So that was her goal all along.
Unsatisfied with having only the snacks that I wrote for her, Tohko was so food-obsessed that she had masterminded the idea to set up a relationship advice box and extort steamy reports from the people who came for help.
If all she had done was think it up, that would have been fine. But putting it so brazenly into practice required a particularly Tohko-esque reason.
This is why you have to watch your back around book girls.
Their minds are full of literature without any concept of reality, so if you take your eyes off them, there’s no telling what mischief they’ll get into. They’ll drag other people into their schemes without even a twinge of regret.
“Okay! I’ll try real hard and write lots of reports!”
I just couldn’t believe how submissive Takeda’s personality was (though if it weren’t, she never would have come to this questionable club after seeing that shady mailbox). Her eyes sparkled as she gazed up at Tohko. I could just imagine her thinking, She’s so amazing and trustworthy!
Puffing up her flat-as-a-table A-cup (give or take) chest importantly, Tohko said, “Heh-heh. You just put your mind at ease. We’ve studied romance novels old and new, the world over. We’re love experts, but also masters of the written word. We’ll write the best love letter the world has ever seen for you, Chia. Konoha here can handle it.”
“What?!”
Fed up with Tohko’s unflagging hunger for fine dining, I had been playing dumb this whole time, but that got me.
“I’ll have Konoha think up something good. He’s our top guy; one of his letters will shoot an arrow straight through the heart of your beloved, Chia.”
“I didn’t agree to this, Tohko! I’ve never written a love letter.”
Tohko covered my mouth for this last part, so I’m sure all Takeda heard were muffled cries.
“Konoha is our love letter specialist. He’s written hundreds of them, and he thinks you’ll be impressed. Konoha is a champ. He made it to the final round of the Adatara Literature of Love competition.”
What kind of no-name competition is that? It sounds like something even locals wouldn’t have heard of.
“Oh wow, that’s amazing! It’s so exciting that such a great writer is going to write my letters for me!”
Hey, I’m not a writer!
Well, I mean, I guess I was a writer… and I was a best seller… But still! Now I’m just an ordinary high school student, just Tohko’s snack-maker, and there’s no way I could write love letters for someone else.
While I was lost in thought, the conversation wrapped up without me.
“Thank you, Konoha!”
“Sure thing. It’ll be a cinch, right, Konoha?”
And so I pretended to be a girl—again—and wrote the love letters.
Addendum
After Takeda left, Tohko let out a little sob as she ate the improv story I had written for her.
“Oh, grooooss! A box of strawberry mochi fell on his first love and killed her! Blech, blech! This tastes weird! It’s like miso soup with jelly beans in it! Blech! Ppth! Soooo gross!”
Chapter 2–The Most Delicious Story in the World
My grandmother’s death was the first incident that showed me I was out of step with the rest of the world.
She’d been very fond of me. Even after an illness in her chest meant that she did little other than sleep, she wanted me by her side. She stroked my hair and called me “such a good boy, such a kind boy,” her eyes crinkling with happiness.
But I wasn’t the simple child my grandmother wished me to be. Her emaciated hands, her face guttered by wrinkles, her white, whispering husks of hair, her breath that reeked of medicine—all of it repelled and frightened me.
“You’re a good boy, a kind boy.”
Each time her croaking voice whispered in my ear, I felt as if she were putting a curse on me. My neck stiffened and goose bumps prickled my skin.
I was terrified she would discover that I was not, in fact, a good boy; that as soon as my grandmother saw that in my heart I despised her, she would become a demon, her white hair bristling and her eyes burning red, and she would devour me. I would break into a cold, heavy sweat, and some nights I found sleep impossible.
So I took great care that she wouldn’t notice and showered her with adoration. I volunteered to bring her food and wipe the sweat from her brow. I cared for her diligently; I even went so far as to snuggle against her and kiss her cheek sweetly, telling her that I loved her.
Her cheek was dry as a withered leaf and smelled of the medicine I hated so much. Terrified that I might catch her disease, I would go to the sink afterward and scrub my mouth out with water over and over until finally I split my lip. As it bled, I considered what an awful child I was for lying; my throat clenched, and my eyes burned.
Then one day my grandmother grew cold and stopped moving.
“You are such a good boy, such a kind boy,” she whispered, stroking my head tenderly.
Her hand went suddenly limp and her face turned white, the color of candle wax, but I felt nothing. When she stopped breathing, I deserted my grandmother and went to play in the park.
When I returned that evening, my mother caught me up in her arms and told me my grandmother had died, but even then, my heart was as placid as a forest where no animals ventured to go.
My grandmother’s funeral was held a few days later. During all that time I was distant and shed not a single tear, so the adults murmured to each other, “He’s still so young, he doesn’t understand that his grandma is dead. He was so fond of her.”
Shame welled up inside of me when I heard that. My ears burned red, and I couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. But that was only embarrassment; I didn’t feel the slightest bit sad at my grandmother’s death.
I’ve been this way ever since I was very small.
How do you even write love letters?
I was in class the next day, struggling with my very first love letter, which I was drafting on a sheet of lined paper tucked under my notebook, feeling totally uninspired.
Dear Shuji Kataoka,
I apologize for writing you out of the blue.
You must have been very surprised.
My name is Chia Takeda, and I started my first year at Seijoh Academy this spring.
My name means “lots of love.”
I saw you shooting with the archery team after school, and I thought you were great. I developed feelings for you.
Hmm… That sounds really formal.
Dear Shuji,
Hi! This is my first letter like this EVER!
My name’s Chia Takeda, first-year class two, seat number twelve. I’m a Cancer, and my blood type is B.
Some of my friends call me Chee.
I know this is really sudden, but I love you!
Oh gosh, I’m so embarrassed!
I’m actually embarrassed to read this. And it makes her sound so stupid.
Blushing, I wrote letter after letter.
Why was I even doing this?
Tohko had kept mouthing off: “Your writing needs more sex appeal, so this is a great opportunity. I want you to learn from it. Put yourself inside little Chia’s mind and write the syrupy, unpracticed confession of a love-struck girl. The world is still bright and shining, and you’re just so happy! Something like that. Something that will impress the boy she gives it to and make him think, ‘Whoa, she’s so adorable,’ and ‘What an angelic heart to be so loved by.’ ”
Unbelievable. Tohko should have just written it herself.
“I focus on the eating,” she would have said, giggling without a hint of shame.
A DNA helix was drawn on the blackboard, and the white-haired biology teacher was droning on about chromosomes, heritability, and whatever else as if reciting a liturgy.
Seijoh Academy was a serious school that students had to test into, so everyone was feverishly taking notes, contributing the scratching of pencils on paper to the
teacher’s recitation. Still, there were a couple kids playing with their cell phones under their desks, too.
I bet no one else is composing love letters, though. After all, love letters are passé; it’s all about text messaging now.
Freshly reminded of the fact that I was writing love letters in class, color seeped across my face until it was totally red.
But these aren’t my love letters. They’re for Takeda. It’s Takeda saying she likes Shuji, not me, and… wait, who am I justifying this to?
Besides, Tohko told me to do it. She said I should try putting myself inside Takeda’s mind when I write.
I remembered Takeda’s face as she joyously described the boy she liked to us, her cheeks flushed.
“I like this boy named Shuji Kataoka. He’s a third-year student on the archery team! I was checking out a bunch of different clubs right after I started here, and then I saw Shuji practicing with the archery team. He drew his bow back so far, it was amazing, and then his face got this super-serious look, and he turned toward the target. The air felt as tense as the bow—and me, too. My eyes were glued on him. I stopped in my tracks and held my breath, seriously.
“Actually, I’d been feeling kind of down before that.
“But as soon as I saw Shuji looking at the target, that all disappeared from my mind, and when his arrow twangggged into the bull’s-eye, I felt like it had shot into my heart, too.
“And then Shuji got this gentle look on his face, and he grinned just like a little kid. It was the most amazing smile of all the smiles I’ve ever seen! That’s when I got my crush on him.
“I’m awful at sports, so I didn’t join the archery team, but I went sometimes to their practice to watch Shuji. I heard the other members call him Kataoka and Shu and stuff, so that’s how I found out his name. Shuji is usually a really cheerful guy, which he doesn’t look like at all, and he jokes around constantly and makes everyone laugh.
“But when he’s shooting an arrow, he gets superserious. Even though he might have been joking and laughing right before that, he gets this almost scary tension on his face, and it’s only when he’s drawing a bow… But then if he misses the target, he’ll make a joke about it, and if he hits it, he shouts and celebrates it like a little kid, cheering and jumping around.
“I started wondering what Shuji thinks about when he’s shooting arrows and then my mind just gradually filled up with him, and I wanted to know more about him, and I wanted him to know about me, too.”
Takeda had gone on long enough to rival Tohko whenever she expounded on the fine points of a book. Her plump cheeks tinged pink, her eyes flashing vivaciously, she talked us deaf about Shuji and looked truly overjoyed doing it.
So, you know. At the very least, I had to convey just how much Takeda liked Shuji. If Takeda was rejected because of my letter, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself…
I flipped to a fresh sheet of paper and began writing out Takeda’s feelings, line by line.
I want you to know about me, Shuji.
And I want to know lots more about you.
So I decided to be brave and write you a letter.
“Here you go.”
After classes ended for the day, I handed Takeda her letter.
“I threw this together during lunch. I didn’t bother with a draft, so I can’t guarantee it’s any good…”
“Oh my gosh, thank you!”
Takeda bounced happily and accepted it.
“Oh wow, three whole pages? You wrote all this at lunch? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—you are the book club’s top writer!”
“Uh, it’s not that great…”
“Can I read it?” She giggled.
She started to unfold the paper and I rushed to stop her. “Ack! No! You can’t read it here!”
“Aw, why not? I want to see it, too. You put your heart into writing that letter!”
Tohko smiled teasingly and tried to steal a peek at the letter over Takeda’s shoulder.
I cut in between them. “No! Absolutely not!”
“Umm, I guess I’ll go then. I need to hurry home and rewrite the letter. I have a stationery set all ready and everything! It’s light pink with cherry petals falling across it. It’s superadorable.”
“Good idea.”
I waved Takeda off in a haze.
“Bye! Good luck!”
“Thank you guys so much!”
“Don’t forget your report!”
“I won’t!” Takeda replied cheerily and waved to us, the letter clutched in her hand.
Halfway out, she toppled over, but she got right back up again and left, laughing in embarrassment. I watched her go, my heart pounding.
“Man, I really wanted to read that love letter, Konoha! You spent three whole days on it!”
I glanced over at Tohko, who sat on the fold-up chair hugging her knees, her bright eyes crinkling, and my ears burned with embarrassment. This was bad—she’d seen right through me.
I responded with deliberate sarcasm. “No way. If I gave it to you, you’d want to taste it and end up eating the whole thing.”
Tohko stuck out her lip. “Come on, I’m not that crazy for food.”
Then she laid her cheek on her knees and got a dreamy expression on her face. Her long, thin braids spilled over her frail shoulders like two cats’ tails.
“A love letter would have been great, though. They must be all sweet and tickly and taste like happiness. Konoha, what do you think the most delicious story in the world is?”
“I dunno.”
Tohko smiled. “I think it’s a love letter the person you like poured his or her heart into writing for you. I mean, that would be the only copy in the world, a precious treasure that was just for you.”
Her face turned sweetly shy as soon as she said that.
“Oh, but then it would be way too precious to ever eat. Wow, I don’t know what I would do. How could you have the best food in the world right in front of you and not be able to eat it?”
She touched a finger to her temple and looked seriously conflicted. I thought it was so funny, I burst out laughing.
“Oh, you know you would eat it! I’ll bet you the collected works of Natsume Soseki you wouldn’t have the letter a full night before the whole thing was in your belly.”
“That’s so mean! Really awful! You really are the one with no delicacy!” Tohko whined, spinning around in her chair to turn her back on me. She didn’t forgive me until after I’d written her snack for her.
“I’ll show you! I’m gonna write your name down a million times, then I’m gonna tear it up into tiny pieces and gobble up every single one. Then you’ll be cursed!”
“Geez, you are so immature, Tohko.”
At lunch the next day, Takeda came skipping to my classroom and chimed, “Excuse meee, is Konoha here?”
The class was instantly abuzz. I stood up quickly.
“Oh, there you are!”
Takeda waved at me. And oh man, the stares.
“Uh, come with me.”
“Huh? Uh, all right.”
I practically ran into the hall and around a corner and kept going until there was no one else around. When I asked her what she wanted, she looked up at me, a grin splitting her face.
“I waited for Shuji outside school this morning, and I gave him that letter you wrote for me.”
“Really!”
She’s quick. I tended to be listless, if anything, so her energy levels really impressed me.
“My heart was beating so fast! Bump-bump, bump-bump! I gave the letter to Shuji and asked him to read it, then I made a break for it. I didn’t hear a word my friends or the teachers said after that. All I could think about over and over was, ‘I wonder if Shuji read my letter! I wonder what he thought!’ ”
“Th-then what happened?” I was practically on the edge of my seat.
“I couldn’t think about anything else and I could barely eat my lunch, so I went to the archery practice hall. And Shuji was th
ere, and—”
“Whoa! And then what?”
Takeda flushed with happiness and threw out a peace sign.
“He thanked me for the letter and said he really appreciated it! He said it was too sudden to be girlfriend-boyfriend right away and we should start slow.”
“That’s great!”
I felt like I could jump for joy right along with Takeda.
“Yeah! Shuji said he’s never gotten such a cute letter before and it made him really happy. This is all thanks to you, Konoha. You really deserved to win the Adatara Literature of Love competition!”
“Ahaha… all I did was throw something together at lunch, really.”
“No, I mean it! I think that letter really cheered Shuji up. So I promised I would write him letters every day from now on.”
“What?” I asked stupidly.
Every day…?
Takeda grabbed my hands, and when she spoke, her voice was bubbling over with trust and reverence. “I know you can handle it, Konoha! You can just throw something together at lunch.”
Starting the next day, Takeda would run to my class as soon as first period was over.
“Good morning, Konoha! Your letter was a huge hit with Shuji yesterday! You really are amazing. You’re a genius. I bet you wind up being an author!”
“Ha… um, you’re too kind. Here’s the one for today.”
“Oh wow, thank you! I’ll copy it in math class next period. I hope it makes Shuji happy.”
“Yeah…”
My smile was a little strained.
Tohko giggled and informed me, “You had it coming. Now there’s no choice but to stick with little Chia to the very end. Right, Mister Distinguished Author?”
She was straddling the fold-up chair, a paperback in one hand, looking up at me crookedly with her clear, teasing black eyes.
The book was The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“But you were the one who forced me to work with Takeda in the first place. And you were the one who set up some weird mailbox in the school courtyard without permission, too.”
“I didn’t force you, I recommended you. I said you would write wonderful love letters for her and listen to her seriously. Besides…” Tohko flopped her thin body forward and the chair screeched. Her pink lips cracked into a smile. “I wasn’t the one who told her you wrote the letter in your spare time. That was you.”
Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime Page 2
