Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime

by Mizuki Nomura

  Takeda had just struck a heroic pose when she saw me. Her eyes widened and she dropped her hands. “Konoha…”

  “Uh, morning.”

  “Oh my God, what’re you doing here? Oh, sorry, Yoyo, you go ahead. Konoha, come with me?”

  Takeda took hold of my arm and started walking down the hallway. She was practically skipping.

  What the heck? Why is she so cheerful? I was so confused.

  Takeda brought me to a deserted spot in the hall, then turned around with a smile.

  “Heh-heh-heh… what a surprise to have you come to me, Konoha.”

  “I was just wondering if you were all right… since you were crying yesterday.”

  “Oh, that? It wasn’t anything important, really. I guess I just got a little high-strung or something. I guess I was a little down because of the rain. And you looked at me so kindly… I guess I just got carried away with it. Oh geez, it’s so embarrassing. Please just forget that happened.”

  She flapped her hands back and forth, her face bright red. She was acting so much like she always did that I started to wonder if I had just imagined her tortured sobbing yesterday.

  “Nothing happened with you and Shuji?”

  Was that boy who’d come looking for her Shuji? He’d called her “Chee,” as if he knew her really well.

  Takeda’s expression clouded over suddenly.

  So something had happened.

  “It’s just… it seems like something is bothering him. He gave me a letter yesterday, but the things it said…”

  A letter?

  “Oh! But I’m totally fine! Really!”

  Her hand popped back up and she struck her heroic pose again.

  “Oh yeah! Can I have another letter today, Konoha?”

  “Sure. I brought it with me.”

  When I handed her the folded paper, her face dissolved into joy.

  “Thank you so much! I’m sure once Shuji reads this he’ll cheer up, too. Oh, I have to go—my next class is in a different room. Eek!”

  Takeda’s foot caught on something, and she tumbled to the ground. I quickly helped her up.

  “Heh-heh… thank you. I’m such a klutz. Okay, see you!”

  I watched her patter off haphazardly, unsure of my own thoughts.

  Takeda had said that something was bothering Shuji.

  Was her crying yesterday somehow related to that?

  What kind of person was Shuji Kataoka, anyway? I’d written lots of letters addressed to him, but I only knew him through Takeda’s stories.

  He was a third-year student on the archery team, had lots of friends, and was good at making people laugh.

  He was always upbeat and smiling. He only got serious when he was shooting arrows.

  He’d seemed pretty nice, but when she talked to him, he turned out to be supernice.

  All this was what Takeda had told me.

  Maybe Shuji wasn’t the kind of person Takeda thought he was. Love often clouds the judgment, so it was an easy scenario to imagine.

  “You’re on the archery team, right?”

  During clean-up that day, I struck up a conversation with my classmate, Akutagawa.

  “Yeah, I am,” he answered matter-of-factly in his deep, grown-up voice as he moved desks around.

  He wasn’t angry; he just wasn’t a talkative guy. I had never seen him guffaw. That detachment probably appealed to girls. Looking at him up close like this, he really was pretty cool with his height and his muscular arms and shoulders and his calmly handsome features. Unlike me.

  “Do you guys have a third-year student named Shuji Kataoka on the team?”

  Akutagawa looked as though he was thinking for a very brief moment, then replied curtly, “Don’t know him.”

  “Huh? Um, maybe his name is a little different. I heard that people call him Shushu or Shu or something like that.”

  “We’ve got a guy named Shuya Fujiwara, but he’s second-year, not third. And I don’t think anyone ever called him Shushu.”

  “Seriously? There’s no one else named Shu-something?”

  “Never heard of one.”

  What did this mean? Maybe Takeda had made a mistake. Well, that would have been possible before she’d told him how she felt, but now she was giving him letters and talking to him regularly. Was it really possible that she had his name wrong?

  When Akutagawa had finished moving the desks, he looked at me.

  “Do you have some problem with this Shu guy?”

  “Uh, he’s a friend of a friend, and—Oh hey! Do you think I could come watch you guys?”

  “Sure. Sometimes new recruits come watch us practice.”

  “Could I come today?… Although, I’m not a recruit. Maybe it’s not allowed?”

  “Don’t think anyone cares. I’ll find out.”

  “Thanks, Akutagawa.”

  The archery team’s practice hall was an old wooden building to one side of the gym. Five wooden targets were hung up on the far wall. They also had bales of straw on platforms secured from behind by wooden planks, old floorboards, and other stuff set up as targets.

  The team members wore chest guards over traditional white uniforms and black pants. They pulled the bows into tight curves, then sent their arrows flying. Along the side, a few dozen kids wearing sweats were using thick rubber bows and arrows, swinging them around as they called out in unison, “Plant your feet!” “Square the chest!” “Raise the bow!” They were probably first-years.

  Akutagawa came over to me, dressed in his practice clothes.

  “I got you permission. It’s dangerous, so don’t get in anybody’s way.”

  “I won’t.”

  Just then the sound of an arrow striking one of the old floor-boards shot through me.

  “Wow, I didn’t know it was that loud! It really is intimidating seeing it up close.”

  I remembered Takeda mentioning that. She’d said that the moment Shuji’s arrow struck the target, it had lodged in her heart as well.

  “I guess it can surprise you the first time you hear it, yeah,” Akutagawa replied gruffly, then he left me behind to go join the practice.

  I observed the team members from the back of the room.

  The archery team practiced all together, both boys and girls, and the squad seemed about evenly split between them. There were a lot of people on the team; I counted fifty with a quick glance.

  I expected Shuji, the boy Takeda had fallen in love with at first sight, to be among them.

  Lessee… it was love at first sight, so he has to be pretty good-looking. So forget that guy. Not that guy, either. That guy over there isn’t quite…

  About halfway through, I wanted to pull out my hair.

  This was bad. The number of candidates was decreasing steadily.

  Akutagawa is definitely the best-looking guy on the archery team. But Takeda said Shuji is actually happy-go-lucky and popular, even if he doesn’t look it. There’s no way to spin Akutagawa as happy-go-lucky… But maybe he’s only distant in class and he gets more upbeat with the team. Hmm…

  In the end, I couldn’t decide which of them might have been Shuji.

  During a break in the practice, Akutagawa came over to me and whispered in his low, flat voice, “I asked the captain about people named Shuji, but he said he didn’t know any.”

  The mystery only deepened.

  Thanking Akutagawa, I left the archery team and headed to the book club.

  “Choo!”

  I heard a cute sneeze.

  “Choo! Mmrf…”

  Tohko pulled a tissue out of a box and blew her nose.

  “Oh, hello, Konoha. Ah-choo!”

  She sneezed again and demurely blew her nose.

  The trash can at her feet was full of pink tissues.

  So she’d gotten soaked on her way home yesterday, after all, and caught a cold.

  “Uh, thank you for the umbrella yesterday.”

  I held the violet umbrella out to her awkwardly, and Tohko beamed
at me with bleary eyes and a nose as red as a reindeer’s.

  “Yoooou’re welcome! And I put your umbrella back in the locker. Sorry I kept it so long.”

  “You look like you have a cold. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine! I was rereading Cartland’s Theirs to Eternity in the bath and lost track of time, so I didn’t notice the water getting cold. I’ll be all better soon.”

  “You shouldn’t stay in the bath so long that the water gets cold. The pages of your book are going to get soggy and fall apart, you know.”

  “And that is also de-li-cious. Like dipping a biscuit in pink champagne, maybe?”

  “I doubt that champagne tastes like cold bathwater or bubble bath.”

  “Geez, you have no imagination whatsoever, do you? Ah-choo!… Hnk… Anyway, you sure took your time getting here today, Konoha. Did you have clean-up duty again?”

  “Um, no… I went to watch the archery team practice.”

  “Hnk… the archery team?”

  Tohko cocked her head, the tissue still covering her face. Her long braids swung smoothly.

  “Actually…”

  I summarized how I’d run into Takeda yesterday after school, how she’d been crying, and how there was no one named Shuji Kataoka on the archery team.

  “Oh my…”

  Tohko was speechless.

  Then, struck by an idea, she said, “Oh yeah! You should be able to search all the students’ names on the computers in the library. Let’s go see.”

  At the library, I saw that Kotobuki was behind the counter.

  “Oh!”

  As soon as she saw me, she glared, as if demanding to know what I was doing there.

  “Could we use one of the computers?”

  “There aren’t that many patrons today, so one should be open.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Ah-choo! Don’t mind us.”

  We slipped past the counter and headed to the computer corner. We found an open one and crowded together at it.

  “Can you do it, Konoha? Machines and I don’t get along.”

  Tohko sounded afraid.

  “Don’t get along? It’s just a search.”

  I clicked the mouse to open Seijoh Academy’s student roster and did a search for Shuji Kataoka. The hourglass icon appeared, then it showed a message saying there were no matches.

  Next I did a search for just the name Shuji.

  That had no matches, either.

  There were seven hits for Kataoka, but four of them were girls and the three boys left didn’t have first names even vaguely resembling “Shuji.”

  Tohko and I exchanged a look.

  What was going on?

  Shuji Kataoka was not only not a member of the archery team, but he wasn’t even a student at our school.

  The next day, Takeda appeared during the first-period break, clutching her duck notebook.

  “Goooood moooorning! I came for my letter!”

  Ignoring a look from Kotobuki, I led Takeda into a corner of the hallway.

  “I don’t have a letter today.”

  “Huh? Why not?”

  “Because there’s no such person as Shuji Kataoka at our school.”

  “Whaaat?” Takeda’s eyes widened. It didn’t look like an act—she seemed truly surprised. Then she started to giggle, as if I were telling a joke. “Come on, that’s not true, Konoha. Shuji does too exist!”

  “But there’s no one on the archery team with that name and no one in the student rolls for the whole school. Who have you been giving your letters to, Takeda?”

  Takeda’s smile never faltered as she answered. “To Shuji!”

  She showed not the slightest doubt, and I started to wonder if maybe I was the one who’d been mistaken.

  “And Shuji is too on the archery team!”

  “B-but—”

  “I still have the letter he gave me, too! Look.”

  Takeda opened the duck notebook and took out the envelope stuck inside it. The envelope was plain white and showed no address; but the sender’s name was there—Shuji Kataoka. Takeda pulled out the letter.

  It was also on plain white paper, three folded sheets.

  I remembered that yesterday Takeda had mentioned receiving a letter from Shuji. She’d started to tell me about it, but then her expression had darkened and she trailed off.

  She’d also said that something seemed to be bothering him.

  Had he written about that in this letter?

  Takeda looked momentarily troubled, and she glanced up at me with that same wary look she sometimes had. Then she thrust the letter at me decisively.

  “Shuji exists. Really. I’m sure of it. Read this letter and you’ll see. He’s suffering a lot right now… but I’m too dumb to understand what he means… so… so… please help him.”

  She appealed to me earnestly, her voice shaking. She may have acted cheerful, but she must have been reaching her limit, carrying this burden all alone. Takeda may have been hoping for salvation herself. I supposed that was why her gaze looked so helpless.

  I knew that reading the letter would only mean more trouble for me.

  If I read the letter, it would be a promise to help her.

  A peaceful life without surprises was my greatest desire.

  It was stupid to get involved in other people’s business, especially when I had a choice about it. The best decision would be to tell her, Sorry, I have enough to worry about already, and I don’t think I can help anyway, and then withdraw.

  But it was too late for that. I was dying to find out whether this Shuji Kataoka person truly existed and discover how this misunderstanding had happened.

  I unfolded the letter. I felt my fingertips tingle and I detected a tangy smell.

  Mine has been a life of shame.

  Human beings are inscrutable to me.

  They, and their emotions—kindness, fondness, sadness—which every one of them naturally possesses.

  I donned the mask of a mime. I struggled to make them laugh, to make them believe I was harmless. But with each lie built atop lies, my spirit only depleted.

  I killed someone that day.

  When tender flesh was pulverized and red blood spread its tangy aroma across the black asphalt, I watched with a thirsty heart.

  I had killed a person.

  I doubt that God will ever forgive me.

  “That’s No Longer Human,” Tohko declared upon finishing the letter. We were in the club room after school.

  “You mean the novel by Osamu Dazai?”

  “Yeah. ‘Mine has been a life of shame’: that’s a quote of the opening line. There’s a bunch of other lines that refer back to No Longer Human, too.”

  She said all that and then sneezed once.

  She appeared to have mostly recovered after a night’s sleep, but she still seemed a little foggy. Her eyes were still bleary.

  “Then the stuff in this letter isn’t true—it’s just a parody of No Longer Human?”

  I hoped that was true. When I’d read the letter, the monstrosity and hopelessness of it made me feel as if an evil shadow had fallen over me.

  It was a stunning revelation—and a confession—by the young Shuji Kataoka.

  Ever since infancy, Shuji had been unable to share in the emotions of others.

  Why do they like that?

  Why do they hate that?

  What did it mean to “like” something, anyway? What did it mean to “hate” something?

  Someone he was close to passed away, and everyone cried at the funeral. But he didn’t feel sad at all. A friend transferred to a school far away. Everyone was sad he was leaving, but it didn’t move his heart in the slightest. Shuji also couldn’t understand why everyone fawned over babies and puppies. As these things continued to happen, he began to think of himself as inhuman, an unholy monster.

  He couldn’t understand things about people that he ought to have understood, and it made him afraid. Disappointed. Heartbroken.

  What
would people think if they found out he was a monster?

  That fear made him take on the role of the clown and struggle to make people laugh and love him.

  People were charmed by Shuji and he grew to be popular, but he always cherished an intense shame in his heart with which he continued to struggle.

  He was ashamed of lying. Ashamed that he wasn’t human. Shuji Kataoka stated that again and again in his letters.

  I’m ashamed.

  Ashamed.

  Ashamed to be alive.

  There was only one person who realized that Shuji’s clowning was an act.

  Shuji referred to that person as “S” and noted that although S understood him, they were also capable of destroying him—and were therefore dangerous.

  Only one person, only S with that insightful gaze, has noticed my clowning.

  When will I face destruction at S’s hands?

  S asked me once whether I truly loved her with all my heart.

  The letter ended there.

  It was impossible to tell who “her” referred to, or who S was. Or how Shuji responded to S’s question.

  When I finished the letter, I felt an unspeakable tightness in my chest. It was a feeling I’d experienced somewhere before. After Tohko’s revelation, I remembered where.

  It was the opening from No Longer Human.

  It was Osamu Dazai’s most famous work; I’d read it in middle school for a summer assignment. We had to pick one of four books and write an essay on our impressions of it. I had still wanted to push myself back then, so I picked the one that seemed hardest. My very first impression of it had been how dark the title was.

  But I suppose I had been too immature to understand the protagonist’s suffering. What I had taken away from it was that his morose confession had dragged on and on, and it was all jumbled up. In the end, I wrote my essay on a different book.

  It was a long time ago, but apparently parts of what I read still lingered deep in my memory. When I’d read Shuji Kataoka’s letter, I’d gotten the feeling that I had read something like it before.

  “Ah-choo!”

  Tohko sneezed.

  “Mmrf… I wouldn’t say the whole letter is a parody of Osamu Dazai. It makes reference to No Longer Human, but it still strikes me as a letter someone wrote hoping that someone would understand his true feelings.”