Book Girl and the Wayfarer's Lamentation

by Mizuki Nomura

“Yes. It would be wonderful if that happened, Chia.”

  “I wanna be the kind of man who can protect the girl he’s into to the very end.”

  Ryuto spoke in a carefree voice before turning a sunny smile on Takeda.

  A smile slowly came over Takeda’s face, and she looked up at Ryuto with a puppy-like grin.

  “Ryu, you’re such a show-off.”

  “I’m actually just that good.”

  “Heh-heh-heh!”

  It didn’t matter if the smile broadening Takeda’s tear-soaked cheeks was real or not.

  “I…I want to be the kind of girl who can just say how she feels!” Kotobuki stammered beside me.

  Next, Akutagawa sat up straighter and in a calm voice informed us, “I want to be an honest person in any situation. Even if it means failure, I want to stick with being honest.”

  Even Maki gave a vibrant smile and declared, “I want to be myself, free of anything that binds me.”

  I looked at Tohko, too.

  “I want to be a person who can face the truth.”

  I had always frozen up with it in front of me. And I would probably get lost in the darkness several more times. The day that I become valiant might not ever come.

  Even so, in this moment, I strongly wished that I could become capable of staring down the truth.

  Tohko’s lips relaxed, and her eyes softened kindly.

  “What about you, Asakura?”

  It was Akutagawa who had posed the question in his unflinching voice.

  Miu, who had shrunk into a little ball and kept her head bent while she listened to everyone’s answers, now tightened the hands resting on her knees into fists.

  Everyone was looking at her.

  She hesitated several times, gasping in apparent pain, and then finally, in a voice mingled with tears, she said, “…I wanted to be someone who could make people happy.”

  Below the silent stars, Miu’s voice flowed out into the room with a sniffle.

  “…The people around me—my mom and dad and my grandma—they were all unhappy and had nothing but complaints. I would think, I wish everyone could be happy and laugh. I wanted to be like Scorpio from Night of the Milky Way Railroad, who’s useful to everyone.

  “That’s why I wanted to be an author! But it wasn’t possible for me. The only thing I did was shackle Konoha with stories I stole from other people. I’m ugly! And despicable!!”

  Miu buried her face in her knees and sobbed violently.

  “Please use my body for the honest happiness of others.”

  On the brink of death, Scorpio had made that prayer to God. And he became a star shining in the darkness.

  The truth was, Miu had wanted to be that kind of person.

  “I hope the people who read my book will be happy.”

  Discovering that those words had been filled with such thoughts from Miu’s loneliness, I felt a stabbing ache fill my chest.

  Just then, Tohko shook her braids and stepped over to Miu.

  She stood in front of Miu, who was still sobbing, and gently took hold of both her hands.

  Miu looked up in surprise, and Tohko looked down at her with a clear, somewhat sad gaze and said, “Kenji Miyazawa didn’t become what he wanted to, either.

  “I’m sure he must have cried, too, just like you are.

  “But Miyazawa’s stories are still with us. And even now they’re encouraging people who are lost and carrying the same burden of suffering. Like a tiny light in the darkness. Like Scorpio burning his own body to guide travelers.”

  Giovanni started talking to Campanella.

  “If it really did make everyone happy, I wouldn’t care if I burned my body a hundred times over, just like Scorpio.”

  A transparent tear ran down Miu’s cheek.

  Gripping her small, frail hands, the book girl wove her words together.

  “What is true happiness? Everyone tries to keep walking, seeking it like pilgrims going to the land of happiness. There are a lot of cases where even if they travel all through the night, they just can’t reach it, and they get discouraged. And even if they were to reach that land, true happiness might not be there. Then they might have to seek a new holy land and continue their difficult journey. But if they stopped walking instead, they might find peace.

  “So then why do they continue the journey?

  “When Miyazawa was working as a teacher at an agricultural school, apparently he asked his students this: ‘Why were human beings brought into this world?’

  “He personally answered it so: ‘People were brought into this world in order to feel the need to find out why human beings were brought into this world.’ And he believed that whether or not someone earnestly considered this question determined their value as people.

  “So perhaps the truly important thing is not that you get hold of something, but that you keep searching for it. Perhaps that was the spirit in which Miyazawa continued revising the story he’d written on his sickbed. Believing that someday everyone would be able to reach a utopia where they can be happy.”

  Miu drooped as she cried.

  “But I can’t think up any dreams anymore. I can’t imagine anything.”

  Tohko clutched Miu’s fingers gently.

  “Nobody can be strong all the time. There are times when you get tired, too. It’s for times like that that we have stories.”

  Miu shook her head fiercely from side to side like a child.

  “Nngh…stories don’t come to me anymore!”

  “In that case, you need to go and meet them. If you open the cover of a book, you’ll encounter someone’s imagination there. And so, turning through the pages, bit by bit, you’ll stock up imagination in your heart. When you’re alone and you feel sad, try reading a book. Try touching someone’s heart. Try to imagine what they were thinking, what they wanted to convey. If you do that, you might get something amazing. Okay, Miu? Lift your head and try looking at the sky! In this world, there are as many books and as much imagination as there are stars in the sky!”

  She threw her head back, sending her long braids flying, and there—I don’t know when it happened—enough stars began glittering to completely cover the dome.

  Following Tohko, Miu raised her face, and her eyes, wet with tears, opened wide in subdued surprise, and her mouth fell open slightly.

  The pristine stars shone brightly in the night, throwing down a gentle light on those of us on the Earth. The sky we knew to be artificial enveloped us more kindly and wholesomely than even the real sky.

  “Today, I’m going to give you one of the stars from the sky, Miu.”

  Tohko smiled endearingly.

  “I told you about how Night of the Milky Way Railroad was revised so many times over a period of nine years, right? The surviving manuscript has a first and second draft—the first halves of both of these are lost. There’s also a third draft and the final fourth draft—

  “Professor Bulcanillo disappears from the fourth draft. That means there’s a huge change between everything leading up to the last scene in the third and fourth drafts.

  “It’s not made clear to the reader that Campanella fell into the river until the third draft.

  “But in the fourth draft, Professor Bulcanillo has become Campanella’s father, and Giovanni is told that Campanella fell into the river.

  “The rest isn’t written down. In everything up through the third draft, Professor Bulcanillo shows Giovanni the path he should take, but in the fourth draft, Campanella’s father only relates the facts, and that’s all. How Giovanni took the news of Campanella’s death and how he’s going to go on with life from now on is left up to the reader’s imagination.”

  Tohko broke off for a moment and gazed kindly at Miu, who wore a suspicious expression.

  “Miu Inoue’s novel ends at the point where, early in the morning in the school yard, Itsuki is trying to confess her feelings to Hatori.”

  Even more doubt showed on Miu’s face. I leaned in, too.

&nbs
p; “But if you read what the judges say at the end, you notice something strange.

  “The four judges unanimously complain about the ending.

  “It’s ‘too sweet,’ ‘extraneous,’ ‘tells too much, a trap that beginners fall into,’ ‘doesn’t reverberate’—but the conclusion of the novel that was published has transparency and beauty, and it reverberates. It stirs up the reader’s imagination. From these facts, you can imagine that when the prizewinning story was published, the ending was revised.

  “So then what was the original manuscript like?

  “What was written in the last scene that got cut out as extraneous?”

  My heart sped up, and my cheeks burned. What—what was Tohko going to say?

  With a shining smile, Tohko informed us, “Miu Inoue’s lost ending. That is my—the book girl’s—special gift to you.”

  Miu Inoue’s first draft?! What was she saying?!

  I gulped reflexively, but her gentle voice flowed outward, like music pouring down from the sky.

  “You’re exactly like a bird, Hatori.

  “You have invisible wings on your back, and you can fly free, anywhere you want.”

  Still gripping Miu’s hands, Tohko closed her eyes. A smile came over her lips, and she whispered in a clear voice.

  A shock like I’d been hit by lightning shot through my entire body.

  It was Itsuki’s confession, which I had written long ago on a sheet of paper as my heart raced.

  Incredulous, I listened to those words that I’d thought were lost, her confession, as they flowed smoothly from Tohko’s lips and were reborn.

  “You know, Hatori.

  “I want to be a tree.

  “You laughed when I told you that before, but it’s still the truth.

  “I really do want to be a tree.

  “If I were, when you fly through the sky, I would be in the place that’s closest to you and be able to look up at you.

  “And when you looked down at the ground, you might catch sight of me.”

  How?! How could Tohko recite the lines I’d written in my submission—before the revision—so flawlessly from memory?

  With her imagination?

  Surely that was impossible, even for Tohko.

  So had Tohko read Miu Inoue’s first draft, then?

  Had she asked Maki like usual?

  But could she have gotten her hands on a manuscript from nearly three years ago—one that had been submitted even!

  How did Tohko know the words that were written in my manuscript?!

  “Well, they’re all stories you wrote for me. I remember all of them. I would never forget a single one.”

  So Tohko had whispered with a smile like an immaculate flower as she gently squeezed my hands while I hung my head and wept on the sofa in the karaoke booth.

  Her voice and her words reawakened now, in this moment, in my ears and overlapped with Tohko’s voice as she gave a reading of Miu Inoue’s novel before my eyes.

  As if she were giving voice to the precious words I’d carried in my heart for so long.

  As if she were speaking the tender words I had gazed upon time and time again.

  In her gentle voice, Tohko was giving my confession to Miu.

  “That’s why I want to be a tree.

  “I want to be a huge tree with its green leaves brilliantly lush and its limbs spread wide so that you’ll find me.

  “And when you get tired, I hope you’ll stop and rest on my branches.”

  Miu was crying.

  Clutching Tohko’s hand, her face hidden, her shoulders trembling, drip-drop…drip-drop…

  Each pearl-like tear fell onto her skirt and shattered.

  My younger self nestled up against Miu.

  “I want to be a tree.”

  “That’s stupid, Konoha. People can’t be trees.”

  Her eyes still closed, Tohko brought her face toward Miu’s and cheerfully told her the final words.

  The words I had wanted to say all along.

  The words I hadn’t been able to say.

  The simple, obvious, important words.

  “I love you! I love you so, so much. I’ll love you forever and ever, Hatori.”

  One small star fell from those filling the heavens and dropped into Miu’s heart.

  Miu choked back the sob rising up in her.

  Tohko gently loosened her fingers and stroked Miu’s hair maternally. Then she looked kindly over at me and smiled.

  As if to say, “All right, now it’s your turn.”

  A star fell into my heart, too.

  Still surprised at the pure light that Tohko had given me, still encouraged, I knelt in front of Miu and replaced Tohko’s hands with my own to hold Miu’s.

  Kotobuki’s eyes filled with tears as she watched Miu and me. Everyone else watched over us silently.

  Miu, her face soggy with tears, looked down at me uneasily. Without hesitating, without embarrassment, I looked straight back into her eyes, and in a mild tone, I told her my “truth.”

  Why I had decided to write that story. Why I had submitted it to the same contest as her. Why I’d used Miu Inoue as my pen name.

  “The reason I wrote a novel was so that I could tell a girl I liked how I felt about her.

  “Because I’d loved her ever since we were kids, but I was embarrassed and couldn’t tell her to her face.”

  “Konoha, do you like me? Look me in the eye and say it.”

  The bittersweet melancholy I’d felt in the days that I spent with Miu filled my heart.

  I’d loved Miu and had always wanted to tell her so.

  But when Miu fixed her large eyes on me and teased me, my heart grew so full I couldn’t get the words out.

  It felt like I was being sucked into her lips and her eyes, and my cheeks got hot, and I couldn’t help but look away.

  And when Miu teased me even more about that, I had felt worthless as a man.

  I wanted to tell Miu I love her.

  But I was embarrassed.

  I hit on the idea of putting those restless emotions into a novel.

  When Miu declared that she was going to apply to the new author contest, it felt like my heart would collapse under the anxiety that if she won and became a real author, she would be beyond my reach. That had pressed me on, too.

  I wanted to get a little bit closer to Miu.

  I wanted to see the same world Miu saw.

  So I decided to write a novel and make it my confession to her.

  To make a story filled to the brim with my feelings of love for her.

  To tell her, “This is how much I love you.”

  Although once I started to write, I did get embarrassed after all and changed Itsuki to a girl and Hatori to a boy.

  Even so, Itsuki’s feelings for Hatori were exactly my feelings for Miu.

  “The reason I submitted the novel I’d written was because I thought that if I got through the first round, it would be nice if my name was in the magazine.”

  Miu was looking at me, her face surprised and confused.

  I gave a small, nervous laugh.

  “When the winning novel was announced in the magazine, the rest of the selections up to that point would be listed with it. If we applied to the same contest, that girl would look at the magazine, too, wouldn’t she? I thought it would be nice if she saw the name Miu Inoue. Then I could try to say, ‘This is me. I wrote a novel, too. If you want, you can read it.’”

  It was the kind of simpleminded, expedient plan that a child would think of.

  But while I was writing my submission and while I was waiting for the selections, I pictured the scene in my mind so many times, and my heart burned with excitement.

  If the name Miu Inoue is in the magazine…then I’ll get Miu to read my novel.

  I’ll confess my feelings to Miu.

  If only I could get Miu Inoue’s name into even a crevice of the magazine where Miu was named for the grand prize—

  “I wrote the w
ords of my confession at the end of the manuscript I submitted.

  “In the last scene, Itsuki tells Hatori how she feels.

  “But the publishers told me it would be better not to have it and to just end where the two are standing across from each other.”

  Miu’s face cracked, and she stared at me vulnerably. Trembling slightly, she listened to my confession wholeheartedly.

  I tightened my fingers around Miu’s hand, and with a smile, I said (not in Itsuki’s words, but my own—in Konoha Inoue’s):

  “Miu, I loved you. You gave me so many stars. You made my world beautiful. Thank you for making me happy.”

  Tears welled up in Miu’s eyes again.

  Still gripping my hands, she pressed her face to her knees and sobbed again and again, murmuring, “I’m so happy…I’ve…always wanted…someone…to say that to me…That they were happy…happy because of me…”

  Tohko was watching Miu and me with a clear, kind gaze.

  People surrender to the rain and surrender to the wind.

  They get lost in the dark and lament the truth revealed in the light of morning.

  And even if they finally reach their objective, like Tohko said, the happiness they sought might not be there.

  Eternal happiness might not exist in this world.

  But gentle eyes told us.

  Innumerable moments of happiness or being moved are scattered throughout our lives.

  It might be something fleeting like the stars that disappear when morning comes.

  But there are times when the small light continues twinkling in our hearts.

  And there are moments when the darkness retreats, when the sky brightens, that sad truths are purified and a clear, beautiful world, stretching out in all directions, emerges before our eyes.