had become of you, they told me you’d entered Seijoh Academy. They told me that it sounded like you were doing well, so I shouldn’t worry.
“While I had been suffering, you had become a high school student, just like normal! I had lost everything because of you, but you had betrayed me and forgotten all about me! That was the day I wanted to take revenge on you!”
I yelled, my feelings seeming to rip apart, “I never forgot about you!!”
Sucking in the cold wind mixed with snow, my face warped beyond recognition, and I declared exactly how I felt.
After all, I thought of you constantly. I closed myself up in my dark room with the curtains shut tight, and morning, noon, and night, I thought of you.
Why would Miu have jumped?
Why would Miu have said that?
Why had the two of us been torn apart?
Where are you now, what are you doing, what are you thinking, always, always, nothing but you—
“I never managed to forget about you! You were all I thought about! Even when we were apart, and even after we were reunited, always—always!”
Miu drew her body closer to the railing.
Her red scarf and coat flapped, and the image of her falling backward rose in my mind; an iron hand closed around my heart, and it felt like my heart would stop.
Her eyes, wavering frailly, stared at me.
“In that case…so that you never betray me again, will you get on the train with me?”
Her voice filled with a fervent wish.
I saw that Miu didn’t want to be on Earth anymore.
Too disappointed. Too much of only sad things happening.
“Will you go with me, wherever we go…on and on forever…even to the ends of the universe? That…was Campanella’s true wish.”
“Let’s go together, on and on forever.”
In the version of Night of the Milky Way Railroad that I’d read as a child, that was a line Giovanni said to Campanella.
“I’m not afraid of being in that huge darkness anymore. I’m going to search for everyone’s true happiness. Let’s press ahead together, on and on forever.”
Bittersweet melancholy welled up to fill my chest.
On and on forever, together.
The promises we’d made when we were children, eyes shining and fingers linked.
The one map, unique in this world, that we’d made cheek pressed to cheek.
“I’ll try my very best to go with Campanella. So please? I can go with you, right?”
That’s right, Miu. We made a promise.
That we would go everywhere together, on and on forever.
That I would follow you.
Gripping the railing, her short hair flying, her red scarf and coat blowing around in the wind, Miu was staring at me hungrily.
Snow poured down on top of us.
How could I refuse the wish that Miu had staked everything on?
Miu, if it’s what you want, I’ll give you my hand.
I’ll give my legs. I’ll give my eyes.
My heart, my life, my future; I’ll give everything to you.
So please don’t go off on your own again.
I took a step toward Miu, and when our fingers touched, she looked up at me, and a single tear spilled from the corner of her eye.
Our hands were extremely cold to the point that we couldn’t feel the other’s hand.
“Okay. Let’s go on and on, together.”
As I whispered with frozen lips, Miu buried her face in my chest.
Then we tied her red scarf around our wrists.
So that they would never come apart.
There was no feeling of fear welling up in me.
It seemed that, just like my hands and the rest of my body, my heart was numb and had stopped feeling anything.
I climbed over the railing first and then lent my hand to Miu to help her over. When I lifted her body, it was as light as a feather. My knees wobbled slightly, we were buoyed up by the wind, and it seemed like we would lose our footing right there and fall.
A dangerous situation like that had no sense of reality to it.
Knotting the scarf with one hand and grabbing the rail with my other, I looked down at the scenery.
Spread before me was a hazy, gray world.
A blanket of white snow pouring down over it.
There wasn’t even a beam of light, and the dark wind blew against us from below.
If I looked down, snow pelted my eyes and cheeks and clouded my vision.
“…Together forever, right, Konoha?” Miu whispered in a tearful voice beside me. Clumps of snow were stuck to her long eyelashes.
“Yeah…that’s right, Miu,” I answered.
“…Let’s go, Konoha.”
The train to the stars had come and was opening its doors for us.
Just as we were jumping on board together—
Instead of a departure bell, we heard the melody of a music box.
A gentle, placid tune…
The melody was coming from the pocket on my chest, inside my coat.
The theme from Beauty and the Beast.
Kotobuki was calling me.
“What’s the matter, Konoha?”
I had stopped my foot just as I was stepping forward, prompting Miu’s uneasy question.
Like a tiny light, the gentle melody was still ringing out over my heart.
Kotobuki was calling.
“Konoha! The call doesn’t matter!”
Just as Miu said that, as if chastising me, a voice through the snowstorm, calling my name.
Someone was running toward us.
A wisp of a silhouette and in front of it a smaller silhouette.
A voice like a scream rang out across the roof.
“Konohaaaa!”
In the blowing wind and snow.
While I nearly tumbled off several times.
The one running toward us, her face messy with flying tears, was Takeda.
“Nooooooo! You can’t diiiiiiiie! Don’t die!! Don’t die!! Don’t die, Konoha! Konohaaaaa!”
Why had Takeda appeared now in a place like this?
I was confused, but Takeda was still shouting through her tears, “Don’t die! I don’t want you to die! Konoha!”
Takeda who had stared at me with an empty expression like a doll’s on that day in May on the roof of the school.
Takeda
who had confessed with a despairing look that when her best friend had been hit by a car and killed, she hadn’t felt sad.
Takeda who had dangled from the end of my arm and begged, “Please let me die!!”
“I’m a repeat offender.”
“It’s like a habit I have when I get the urge to die.”
Takeda who had told me that and laughed for me.
As she was running toward me, as she opened her tear-filled eyes wide, she laid bare her feelings and screamed that I couldn’t die.
“Konoha! Konoha! Konoha!!”
Behind Takeda, I also saw the outline of Tohko. She was running, her long braids being blown around.
“Konoha!”
Tohko had told me in a kind voice that I was different than I had been two years ago.
That it had been gradual, but I’d matured.
While she squeezed my hand and smiled with eyes as clear as stars.
“Since I, the book girl, who’s been eating your stories the whole time, says so, it’s for sure.”
The warmth, the gentleness of Tohko’s hand reawakened something in my fingers that had lost all sensation.
And then, Kotobuki’s smile as she blushed in embarrassment and watched me.
“I’m going to do my best! So…I look forward to the year with you!”
“What’s wrong, Konoha? Why are you hesitating? You’re going with me, aren’t you?”
Miu tugged on the scarf with a tense face.
The distance between Tohko and Takeda was closing.
Miu bit down on her lip, as if impatient with me for not moving, then held the scarf tight and tried to throw herself off.
I pushed Miu’s back against the railing and put my arms around her.
“…I’m sorry.”
The sound of Miu’s gasp tickled my ear. The sound of a wordless despair.
Although my heart threatened to be crushed and my throat ripped open when I felt that, I put my arms around her and the railing strongly, firmly, so that she wouldn’t fly off, and in a trembling voice, I told her, “I can’t go.”
Miu had been thrashing impatiently, but in that instant, her movement stopped.
Miu’s despair came through, and I thought it might drive me crazy, but still I knew that I couldn’t go back to being the way I had been.
During the two and a half years Miu and I had been apart, I’d met Tohko, I’d met Takeda, and I’d accepted Kotobuki’s feelings.
So I couldn’t keep my promise. I wasn’t able to grant Campanella’s wish.
I can’t go with you.
I can’t do it!
Miu stopped moving, like she’d become a doll whose soul had escaped.
Tohko and Takeda pulled us up, and we collapsed on the other side of the railing.
Miu lay on the snow with her legs and arms thrown out, her eyes wide and absent, and she didn’t produce a word.
As Tohko helped Miu and I out of the school, she told me what had brought her there.
About how when she’d gone to school, classes were out because of the snow. How she’d run into Takeda at the library. How they had wound up deciding to visit Kotobuki.
How when they’d called Kotobuki from Takeda’s phone, Kotobuki had tearfully told them that Miu had disappeared from the hospital.
When she heard the words Miu had left on her note—that she was going to space—Tohko had immediately recalled the map. And then she’d headed here, the departure point of the Milky Way Railroad, with Takeda. Apparently they’d both been worried since I didn’t answer the phone while they were on their way here.
Then they’d found me trying to commit suicide with Miu on the roof and frantically stopped me.
While we were waiting for a taxi in front of the school gate, I pulled Miu’s shoulders close and held her up.
Miu stayed silent the entire time.
The snow’s ferocity had broken, and she was watching it flutter down with empty eyes. I had retied the red scarf around her throat. She had become pliant.
In contrast, it was as if Takeda had suddenly lost the brake on her emotions. She was still sniffling, and tears were still pouring down her face in large beads. Takeda was apologizing over and over, and Tohko was comforting her in a quiet voice and holding her hand.
Finally a taxi stopped in front of the gate.
I started walking slowly, holding Miu up.
Just then, Miu’s body bobbed away from me.
A big truck was coming from the other direction with a wail.
Miu threw herself in front of it, collapsing.
It was over in an instant.
The piercing sound of brakes.
Miu’s body bouncing up, her red scarf dancing in the air.
Miu not moving, bent over in the snow.
“Noooooooooo! Sheeeeeeeeee!”
Takeda screamed.
As I listened to the sound of her voice, I too shouted as if the world had ended.
* * *
Hey, why do you follow me around?
I hate you, and I only ever did terrible things to you.
Why did you always grin at that?
When I lost you, I finally realized why.
That it was you that made my worlds shine with kindness and beauty.
A world without you was cold and dark, and I wanted to see you more than I could stand.
Actually, I had always wanted to be by your side.
I wanted to go on and on forever with you, gazing at the map we’d drawn together.
If we were able to reach the end of the universe, maybe we would have been able to find true happiness.
If we’d done that, maybe—maybe you would have looked me in the eye and said that you loved me.
Chapter 8—Lamentation
Ten days passed.
“I brought you something, Miu.”
“Oh, Konoha, that makes me so happy!”
When I opened the door to the hospital room, Miu turned an innocent smile on me, spun the electric wheelchair around with a whir, and came closer.
“Ooh, it’s the tea pudding from that place. I love how creamy it is. Thank you, Konoha. So, did anything happen at school today? Are the goldfish doing okay? I wonder if I’ll get out of the hospital in time for closing ceremonies. I hope we’re in the same class in fourth grade, too.”
Shaking her short, smooth hair, she pressed her small head that smelled of soap against my belly and cheerfully asked, “Konoha, will you feed me the pudding?”
“Sure…”
I pulled off the lid, scooped some up in a plastic spoon, and brought it to Miu’s mouth.
Like a baby bird receiving food from its mother’s mouth, Miu opened her lips a little, closed them around the spoon, and beamed.
“Yummm! Give me some more.”
I scooped pudding up several more times, just as she prodded me to, then popped it between her cherry-colored lips. As I did so, my chest threatened to be crushed by Miu’s childish behavior and expression.
On the day of the snow, ten days earlier, I hadn’t been able to stop Miu from throwing herself in front of the truck.
Even though I was so close, I let Miu go off by herself again.
The driver was quick to hit the brakes, and the drifts of snow softened the impact, so Miu got away with minor wounds.
But when she woke up, her limbs had returned to the condition they’d been in before she’d done physical therapy and she could hardly move anymore.
And that wasn’t all: Miu’s spirit had returned to third grade—to the time she met me.
The doctors said the cause was probably that she’d hit her head hard in the accident.
But I couldn’t help thinking it might be because I’d refused to go with her that day on the roof.
Miu watching the downy snow falling with vacant eyes.
I’d murdered Miu’s spirit that day.
In order to look after Miu, I hadn’t been going to school. I was circling between home and the hospital every day.
<
br /> Tohko had called me a ton of times.
It came through that she was worried about me.
“Good luck on your exams…”
It was all I could do to tell her that in a detached voice.
Apparently Takeda had also been out of school ever since that day.
She had overlaid the image of her best friend, who died in an accident, over Miu being hit by the truck.
Her memories of that day reawakened, and she’d apparently withdrawn in shock.
Tohko told me with some difficulty that she was in her room, hugging her knees like a doll. Ryuto was going to see her every day, but her heart remained shut off.
Hearing that, I felt like my chest would rip apart.
I told Tohko that I wanted her to read the revisions Miu had made to Miu Inoue’s novel, so I mailed the printouts from my computer to where she was staying. It may have been an act of contrition on my part.
In order to carve into my heart once more how much I had hurt Miu.
Miu must have thrown out the original book when she escaped from the hospital since we couldn’t find it anywhere.
“What’s wrong, Konoha? You seem sad.”
When she finished eating the pudding, Miu looked up at me worriedly.
“It’s nothing,” I whispered in a soft voice, and I put the empty container into the trash.
“Hey, Konoha, I made a new story. Do you want to hear it?”
Miu pulled on my arm and starting talking happily.
Book Girl and the Wayfarer's Lamentation Page 17
