The blade was against Sarashina’s throat.
His face ashen, Akutagawa groaned. “Give me the chisel.”
“No!!!” Sarashina screamed. “Answer me! Why did you break up with me? It’s almost my birthday! So why? Why did you do it?!”
Akutagawa approached Sarashina slowly, forcing out a pained voice. “I thought that was what we agreed in the first place. You wanted me to pretend to be your boyfriend because you hated having Igarashi follow you around. You were terrified, so we agreed that I would take on the role of your fake boyfriend for one year. That year ended last month.”
Sarashina’s face morphed from a crazed expression to laughing tears.
“Sure, at first. But I never intended to just say good-bye after a year. I tried to make you notice me that whole time.
“I baked you cookies. I knitted you a scarf. I grew my hair out. I really did try my very best.”
I remembered the moldy cakes and cookies scattered around Akutagawa’s room and felt as if my heart was ripping open. I could imagine how Sarashina’s desperate efforts had been too intense for Akutagawa, and…
“We’ve been a great couple and never once fought this entire year. That’s true, isn’t it? You must have started to like me after one year. Haven’t you?”
Akutagawa couldn’t answer. His face contorted even further, and he bit down on his lip.
Sarashina watched him sadly, and madness came once more over her face. Her wet eyes flashed with hatred.
“I see. Someone must have bad-mouthed me again. Like she did!”
The next moment, Sarashina’s gaze locked onto me.
She raised the chisel over her head.
“Inoue? Did you say something mean about me to Kazushi? Were you the one who told him to break up with me?!”
“No, I—”
“Stop it, Sarashina! Inoue has nothing to do with this!”
“Answer me, Kazushi. Answer me! Did Kanomata bad-mouth me again?!”
Her scream reverberated off the walls, and the blade of the chisel glinted before my eyes. Just as she seemed ready to swing it down at me—
“Stop, Konishi!”
Sarashina froze, as if she’d been physically struck by that dignified voice.
Clopping footsteps sounded in the silent library.
Tohko walked past me, her long braids swaying like cats’ tails. She planted herself in front of Sarashina.
“Why are you here?” I gaped.
Her gaze resting on Sarashina, Tohko replied, “Chia tipped me off that Sarashina was at the library.”
Takeda popped out beside me.
“I was on duty at the desk today. Sarashina was acting really weird, so I went to get Tohko.”
There were usually two people on duty at the desk, but now that I thought about it, there had been only one and that was why there was a line at the counter.
“Sarashina,” Tohko said, “in fifth grade your name was Mayuri Konishi, from Akutagawa’s class. Right?”
“How did you know that?”
At Sarashina’s forbidding look, Tohko planted her right hand on her hip and crisply declared, “Because I’m a book girl!”
Sarashina just… stared at her.
She had a point. The only possible response to someone appearing unannounced in the midst of a bloody battle and then making an airheaded declaration like that was to either fly off the handle because you thought you were being made fun of or to stare agape because you had no idea what was happening.
Akutagawa looked at Tohko in utter perplexity, too.
Man, why did she always have to meddle in everything?
Sarashina lowered her hands to the level of her chest.
Tohko started talking without any sign of fear.
“There have been a lot of reports of cut-up books at the library recently. And as I cherish the written word with all my heart, I was seized by righteous indignation and searched for the perpetrator. Akutagawa said that he was the one who’d cut them up, but he’d only cut one book—and that was only one page out of a collection by Takeo Arishima. Of course, I still consider that an egregious crime. But he had a reason for doing it. He was covering for the one who was actually cutting up the other books. Which was you, wasn’t it, Sarashina?”
Sarashina’s face was still full of wonder. She must have felt like the conversation had derailed, and she couldn’t follow it. In contrast, Tohko’s tongue was moving at top speed.
“Even if you don’t answer, I can tell from seeing the Ryunosuke Akutagawa collection at your feet and the chisel in your hand.
“All the books that were cut up are used in fifth-grade language arts textbooks.
“When Akutagawa was in fifth grade, there was a big stir when a girl in his class, who was getting bullied, brandished a chisel in class. The cut marks left on the books’ pages were slightly different than those left by a box cutter. There were two vertical lines. A chisel would leave marks like that, no?
“I tested cutting paper with a chisel. It took a little bit of force, but once I got used to it, I could cut the paper neatly, and it left two lines on the page below. Meaning that the books were cut with a chisel.
“Don’t you think this accumulation of coincidences is odd?
“So I imagined that the person Akutagawa was protecting was someone involved in what happened in his class and who was still in his life.
“There was only Igarashi and you, Sarashina, for him to protect.
“Igarashi’s throat was slashed with a blade, and he got taken to the hospital in an ambulance. So that left only you.”
I felt like my chest was being crushed as I listened to Tohko speak.
She was right. The moment that Akutagawa wounded Igarashi with the chisel, we had guessed who he was protecting.
That day, he’d received a text message on his cell phone and ran out of the auditorium, but there hadn’t been enough time for Akutagawa, who had rushed to the back of the school yard still in his costume, to get his hands on a chisel or to argue and scuffle with Igarashi. And since Igarashi knew that Sarashina had stabbed him, he had been struck mute by his shock.
Tohko and I had both known in a half-formed way that Sarashina was the perpetrator.
But why had Akutagawa gone so far as to cover for her when they weren’t even dating?
And why had Sarashina done those things? I hadn’t understood that, and Tohko had hesitated to make any conjectures either. That was why Tohko had taken me along to the elementary school where the incident had occurred, because she believed that was the cause of it all.
Sarashina stared at Tohko, her face ashen.
“After that, all I had to do was look up your name. Your full name is Mayuri Sarashina. The name of the girl who was bullied was Emi Kanomata. And Akutagawa’s older sister let me check the full name of the girl who’d bullied Kanomata on an old student register. That girl was named Mayuri Konishi. The same name as you, Sarashina.”
I’d heard this part from Tohko while we were eating oranges at the hospital.
When we’d looked at the group photo from the field trip, I’d expected Sarashina to be revealed as Kanomata, because Sarashina now somehow resembled the Kanomata I saw in the photo, in her hairstyle or her general impression.
But Sarashina had not been Kanomata, who stood by Akutagawa’s side; she’d been the girl with the short hair and cold eyes standing in the opposite corner—Konishi.
“The reason I picked on Kanomata was because she told terrible lies!” Sarashina shouted, her face twisting suddenly. “She cut up her own textbooks and her own notes. That’s how she pretended she was getting bullied and how she elicited Kazushi’s sympathy! I saw her cut up her notes, so I called her out and told her she was a liar. She was as silent as a stone when I did that. But she kept on deceiving Kazushi after that anyway, and he protected her as if she was a princess!
“But I’d always had a crush on Kazushi. And I saw him before she did! It wasn’t fair… I couldn’t talk to him
, but she just kept getting closer and closer to him, and they were cuddling at the library every day, and—”
Sarashina’s voice was growing louder and louder. Her hand shook as she gripped the chisel.
“She even persuaded Kazushi to buy her the rabbit doll I’d always wanted! ‘Kazushi bought it for me,’ she said and flashed it around on the field trip! I’d bought my rabbit with my allowance, but I threw it into the trash at the amusement park. I hated Kanomata so much my eyes burned. But the most unforgivable thing she did was snitch to Kazushi that I’d been bullying her!”
“She didn’t do that! You’ve got it wrong, Sarashina,” Akutagawa shouted. “I was the one who suspected you. And I was the one who told the teacher—it was all me!”
Akutagawa’s admission only provoked Sarashina further.
“Are you protecting her?! Of course, she bad-mouthed me to you! She knew that I liked you! But she was insufferable with her confidence that she was the one you liked. She would tell me, ‘Kazushi is on my side’—I knew she was laughing at me in secret! That’s why I picked on her! And I told everyone to be mean to her, too! I told them to say she was a lying temptress. Then she started acting weird, and during art class, she whispered ‘I’m going to reveal the truth to Akutagawa.’ Then she swung the chisel up and slashed me.”
Sarashina laughed proudly. It looked to me like Sarashina was the one who was acting weird, and I shuddered. She laughed shrilly, her eyes bloodshot, then continued.
“That’s why I did it! I grabbed my own chisel and turned it on Kanomata! I cut her arm, and once I’d jammed it in wherever I could, I stabbed her in the chest. I’ll bet she still has the scar!”
I’d thought Konishi was the one who had been injured in the incident six years ago. Konishi—I mean, Sarashina had actually slashed Kanomata? But now I recalled what Akutagawa had said with pain in his voice. “Kanomata’s wounds haven’t healed yet.” He also said that in his dreams, Kanomata had told him, “My wounds will last forever!”
Imagining the blood-soaked atrocity that had unfolded in that tiny classroom, I felt as if I was being swallowed up by heavy darkness.
Tohko’s face was tense, too, and she seemed to be struggling to find something to say.
Sarashina just kept on talking.
About how her parents had never gotten along, and after the incident, they’d divorced after passing the blame for what their daughter had done back and forth to each other, and about how after Kanomata transferred, she had been forced to change schools, too.
How before she moved, Kanomata had come to see her and apologized, leaving the language arts textbook and rabbit with her, saying “I want you to give these back to Akutagawa.”
“What a Goody Two-shoes coming to apologize to the person she’d injured. Or maybe she was just exceptionally dim-witted.”
Ice-cold rage showed in Sarashina’s eyes.
“I cut off the rabbit’s head with my chisel and cut ‘Tangerines’ out of the book. I was in the library once and heard her say, ‘My favorite story in the textbook is Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s story “Tangerines.” I mean, his name is Akutagawa!’ Ever since then, I’d hated that story. And then I cut out the ‘Tangerines’ pages and sent them and the rabbit to Kazushi’s house under her name. I… couldn’t throw out the rest of the book, so I kept it.”
The last words alone she whispered with a touch of sadness.
Kanomata hadn’t been the one to send the cut-out pages of “Tangerines” and the decapitated rabbit to Akutagawa. But it was still a bitter discovery for him.
It may actually have been better if they had been sent as a rejection from Kanomata.
Akutagawa knit his brows together deeply, tensed his jaw, and looked at Sarashina.
Her face had grown calm again. She gazed at Akutagawa and said, “I hate Goody Two-shoes like Kanomata who pretend to be so fragile… But I didn’t mind becoming her if that was the kind of girl you liked.
“Kanomata was always, always interfering with you and me. In elementary school, she was stuck to you like glue and flaunted how close you two were. She’s still taunting me. ‘Akutagawa is on my side.’ And ‘This is payback for hurting me.’ Even though it was her fault! She just won’t go away! I can still feel what it felt like when I cut her. That’s why I… became Kanomata. If I was her, there’d be no reason to fear her.
“And when I cut up books like she did, you came running, didn’t you, Kazushi? I was so happy. Every time I cut a book, you came. When I cut the rabbit, you ripped it out of my hands with a waxen face and told me, ‘I’ll take care of this somehow.’ You were so worried about me, weren’t you? You told Igarashi, ‘She doesn’t want to see you. Don’t come near her again,’ so I knew everything would be all right. There’s nothing to interfere with us now, Kazushi. But we still can’t be together? You’re going to break up with me? Do I have to spend my birthday by myself next week?”
Akutagawa maintained his pained silence. I could tell he was conflicted, unable to cast off the girl he’d hurt to this extent. My breathing became strained. Tohko was looking at Akutagawa sadly.
Despair colored Sarashina’s eyes.
“Maybe there’s someone else you like? The girl who had this rabbit?” she murmured, putting one hand into a pocket, then thrusting a pink rabbit doll at Akutagawa.
Tohko gasped in surprise. My eyes widened, too.
Was that—?
“You didn’t want to be in a play with me, but you’ll be in one for the book club? Why? Because Kotobuki is in it? She is beautiful and so popular with the boys.”
So it was Kotobuki’s rabbit! Sarashina had stolen it!
“Tell me! Do you like her?! Are you going out with her?! Did you give her this rabbit?!”
She set the rabbit down beside the bookshelf, then violently stabbed it with the chisel.
A gash yawned open on the rabbit’s belly. She yanked the chisel to one side, cutting it apart.
“If so, I’ll cut Nanase Kotobuki into ground beef!!!”
She howled, the chisel still plunged into the rabbit.
“I’ll cut apart any girl—any one of them!—that you like, Kazushi!!!”
Akutagawa’s shoulders were trembling. He bowed his head, then lifted it again immediately and shouted, “That’s enough!! Just stop!”
Surprise showed on Sarashina’s face.
Furrowing his brow and staring back at her, his breathing strained, Akutagawa continued with his biting words.
“I have no romantic feelings for you whatsoever. I can’t keep covering for you anymore, and I’m not going to answer your summons.”
Then he sucked in a short breath, his face looking tortured past its limits.
“Don’t come near me again. I don’t want to see you.”
As he spoke, Sarashina’s face transformed into something terribly sad. The rabbit dropped from the end of the chisel, and a tense silence filled the library.
“You finally… gave me your answer.”
Her voice was frail yet somehow relieved.
I was taken aback to see a sorrowful smile spread over her lips.
I’d seen a smile like that before.
It was the calm smile that had come over Miu’s face on a summer day, on the windswept rooftop, her ponytail and the skirt of her uniform flying as she turned.
“Konoha, I don’t think you would ever understand.”
Miu falling.
Me screaming.
Something hot and sharp stabbing into my brain.
“No! Sarashina!”
I ran toward her. As I watched, she clutched the chisel in both hands and slashed it across her throat, a smile still on her face.
Time stopped.
Akutagawa was unable to move, his eyes wide; Tohko stood frozen, both hands over her mouth, and Takeda watched it all with a cool expression.
The fresh blood that spilled dyed Sarashina’s body red.
She crumpled to the floor.
“Don’t move her!” Tohko
ordered as I bent over Sarashina. Takeda got her cell phone out of her pocket and called an ambulance. Tohko said, “I’ll tell a teacher,” and ran from the library.
“Sarashina… Sarashina!”
As I called to her, her eyes opened slightly and her blood-slick throat trembled. With much halting, she murmured, “You should have… told me… sooner… I’m not that bright… I didn’t know…”
Sarashina seemed to whisper, “I’m sorry.”
Shock coursed over Akutagawa’s face as he stood frozen. He knelt down in the pool of blood, gripped his head in both hands, and he screamed.
“It’s… it’s always like this! It’s always wrong! I swore I would never get it wrong again! I never wanted to hurt anyone this way again! If it was my fault you went crazy, I thought I had to take responsibility for it—but I was wrong—I drove you to this, Sarashina. I was wrong again! It’s just like elementary school. I’m still a fool! Help her—help Sarashina… Help… please… Please help.”
Akutagawa went on shouting, trembling. It was like I was seeing myself after Miu jumped off the roof.
“It’s all right—everything’s all right,” I said.
My head was spinning, my throat burned, my mouth was dry, and I had trouble breathing. I couldn’t have an attack now.
“It’s all right. It’ll be all right, Akutagawa.”
I put an arm around his shoulders, which were far broader and bulkier than my own, and repeated “it’s all right” over and over, the only thing I knew how to say, while I had not the slightest faith that it really would be all right. I was shaking just like he was, but I simply prayed that Sarashina would be all right, that this nightmarish moment would pass quickly.
Takeda watched the two of us, wailing and trembling beside Sarashina, lying bloody on the floor, with an empty expression on her face.
Help me, Mother. What should I do?
Your son has hurt someone again and thrown people’s lives into disarray. Will I always be so foolish?
Sarashina fell to the floor, and her body was dyed red by the flow of her blood.
She gave me a pure smile and said, “You finally… gave me your answer,” then slashed her throat. If I’d told her how I felt sooner, this wouldn’t have happened. But no, even before that—if I’d refused when Igarashi asked me to bring her to the next archery match.
Book Girl and the Captive Fool Page 13
