Book Girl and the Captive Fool

by Mizuki Nomura

  The teacher wasn’t there yet.

  About ten minutes later in the middle of class, Akutagawa opened the door at the back of the room.

  “I’m sorry. I was looking for something in the library.”

  He bowed to the teacher and sat down. My eyes had already shot to his pants pocket, but as far as I could tell from the outside, there was nothing unusual about it.

  Who had that letter been from…?

  That question tangled gloomily in my heart, along with the thought that I couldn’t get involved.

  Do you like me, I wonder?

  You said so in a letter you sent me without the slightest hesitation.

  Ever since the incident, I’ve avoided becoming close to the opposite sex, and I thought for sure I would never be in love.

  But that winter, when I saw you—you glared at me as if you were looking at the filthiest, most loathsome creature in the world, and when you attacked me, I felt hot stabs of pain in my heart.

  I thought you were beautiful, though you abused me mercilessly. I was captivated by the vivid blush of your cheek, the sharpness in your glinting eye, and I couldn’t look away.

  I knew only too well that you had not a shred of desire to accept me. That you wanted only to satisfy your own dark, cruel cravings.

  And I was not the sort of illustrious person who might win your heart.

  But I couldn’t stop myself from going to you. I wanted to see you and receive your cold gaze. I wanted to hear your voice hurl abuse at me.

  Perhaps I wanted you to blame me.

  Everyone heaped praise on me for being an honorable and upstanding person. So maybe I wanted to be reminded that it wasn’t true—that I was a despicable person who deserved your abuse.

  You wanted to ask me about school.

  How did I spend my day? Did I have any friends? Did I have a girlfriend?

  You asked, claws hidden in each word, and listened to what I told you with a pale, tense face. Then in the end, you would always get upset and say, “Go away.”

  So gradually I started to say ugly things about what I’d done in the past, until one day you pressed me for a decision.

  I know what it was that set you off. I also know that you were still fighting memories of the past, trapped by them, slashed by them, while you writhed in pain in an unescapable, pitch-black labyrinth.

  I want to grant your wish.

  Because it will be my atonement.

  But even if I can save you, I’d still be a contemptible traitor if I did that.

  Your wish is dirty! It’s not right! It hurts people!

  And yet you want me to do it? You order me to do something that’s not honorable?

  Please stop sending me letters. Stop writing things that test my spirit.

  I know I’ll be taken in by you. I recognize that. But I can’t be any more foolish than I already am.

  “Wow, you two are adorable!”

  Kotobuki and Takeda had changed into kimonos with long, trailing sleeves tucked into empire-waisted and full-pleated pants, and when she saw them, Tohko gave a shout of joy.

  Kotobuki had clipped extensions on either side of her head and tied red ribbons in them. She fidgeted in embarrassment.

  When classes ended, I’d been conflicted over whether or not I should go home when Kotobuki planted herself in front of me, her arms crossed over her chest. “We’re doing costume fitting today. You can’t skip.” Then she pursed her lips and glared at me.

  “Hey Akutagawa! Don’t drag your feet, either! We’re going to rehearsal.”

  Somehow she managed to settle things and chased me and Akutagawa into the auditorium.

  Dressed up as Sugiko, she was like a different person. Her cheeks were delicately flushed, and she kept her eyes down. Apparently they had asked a third-year who did tea ceremony for the clothes. I was busy being impressed by how clothes could change a girl when Kotobuki glanced over and stuck her lip out.

  “Wh-what are you looking at? You got a problem?”

  “No, I was just thinking how good you look in old-style clothes,” I told her honestly, but she turned bright red.

  “You—you jerk! Why would you say that?! You’re just giving me more empty flattery! I—I can’t believe what a jerk you are!”

  “But… it’s the truth.”

  “What?!”

  Kotobuki was speechless. I smiled. “You and Takeda look really good.”

  “Yaaay! Thank you, Konoha!”

  Takeda wore a trailing, navy ribbon in her hair. She swung her long sleeves and giggled.

  In contrast, Kotobuki grumbled discontentedly. “I really hate you, Inoue!” And she turned away pointedly.

  Huh? Wh-why was she mad at me?

  I was confused. But Tohko came bouncing over to me, elated.

  “Oooh, I was so conflicted about whether we should do elegant young ladies in fluttering kimonos or go with the pants, too, but this is a total blowout! A 1920s romance simply demands ribbons and billowing, high-waisted pants!”

  Tohko was wearing a Western-style shirt with a stiff collar and a resist-dyed kimono over it. Akutagawa and I were dressed similarly.

  “Heh-heh. You look totally different, too, Tohko! It looks great!”

  “Ohh, you mean it?”

  “Yup! I feel faint!”

  “Oh, stop! Maybe girls will send me bunches of love letters.”

  Tohko’s eyes glazed over dreamily, probably imagining the love advice mailbox in the school yard stuffed full of sugary, handwritten love letters. The shirt and kimono over her chest lay perfectly flat, and that didn’t look strange in the slightest, just as I had expected, but her long braids swinging like cats’ tails made her look nothing like a Japanese boy. Just as this thought crossed my mind, she pulled on a dark brown tweed cap and stuffed her long braids into it.

  “Now I look even more like a beautiful young man, no?”

  “Yes! It makes me want to sigh your name all dreamily!” said Takeda.

  “Do it, do it!”

  “Ohhh, Tohko!”

  “Oh, Chia!”

  The two were completely into it. They fell into each other’s arms and shrieked and everything.

  “You’re getting a little carried away, Takeda.”

  Kotobuki looked sullen, but then Takeda threw her arms around her.

  “Ohhh, I love you, too, Nanase! My big sister!”

  “Hey—quit it! Let go of me!”

  Nanase’s eyes darted around in panic as Takeda embraced her.

  I tried to keep a low profile in the midst of that animated scene and furtively watched Akutagawa.

  He seemed to be thinking about something, a bleak expression on his face. The dark colors of the clothes suited his ramrod straight height, and he gave off a straitlaced charm and sexy self-denial. I was sure the female audience members would be transfixed. But shadows darkened his downcast eyes.

  I felt a twinge in my heart. I was afraid if I watched him too long, I would be drawn in by the pain he faced, so I quickly looked away.

  “All right, let’s start practicing,” Tohko called out, beginning the dress rehearsal.

  We started with the Ping-Pong competition between Sugiko and Omiya, where Sugiko defeats her older brother’s friends one after another with her astute Ping-Pong skills and everyone cheers for her.

  “Why not have Nojima try next?”

  Nojima was nonplussed by the suggestion from Hayakawa, who was a rival for Sugiko’s love. He wasn’t good at Ping-Pong. But everyone goaded him on, and he was on the brink of being forced into facing off against Sugiko when Omiya stepped forward.

  “Why don’t I stand in for him?”

  Just then, the chest of Akutagawa’s kimono vibrated.

  Akutagawa’s face tensed. My breath caught, too.

  “Sorry,” he murmured angrily, then took his phone out to check the screen.

  The very next moment, his eyes seemed to pop out of his head and he gulped.

  “I’ll be right back
. Sorry, really,” he offered hurriedly; then he bit down on his lip and left the stage.

  “Oh—Akutagawa!” Tohko called to him, but he didn’t turn around. He ran up between the seats and left the auditorium.

  We all looked at each other uneasily.

  “He did that before, too. Looked at his phone and then ran out.”

  “I wonder what happened.”

  Takeda’s gaze landed subtly on me. I recalled Akutagawa groveling behind the school. Igarashi had been hitting him, and Akutagawa had offered no resistance.

  If Igarashi was the one calling him…

  Whatever. It was none of my business. There was nothing I could do anyway. Don’t think about it anymore.

  Just then, something fluttered across the stage.

  By the time I realized it was the long sleeve of Tohko’s kimono, she was already running frenetically down from the stage. Her cap flew off and her supple braids danced behind her.

  “Konoha, let’s go!”

  “Where exactly?”

  I gaped. Lifting the hem of her kimono and cinching it up between her thighs, she answered, “After Akutagawa!”

  With her legs now exposed, Tohko ran up the aisle between the seats.

  I hurried off the stage and chased after her. When they saw that, even Kotobuki and Takeda followed in their trailing sleeves and billowing pants.

  Tramping down the hallway outside the small auditorium, passing through the atrium, bursting out of the building, and then running off again, Tohko was far from the beauty in men’s clothing or the modest book girl. She was more like the fishwife carrying a scale over her shoulders in a samurai drama or a female firefighter running to the site of a conflagration.

  As I ran, I wondered how I’d managed to jump straight into the fire even though I had meant to stay out of Akutagawa’s business from now on. I also thought about how I really ought to just go back.

  But since Tohko was running on right ahead of me, her braids streaming behind her, I could hardly go back by myself. Who knew what Tohko would do if I took my eyes off her!

  The students we passed looked at us in shock.

  “Wait! Tohko, wait!”

  Tohko was sprinting and apparently didn’t hear me. Not that it mattered, but did Tohko know where Akutagawa had gone? She was running pretty hard.

  But it looked like Tohko had made another one of her guesses, and once outside the school building, she plowed through to the back. She probably wanted to peek behind it into the back of the school yard.

  Just then, we heard an earsplitting scream.

  “Noooooo!”

  That was a girl’s voice! It sounded like Sarashina!

  The moment we rounded the corner of the building, Tohko stopped and stood rooted to the spot. Once again, my heart was pierced by a scene out of a nightmare, happening right before my eyes.

  Behind me, Kotobuki let out a squeak as she gulped back a scream.

  Akutagawa stood with a chisel in his hand. Blood dripped from the V-shaped blade. A muscular boy had fallen to his knees in front of him. A pool of blood was spreading over the ground, and Akutagawa looked down at it blankly.

  Sarashina was beside Akutagawa, kneeling on the grass, the front of her uniform splattered in blood. She was holding her head and sobbing.

  “No! Why! Why did you do that?! It’s that girl’s fault! She did this! That girl stabbed him!” said Sarashina.

  Suddenly someone grabbed my arm.

  It was Kotobuki.

  She was trembling, her eyes wide. She staggered and almost fell, but I supported her.

  Takeda watched the scene, her face calm. Tohko stood perfectly still, her back to me.

  People started to gather, drawn by Sarashina’s cries. Several girls behind us screamed. Teachers elbowed their way through the crowd.

  They fell speechless and gasped at the carnage before them. Akutagawa stood up straighter, and in a brittle voice devoid of emotion, he said, “I stabbed Igarashi.”

  I’ve reached my limit. I can’t sleep. Even when I lie down in bed, despite being so tired my body feels like it’s made of clay, my mind is ringing and alert, and a ferocious creature rampages through my heart.

  There was another letter from you today. How much time you must have spent in writing it. Was that also because of your hatred? Do you hate me that much? Can’t you forgive me? Please, don’t blame me. I’m a weak human being. I can’t stand to be blamed anymore.

  At home, I’ve tried sticking my box cutter into the tatami floor, into the sliding doors, into my notebooks, into my textbooks, into the rabbit. I cut my English book to shreds and scattered the pages around my head like confetti; I carved crosses into the sliding doors; I cut off the rabbit’s feet.

  But the mist doesn’t clear. The bellowing in my heart never stops. And the girl with the chisel stabbed into her chest continues to blame me.

  I want to cut them out, cut them apart, break them into pieces, all of it, everything, you, the world, the past, the future, truth, lies; I want to cut them apart, cut them apart, cut them apart, cut them apart—

  Mother, I’ve gone crazy.

  Chapter 4–Girl from the Past

  Akutagawa’s house was a Japanese-style building in a quiet residential neighborhood thirty minutes away from school by bus and then another ten-minute walk.

  The day after the incident, Tohko and I went over to his house.

  The chisel had sliced Igarashi in the chest and throat, and after being treated at the hospital, he was convalescing at home. His wounds hadn’t been serious considering how much blood he’d lost, but he wasn’t saying a word about what happened.

  Sarashina had evidently taken quite a shock, and she had stayed home from school as well. Akutagawa had been ordered to stay at home for a while by the head teacher.

  Everyone in class had found out about the incident, and the class was already abuzz about it first thing in the morning.

  Takeda and Tohko came to my class to see how things were going, wearing gloomy expressions. So did Kotobuki, who had leaned against me trembling yesterday.

  “So Akutagawa didn’t come today?”

  “I still can’t believe he would stab someone.”

  “They’re saying that… Igarashi called him out to talk about Sarashina, and they fought, and then Akutagawa stabbed him.”

  “Yeah. But what was Akutagawa doing with a chisel?”

  “That’s a good question! That’s weird. I don’t think he took anything with him when he ran out of the auditorium.”

  “… I wonder what he’s doing right now.”

  “And what are we going to do about the play?”

  Kotobuki and Takeda drooped. Trying to cheer them up, Tohko said, “After school, Konoha and I will go to his house.”

  I couldn’t mount a protest against that.

  I stood next to Tohko at the gate, which was adorned with an inked sign reading AKUTAGAWA, and looked up at the house.

  “His house is magnificent.”

  “… Sure is.”

  To be honest, I was overcome by a desire to turn right around and go home.

  Even if we saw Akutagawa, I had no idea what we would talk about or what we should tell him. My whole stomach was knotting up.

  I didn’t want to do this… I didn’t want to go any farther.

  But Tohko went briskly through the gate, and walking across the rocks that were sunk into the ground, she went to the front door and pressed the intercom.

  “Yes, who is it?”

  A young woman’s voice answered. Tohko told the girl that she’d come to see Akutagawa and the door opened, a pretty girl’s face appearing behind it. She had dyed brown, shoulder-length hair and wore jeans. She looked around twenty years old.

  I moved up beside Tohko to greet her, and she introduced herself. “I’m Kazushi’s oldest sister, Ayame.” Then she smiled awkwardly. “Thank you for thinking of him.” His family must have been upset by what happened.

  “Wait here, I’ll go
get Kazushi.”

  She went up the massive wooden stairs.

  “Kazushi, you have visitors. Can you hear me?”

  There was the sound of a door sliding open, and Ayame’s cries pierced my ears.

  “What are you doing, Kazushi?!”

  Tohko pulled her shoes off and went inside, then ran up the stairs. I went swiftly after her.

  Ayame stood frozen in front of the open door to a room, her face colorless.

  The twelve-foot-square, traditional-style room was in a horrifying state.

  The many awards hanging on the walls, the sliding door, the shutters—all were cut up, lengthwise and at angles. Books, notes, and schoolbooks were tossed all over the floor, the marks of wild cuts from a blade left on their covers and pages.

  Then there were what must have been homemade cookies or cupcakes scattered everywhere with their crumpled-up wrappers and cute red or pink ribbons beside them. The surfaces of the cakes were spotted with a purple mold that looked like blood pooled in a corpse.

  I felt sick and clamped down on my throat.

  In the center of the room, Akutagawa sat dressed in a shirt and slacks.

  His eyes were devoid of spirit like those of a dead fish, his half-open lips were dry, and he had a tight hold on a folded-up box cutter in his right hand. Blood was dripping from its tip.

  The sleeve was rolled up on his left arm, exposing several cuts with fresh red blood flowing from them. A pink rabbit doll lay unceremoniously beside him as he sat in a daze, its head and limbs cut off, soaking up the blood that dripped onto it.

  “Kazushi, what—what have you done?! Your arm is bleeding.”

  Ayame’s voice was shaking.

  Akutagawa murmured, his eyes still dry, “I cut myself… just to see. It’s so easy to cut through… human skin.”

  Ayame’s face tensed in horror.

  “W-we have to bandage it.”

  She reached out to him hesitantly, but Akutagawa swatted her away. His listless face twisted ominously, and a cracked voice broke from his blue lips.

  “No! This is my atonement! Kanomata still hasn’t forgiven me! Kanomata’s wounds still haven’t healed!”

  A jolt went through Ayame, and she froze. Tohko moved past her and took hold of Akutagawa’s hand—the one that held the box cutter.