“Yes, we were dating back then. You were confident and straightforward, which was very charming. I liked you very much.
“In contrast, Kataoka was a slacker who did nothing but tell stupid jokes. He didn’t seem to even try to be serious with anyone, so I hated him.
“But then one day I was so annoyed I told him, ‘Not a single thing you say is true. You’re just acting, trying to fool all of us.’ He was so surprised, he looked like he might start crying. He looked so vulnerable and sad that I couldn’t stay away.”
Manabe fell into the same silence that had claimed Soeda.
Tohko murmured, “So you became his confidante, and then you fell in love with him.”
“Yes. After that, I was the only one Kataoka didn’t try to deceive. I was the only one he confided his pain and sadness to. Do you think a girl could help but love someone like Kataoka when he surrendered his heart to her entirely?”
A sad look crossed Tohko’s face. “No.”
Rihoko smirked. “Kataoka was sneaky and impossible and childish. But he was a kind, complicated person. He was someone you couldn’t help liking.”
“How odd. Do you know Tomie Yamazaki, the woman who committed double suicide with Osamu Dazai in the Tama River? She kept a diary, and in it, she said that Dazai was sneaky. But she loved him anyway. She said he was the sort of person you couldn’t help liking.”
“Yeah. Kataoka loved No Longer Human. He read it so many times, his copy was falling apart. Even though he told Sakiko that he never read books because it made him sleepy.
“Kataoka was going out with Sakiko, but she knew nothing about him. That began to burden Kataoka eventually. So I manipulated Soeda into trying to separate them.
“Maybe I was just jealous of her.
“Because of my simpleminded plot, Sakiko was killed, and the guilt utterly destroyed the already delicate balance of Kataoka’s psyche. He began to wish only for death.
“He never blamed me for what happened to Sakiko. I wish he would have, but he only looked at me in silence. Every time I saw the words ‘please kill me’ written on his face, I felt trapped.
“I could never have killed him.
“But he wished for death.
“He’d always wanted to die, but now he desired it with all his heart. Now he was convinced that death was the only way he could escape his suffering.
“What should I have done? Maybe granting his wish would have been proof of my love for him.
“A month after Sakiko’s death, I found a letter from Kataoka in my desk at school. He was asking me to meet him on the roof so we could have an honest discussion. I knew the time had finally come when I would have to make up my mind. The world seemed bleak.
“I didn’t want to go.
“I wanted to blow it off and go home. I thought maybe Kataoka would give up those dangerous ideas if he had to wait up there for nothing.
“But then—what if Kataoka died alone? What if he lost all hope when I didn’t come and latched on to his darkest, most pitiful feelings and threw himself off the roof?
“Once I started thinking like that, I couldn’t stand it. Of course I had to go.”
“So Shuji was still alive when you got to the roof.”
Rihoko nodded.
“On my way up the stairs, I saw Soeda running down looking pale. When I went out onto the roof, Kataoka was sitting limply on the ground with a knife sticking out of his chest. He looked at me, his expression somewhere between laughing and crying, and he murmured, ‘This isn’t going to kill me… A shallow wound like this is never going to stop my heart.’ ”
Takeda had listened to everything in silence, but now a question broke from her in a groan. “What happened next?”
“He… asked me to kill him. He begged me. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘Please, just kill me.’ ”
Everyone gasped.
Rihoko’s voice shook, like the hands which still cradled her belly.
“Kataoka staggered to his feet and asked to borrow my handkerchief. When I handed it to him, he wiped away the fingerprints on the knife and gave it back to me. Then he staggered toward the railing.”
I could see Shuji Kataoka ever so slowly approaching the railing.
The image of Miu obscured it.
I knew—I had witnessed a similar scene of despair.
Ever so slowly, Miu will walk toward her death.
The wind will play across the skirt of her uniform, and she’ll turn around.
“He turned around and looked at me. His eyes were so empty.”
Miu’s eyes had been forlorn, and terribly bright.
“ ‘You’re the only one who can kill me, Sena. Even now, I still don’t understand why people feel the way they do. I have no idea why Soeda hated me so much that he had to stab me. I can’t feel even a little bit sad about Sakiko dying right in front of me. I remember something Dazai wrote: ‘I want to die, I ought to die, I cannot undo what I have done, no matter what I do, everything I do, it turns out wrong, it only adds another layer of shame.’ I wonder what he was thinking when he wrote that. I feel like I’m standing right next to him. I understand how he feels. Is there any value in a life like mine? I know you can answer that, Sena. Please tell me.’ ”
Miu had said, Konoha, I don’t think you would ever understand.
“I couldn’t save Kataoka.
“If I loved him, I had to grant him his last wish.
“So I told him what he wanted to hear.
“I said, ‘No, you’re no longer human.’ ”
I hadn’t been able to say anything.
I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t understand a word of what Miu was telling me.
“Kataoka smiled kindly.
“Like he was thanking me.
“Then he jumped off the roof.
“Osamu Dazai and I killed him.”
Miu had smiled sadly and fallen off the roof.
I hadn’t been able to do anything.
I watched her die…
“Stop!”
When I heard a voice cut through the air, I thought it was my own.
But it was Soeda. He had fallen to his knees on the concrete and was sobbing and holding his head.
“Please stop. I can’t listen to this. It would have been better if I had killed him. You loved him? So then what does that make me? Why did you marry me, Rihoko?”
Rihoko answered quietly, “Because we were partners in crime. That’s why I—I couldn’t be with Manabe.”
Manabe bit down on his lip, his face taut.
Rihoko kneeled down next to Soeda and hugged him, whispering, “Look, Soeda. You still hate Kataoka, still think about him, even now. You won’t be able to forget him as long as you live, will you? Neither will I. I’ve never forgotten about him for a single day, either. And I never will forget about him. I’ll always remember.
“Let’s just accept it. We’re prisoners to the same person, Soeda. We’re partners in the same crime.”
“We’re—we’re going to have a child! And now… How am I supposed to live with you now? It would be hell.”
He pressed his hands over his face but couldn’t stop the tears that fell, leaving small stains on the concrete.
Takeda watched him, her every ounce of strength drained away.
“Yes. We will live the rest of our lives in hell. It’s not so bad: as long as you’re prepared for it, you can live anywhere.
“Besides, I’m the only person in the entire world who won’t blame you for what you did to Kataoka. I don’t think you were a coward, either, or that you were wretched or pathetic. In fact, I love you. If you think of it like that, you feel better, don’t you?
“Come on, Yasuyuki. We’ll go on with our peaceful, everyday lives, forever thinking about Kataoka, forever his prisoners. That will be our atonement to him.”
Soeda’s sobs echoed across the roof.
Tohko, Takeda, and Manabe were all silent.
And I… How could I possibly
atone?
How could I be healed, how could I be saved?
Miu… Answer me, Miu!
“Konoha!”
Tohko was calling out to me.
I heard her footsteps running over to me, saw her braids falling over my face, felt her hugging me, smelled the fragrance of violets…
And then it was over.
In a cloud of overwhelming pain, I let go my hold on consciousness.
I first met Tohko a year ago.
It was an early afternoon in April, when the weather had just begun to thaw into warmth again after a winter of record-breaking tenacity.
The world’s interest in Miu Inoue had faded, and I had finally been freed from the shadow of the cute little genius author. As a result, I had become a little lethargic. The wounds from what had happened on the roof had not yet healed.
Even after starting high school, I spent my time at lunch and after school in the schoolyard staring blankly at flowers and trees rather than trying to make friends or joining clubs.
One day after school while I was wandering around the grounds, I saw a girl with braids that hung down to her hips sitting under a white magnolia tree. She was leaning against the trunk and reading a book.
She had long eyelashes, and her skin was whiter than the magnolia flowers. The air seemed particularly tranquil where she was.
You don’t see braids like that very much anymore. She looks like a girl from the 1900s. But she looks so mature. She must be an upperclassman…
I was captivated by her, lost in thoughts like these when… she tore a page out of the book.
Before my shock had time to register, she’d stuffed the page into her mouth.
What the—?
I watched her start to chew on it in even greater wonder; I felt like I was in a dream when suddenly she looked up at me.
Our eyes met, and I thought my heart would stop.
A blush popped into her cheeks, and when she spoke her voice was meek. “You saw that, didn’t you?”
“Uh, well… that is… I’m sorry!”
“What’s your name? What class are you in?”
“I’m Konoha Inoue, first year, third class.”
She grinned at that, making her face look suddenly childlike. “I see… A first-year student? Then you need to join the book club.”
“Wha—? The book club?”
I blinked at her in shock, and the strange girl with the long braids—with the pure-white skin—with the clear, black eyes—with the book she had just taken a bite of—said, “I’m going to keep you nearby so you don’t spill my secret. From this day forward, you are a member of the book club.”
“What? H-hold on a second! I—I can’t be in the… Who are you anyway?”
“I am Tohko Amano, in class eight of the second-years. As you can see, I am a book girl.”
That was how we met.
During the next month, Tohko would come to my classroom after school and say, “All right, Konoha, it’s time for a club meeting,” as if she were a class monitor coming to collect a classmate who didn’t want to go to school. Then she would drag me by the hand to the room on the western corner of the third floor where the book club met.
When we got to the room, she would hand me a packet of paper stapled into a notebook and ask, “Do you know what improv stories are? It’s when a storyteller takes three prompts from an audience and makes up an unscripted performance. I’m going to give you three words, and I want you to try writing something, whether it’s a poem, an essay, a fairy tale, or whatever. Hmm… let’s see… let’s try clouds, green tea shortbread, and ant bundles. You have fifty minutes. Okay, go!”
“What are ant bundles?”
“Better get started, or I’ll put a curse on you.”
Every day she did that and made me write I-don’t-even-know-what.
“I eat stories instead of bread or rice. I usually eat books, but I love handwriting the best. Love stories are sugary, so I like those even better. So you better write me a suuuuper yummy story.”
Familiarity is a frightening thing, because eventually I accepted her explanation as something ordinary.
But since she would crunch through the things I wrote with a mouthful of criticism—“Nom-nom… this one tastes a little watered-down,” or “Mmf-mmf… the structure is still a little raw”—what could I do but accept it?
Before I realized it, I started going to the book club after school even when Tohko didn’t come for me.
“You seem much happier lately, Konoha. Did something nice happen at school?”
“It… it’s nothing like that! Everything’s the same as usual!”
Some doubt remained whether spending my days with an upperclassman who tore the pages out of books and ate them could be called in any way normal, but whenever I went to book club, where tiny motes of dust floated through the beams of the setting sun, I felt strangely at ease. Though I was flabbergasted by the things Tohko said and did, I started to have fun making the occasional wry comment, and I didn’t have to force myself to smile around her.
I went to book club every single day.
“Hello, Konoha.”
“I’m sooo hungryyy, Konoha.”
“Wow, your story today was so sweet! You’re getting good, Konoha!”
“You know, I really think you could stand to be a little more respectful of your elders, Konoha.”
“I am not a goblin! I’m just a book girl!”
Every day I talked to Tohko, wrote snacks for Tohko, saw Tohko smile, and so I started to think about Miu less.
So I guess it serves me right.
I’m sorry, Miu. I am.
I didn’t forget about you. It’s just that it hurt so much to remember you.
Every story you wrote was so gentle and warm and shining, and when you were talking about your dreams, you were dazzling. I adored you.
So I still don’t understand why you threw yourself off the roof that day.
I can never write again.
Because they’re all lies. Because I’m totally empty.
Miu Inoue doesn’t exist.
I can never write again. I won’t. I don’t want to.
When I woke up, someone was holding my hand softly.
I saw a white roof, white walls. The sheets smelled of medicine.
“Is this… the hospital?”
“No, you’re in the nurse’s office,” Tohko answered. “You passed out on the roof. Mister Manabe carried you down here. I tried to pick you up myself, though, really! I put your arm over my shoulders, but when I tried to lift you, I landed flat on my butt. Manual labor really is impossible for a scholar.”
Tohko was seated on a chair at my bedside, gently holding my hand.
Orange light cut through a gap in the curtains.
“How long was I out?”
“Two hours, maybe? You were sweating a lot. And moaning.”
Had she been holding my hand that whole time?
“What happened to everyone else?”
“Soeda went back home with Rihoko. I think they’re going to stay together, loving and hating Shuji for the rest of their lives… They’ve passed judgment on themselves.”
I remembered how Soeda had sobbed that his life would be hell.
I wondered if they would stay together as a family.
Tohko stroked the back of my hand softly with a finger. Gently… gently… It was like she was comforting me.
“Mister Manabe and Chia went home, too. Chia told me to tell you that she’s very sorry for getting you involved.”
“I guess the only reason Takeda took me to see the archery team was so those alums could get a look at me. She only got closer to me because I look so much like Shuji.”
“Yeah…” Tohko trailed off sadly.
Something hot surged up in me, and my throat trembled.
Takeda had used me.
Every letter I had written had been for nothing.
Takeda, Soeda, Rihoko, Shuji—all of them had li
ed. They’d hidden the truth.
It would have been so much better if they’d just kept on lying until the very end, so why had they started telling the truth?
They’d forced an impossible reality on me.
I had bundled my heart up in layer upon layer of soft cloth in order to protect it, and they’d ripped it out of its hiding spot, forcing it to bear first grief, then pain, misery, regret, and desolation.
I didn’t know how to deal with such a flood of emotions; there was nothing I could do with them. My throat hurt, it burned, I felt like my entire body had been dipped in flame, stinging…
I slipped my hand out of Tohko’s, turned to stare up at the ceiling, and covered my face.
Otherwise she would see me crying.
“I’m so tired of watching these… messed up, irresponsible things happen. I’m sick of it. I don’t want drama or adventure or mysteries in my life. I’m tired of hurting and being sad and suffering.
“So why do people keep stirring up stuff they ought to just keep shut up inside themselves when they know it’s going to hurt people? Do they want to know that badly? Do they have to lay everything out like that? Do they have to be so sad and suffer so much? Do they have to resent and hate people? Do they have to kill, and die?
“They’re all… they’re all crazy! It’s not normal. I hate Osamu Dazai!”
Tears slid down my cheeks, wetting my ears, the collar of my shirt, and the sheets.
I felt a chill on the back of my neck.
I didn’t get it. None of it.
Shuji and Miu both gave up on life and jumped to their deaths.
“Nnk… Such horrible things just keep happening… who knows what’s normal and what’s not anymore… I just don’t get it, Tohko,” I sobbed, surrounded by the smell of disinfectant in the room.
Tohko didn’t try to say anything to comfort me. She only murmured sadly, “You have to find the answers to those questions on your own, Konoha. Even if it hurts… even if it makes you sad… even if you suffer along the way… you have to get there on your own.”
“Then… nnk… I don’t need to know. I’ll just go on with my life without it.”
I wonder how Tohko reacted to that.
Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime Page 11
