The Gate of Sorrows

by Miyuki Miyabe

  A mother speaks to her child all day. She conveys her love through words, helps the child understand the world, assures it that Mother will always be in the world with the child, and promises that it will always be protected.

  “Mana-chan?”

  “Mmm?” Immersed in her drawing, the little girl didn’t look up.

  “What was your mother’s name? I don’t think you ever told me.”

  The crayon stopped. She looked up at Kotaro.

  “Yuriko.” The golden yellow ring undulated to the sound of her voice.

  “Really? That’s a nice name.”

  Yuriko. Mana was bathed in her warm light. Kotaro felt its warmth too.

  Hello, Yuriko. You never left Mana’s side and you never will. I should never have doubted it.

  As Mana grew and her words began to reflect her true self, this ring of light would finally merge with them, become part of them, protecting her always.

  She looked behind her, to where Kotaro was gazing. Her mother’s gentle light caressed her daughter’s cheek.

  “What?” she asked Kotaro, puzzled. He stroked her head.

  “Uncle’s been studying very hard since he saw you last.”

  “Studying?”

  “Yes. Do you remember? I promised to tell you if I found out where your mother went and when she’s coming back. That’s why I was studying, so I could tell you.”

  Her face lit up. “Did you find her?”

  “I did. Your mother is right next to you. You can’t see her now, but she didn’t go anywhere. She’s always by your side.”

  I’ve studied it, Mana. I know. The tuition was very expensive.

  The little girl laughed happily. The ring rippled, as it if were laughing too. It would be Mana’s forever.

  I’m looking at an angel’s halo, Kotaro thought.

  “Galla, you can have your eye back.”

  Dinner over, Kotaro walked toward Shinjuku Station. The narrow road paralleled the edge of the sprawling National Garden on his right. The elevated tracks of the Chuo Line blocked his view to the left.

  “I’m finished with it. Anyway, I don’t think I have the strength to use it anymore.”

  No one seemed to be on the street. It felt like the middle of the night, though it was just past eight.

  “Galla?”

  The warrior appeared in the darkness ahead. She descended slowly, just as she had the first time Kotaro encountered her on the roof of the tea caddy building. She touched down silently and folded her wings. The crescents above her head gleamed icily.

  “Your hunting is at an end, then?”

  He closed his right eye. There were no silver threads. Her voice reverberated deep in his ears, at it had before she’d given him the power.

  The Eye was already gone.

  “Then let there be an end.”

  He stopped a few yards from her and stood at attention. “I’m afraid I wasn’t much use to you. I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. Her hair streamed behind her, melting into darkness.

  “But I took revenge for Ayuko. I can’t thank you enough for that.”

  An express rumbled past on the elevated track. Kotaro was talking to the night.

  Galla was gone.

  2

  Shigenori was right. With his power gone, Kotaro felt amazingly light and relaxed. He didn’t wait to send Mika a text message.

  How are you? I worry about you sometimes. Are you okay?

  He got a response immediately.

  You know people were saying stuff about me on that dark site. Gram told me. Let’s talk. How about a date?

  They rendezvoused for lunch at the McDonald’s near the train station. Mika was just back from tennis camp. She was so tanned, Hanako had commented, that you couldn’t find her face unless she smiled. She seemed energized and happy.

  “What’s Kazumi doing today?”

  “She and Mom went to Shibuya. Shopping, supposedly.”

  “Oh.” Mika seemed relieved.

  “What, is this something you don’t want her to know?”

  “No, not really. But I haven’t told her, or Mom either.”

  “Sensitive, huh?”

  She paused. “It’s about Gaku.” She looked at him as if the name alone said it all, which it more or less did.

  “The guy from your tennis team. The blockhead who doesn’t have a sense of time or place. Is he still pestering you?”

  “No, it’s not that. He’s not bothering me.”

  Hmm? She’s defending him. Something’s changed. Okay.

  He stared at her questioningly. She started to fidget like one of those shy characters in a girl’s manga. She was far more naïve than Kazumi.

  “If you tell me to keep it secret, I will,” Kotaro said.

  “I know.” Mika took a deep breath and a sip of coffee. “In April, just before the holidays, I got a mail from Gaku.”

  He’d written that he was settled into his new life as a high school freshman. He wanted to meet her and apologize for causing her trouble with his selfish behavior.

  “I never gave him my email address, so I was kind of surprised.”

  “Someone’s playing Cupid.”

  Mika had replied, telling Gaku she wasn’t being bullied on the web anymore; that it had been rough at the time, but everything was okay now, and she didn’t need him to apologize for anything.

  “He wrote back and asked if it was okay with me if we … um …”

  “Dated?”

  She squirmed in her seat and nodded. In Kotaro’s book, this was being a pest. Maybe girls didn’t see it that way?

  “I’m still only in second year …”

  “So? Some first-year girls have boyfriends.”

  “I know, but my dad’s not with us.” She added hastily, “I don’t mean Mom doesn’t do a good job. She’s done everything she could to raise me on her own.”

  “Your mom does a great job at home and at work.”

  “That’s why I have to—” Her voice became small and timid. “I don’t think it’s the right time for me to have a boyfriend; it’d take my mind off my studies. I’ve really got to study hard and get into a good high school, and a good university.”

  Kotaro was impressed. “You’re totally serious about this.”

  Her resolve was endearing, but it was hard to see having a boyfriend as that big a decision. He felt like telling her to relax and stop worrying about the future.

  “Your mom would be happy to hear you’ve got someone special. She’d be sad if she thought you were giving up happiness just out of consideration for her.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “It’s true. But I’m not saying you should date Gaku. I’m just saying you shouldn’t deny yourself what you want out because of your mom. If you don’t like Gaku, blow him off. If he keeps bothering you—just let me know!”

  “Ko-chan, don’t say that!” She seemed so anxious that Kotaro couldn’t help laughing, which made her blush to the roots of her hair.

  “So that’s what you told Gaku, I guess. That you couldn’t imagine dating someone right now.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “He said in that case would it be okay to send me mails sometimes? Like a friend.”

  The two began exchanging text messages. At first it was one-sided, with Gaku doing the sending and Mika mostly not replying. But—

  “He wrote me about stuff happening in school, and what he was studying and books he was reading. It was interesting. After a while I started writing back to him. I started to feel different about him, like maybe he wasn’t the kind of person I thought. He was always first in his class, and a tennis ace, and really popular, with all the girls swooning and stu
ff. I thought he was kind of a show-off. But it turned out he likes to spend time listening to music and reading books by himself. He said being around lots of people makes him tired.”

  “So you became mail buddies.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “And you haven’t gotten together?”

  Mike shrank into her chair. “We … did. I think that’s why I fell down the stairs.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I got a mail from him the day before. He said he was coming back from the library and he was, you know, in the neighborhood. So … I …”

  “Went and met him.”

  “You know that little park on the corner, a couple of streets over? It takes about five minutes to walk there. I met him there. He lent me a book. It was a book he’d been telling me about. He was sure I’d like it a lot.”

  It had been a year since she’d seen him, and because she’d started to see him in a new light, he seemed much more attractive than before. Heart pounding, she’d felt as though her future were suddenly much brighter. Even after he was gone, the bells kept ringing inside her.

  “I think I was kind of in a daze the next day.”

  “So when you slipped on the stairs, your head was in the clouds. Okay.” Kotaro sighed. “Mika, you know what that’s called, don’t you? A fixation. You’re in love.”

  Kotaro listened as she told him her second-year middle school girl’s story from start to finish—a love story, though she and Gaku had never been on a proper date. All they’d done so far was send mails back and forth and meet about once a week in the park, mostly to exchange books and talk about their favorite music, and movies they’d seen recently. That was the whole relationship, at least for now. Of course it would progress, but probably at a super-slow pace.

  The more he heard about Gaku, the more Kotaro began to think he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Maybe blowing his chance to get into that school he’d been gunning for, and the disappearance of his fans and the collapse of his dream of popularity, had made him a better person.

  His and Mika’s long-distance relationship seemed like an anachronism. Gaku was proceeding with restraint in consideration of his girlfriend’s age and tender feelings. When Kotaro first heard the story of his public love confession, he’d pictured a narcissist starring in his own romantic movie. But now it seemed likely that he’d been so naïve, he simply miscalculated.

  If that was where things stood, it was no surprise that Mika would hesitate to tell her mother and Kazumi. Instead of disapproving of the relationship, they might accuse her of acting like a child.

  Kotaro frowned for effect. “It seems weird that he has all those books. Are you sure he didn’t steal them from some bookstore?”

  Mika shook her head earnestly. “Of course not! He buys them with money from his part-time job. But I heard …” She lowered her voice. “I heard his family is really rich.”

  Gaku’s father was a senior executive in a giant food company. Kotaro was impressed when Mika told him the name; you couldn’t get away from their commercials on TV.

  “So if his dad’s such a big shot, how come he’s not at a private high school?”

  “He said it’s his father’s policy. He doesn’t want Gaku to have special advantages, at least until he graduates from high school. His two older brothers were raised the same way. The oldest one is still looking for a job. His father won’t help him. He says he had to climb the ladder without any help, and he wants his sons to do it too.”

  “Wow. Sounds like a pretty cool dad.”

  “But I can tell from the things Gaku says that his family has money. He’s been on lots of trips abroad, from the time when he was little.”

  So that would make Gaku’s family rich people from outside—not “aborigines.”

  “He can spend all his pocket money on books and CDs,” Mika added. “He doesn’t have to save money. I’m not like that.”

  “Do kids even buy CDs anymore?”

  “Don’t you know? People who love classical music collect them. Sometimes they have to have LPs, even.”

  “Classical. Okay. Sorry, I’m not that sophisticated.”

  They both laughed. But it was time for Kotaro to ask the question he’d been waiting to ask—about the spider.

  “Listen, Mika. What’s going on these days with Glitter Kitty? She was the ringleader, wasn’t she?”

  “Oh, her.” Mika’s smile disappeared. “She’s a freshman at Gaku’s high.”

  Kotaro’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “So you know who she is and where she lives—”

  “Everybody’s known since last year, at least on the tennis team.”

  Judging from the posts he’d seen, Kotaro had assumed that Glitter Kitty was a first-year student at the time, like Mika. Maybe she’d been trying to disguise her age. The web was tricky.

  “She’s a Gaku fan, right?”

  “Mm-hmm. But it was like she thought he was her boyfriend.” Unusually for Mika, she sounded suddenly scornful.

  “So that’s why she was bullying you. She was jealous.”

  “That’s how she is, not just with Gaku. She’s jealous of everybody and everything. She has to be first and best all the time.”

  Not a pretty picture. But Glitter Kitty had had a lot of followers who were up for tearing into Mika too. Maybe they were in first or second year and afraid to be seen anywhere other than on Kitty’s side. That was the problem with girls—the clique thing. It was a real pain when it wasn’t truly scary.

  “If she’s in the same school, do you think she knows about you and Gaku?”

  “Of course she knows.” Mika spat out the words. “She came to the tennis camp as an advisor. She told me to stay away from him.”

  Kotaro suddenly remembered the note he’d found in Mika’s book.

  If you touch Gaku, I’m going to kill you.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told her I didn’t think it was any of her business,” she said calmly.

  She’s got more guts than she lets on.

  “What happened?”

  “You mean since then? Nothing.”

  Kotaro furrowed his brow. “Are you sure you’re not going to have any more trouble?”

  “As soon as school started, Kiba-san asked him to be his boyfriend. He blew her off completely.”

  “Her last name is Kiba?”

  Mika traced the two characters on the tabletop with a fingertip: “tree” and “garden.” “Kiba” was one way to read them.

  “But you can pronounce them ‘ki-tei’ too, right? She said that’s been her nickname since kindergarten. It’s what everyone calls her.”

  Her nickname was a personal brand. Kotaro slapped a hand over his eyes. “Say no more. I know exactly what she’s like.”

  The spider dogging Mika would be the residue of Glitter Kitty’s jealousy. It must have somehow split off from her word body. Maybe it didn’t have the power to do much harm. Mika seemed healthy and happy.

  “What I want to know is, why are they going to the same high school?”

  “It’s not his fault. She took the same set of entrance exams.”

  Kotaro found it hard to believe that a girl in her mid-teens would be so intent on capturing one particular guy.

  “So, as far as Gaku goes—”

  “He never liked her,” Mika said. “He couldn’t stand her. She was having this fantasy that she was his girlfriend and telling everyone and making trouble for him.”

  Kotaro felt both regret and relief. If he still had Galla’s Eye, he would’ve used it on Glitter Kitty. At the same time, he was glad he couldn’t do that anymore.

  “Kitty’s from around here, then?”

  “Yeah. For a while she was waiting for Gaku to show up at the station every
morning, so he started using the next one down the line.”

  A self-centered, insanely jealous type might respond to being cut dead by becoming even more attached to the object of her fantasy.

  “And everything’s cooled down now?”

  “I haven’t heard anything. Gaku hasn’t said anything either.”

  “Be careful anyway,” Kotaro was about to say, but thought better of it. Glitter Kitty was sixteen. If she were a guy, she’d be capable of violence, but there was a limit to how far girls would go. If Mika stayed away from her, Kitty would probably give up after a while and drift away.

  Then there was Keiko Tashiro.

  Cut it out, Kotaro. Stop picturing the worst case. It’s like Shigenori says. I can’t fix everything.

  “Want another burger, Ko-chan?” Mika smiled.

  Everything seems okay, he told himself.

  It was August 31, the last day of summer break.

  Despite her high school entrance exams, Kazumi had taken part in the five-day tennis camp. Now she was nervous about her readiness, but she’d still spent the day at the living room PC, sorting through the photos she’d taken at camp. She became so absorbed that she missed another day of study. Asako was not pleased and made sure Kazumi knew it.

  Kotaro was home all day too. He’d pulled a night shift at Kumar, and between that and the fatigue that had been building up since last year, he slept till early afternoon. He still felt sleepy when he woke up, so he went back to bed. His mother and sister couldn’t believe it.

  Kotaro’s sleep was dreamless. That was a blessing.

  By evening he was up and helping prepare the fixings for grilled meat. By seven thirty the three of them had gathered around the tabletop grill pan. They’d eaten their fill, and Kotaro was just opening the window to air out the kitchen, when the telephone rang. Asako took the call.

  “Oh, hello.” Her friendly tone changed quickly. “Mika? No, she’s not visiting.” She put a hand over the receiver. “Kazumi, have you seen Mika today?”

  “No.”