That girl was in the same grade as me in elementary school, and her name was Mayuri Konishi. I probably told you this story at some point.
Every time you insulted me, I felt as if she was attacking me. And so I was being redeemed a little by it.
That was because I believed I was someone who deserved to be attacked.
It gets a little complicated, but at the time I was going out with Konishi, whom I’d run into again in high school.
But she wasn’t the way she used to be, and the way she had become made it utterly impossible for me to like her as simply a member of the opposite sex. And then the fact that it was a betrayal of my mentor, who was in love with her, might have also put a damper on my feelings for her.
Konishi looked at me with needy eyes that said it was enough for us just to be together, and she never complained or reproached me for feeling nothing for her. She relied on me and trusted me.
It was cowardly of me, but I felt she was a burden. Then I tasted an even more powerful guilt because of that.
So whenever loathing for me came over your face, which reminded me of the Konishi from my past, I felt that by accepting your punishment I was being forgiven and it calmed me, even as my heart snapped apart and I felt such pain I thought it would choke me.
And so I was even more drawn to you.
At first you simply despised me as you would a worm, but once you found out that I was a first-year at Seijoh Academy, you became eager for my visits. Then you started asking me all sorts of things about school. It was to get information out of me about a person who lived on in your heart with a biting pain.
You told me, your eyes burning with hatred, that he had hurt you deeply and stolen your future from you.
After I started my second year and moved into the same class as him, you and I became closer than ever. At the same time, our relationship transformed into something much more difficult for me to bear.
Even worse, you ran into him at the hospital.
When I came to your room a few days before summer break, you were pale and you told me how he had come to the hospital.
Apparently he’d come to visit a classmate. You asked me obsessively who the girl with him had been, and whether he was close to the person he was visiting since she was a girl, too, and what their relationship was to each other.
After that day, you started acting strangely.
When I thought you were staring absently out a window, your temper would flare suddenly or you’d get horribly annoyed or start crying or screaming or hitting me.
One day when I went to see you, you were lying in bed ripping sheets of paper into tiny pieces.
You had told me you wanted to write letters and asked me to buy that paper for you.
Maybe you were planning to send him a letter on your favorite stationery.
I guess you had some sort of internal conflict, and you’d torn up the letter you’d started writing.
As you ripped the letter up, your eyes flashed with uncontrollable irritation and hatred, and there was blood on your lip. Probably because you’d bitten down on it so hard. There were traces of tears on your cheeks.
Then predictably, you pressured me to help you get revenge on him.
You probably realized yourself that it was closer to a threat than a request.
You were prepared to use any means necessary to draw me in as an ally, and you screamed that if I wouldn’t hear you out, you would cut your wrists and die; you tried indecent acts on me, called me a coward for not doing what you told me to, and threw things.
Then when I stopped going to the hospital, you started sending me letters almost every day.
Since I knew only too well how much determination and strenuous effort it cost you to write so much, it haunted me even more to see the stationery turned black with so many typed-out words and the haltingly handwritten address on the envelope.
I should have set the letters aside unopened, but to my despair, I had already started to have feelings for you, not as a replacement for Konishi, but for yourself.
You might actually commit an act that would end your life.
It wrenched my heart to think that, and since I knew that you were capable of actually doing it, my suffering only deepened.
And then I thought, what if you were wallowing in sorrow, what if you were crying all alone, what if you were begging for my help? And I couldn’t help but open the letters.
At some point I even started to believe that granting your wish might be atonement for the mistakes I’d committed in the past.
Not thinking anything for myself, listening only to your will, living only for you. If I could do that, how easy everything would be.
In fact, I did try to put a letter from you into his shoe locker once. I thought maybe if I did that, it would help me commit.
But there existed inside me, as unshakable as a boulder, a rationality that told me it was wrong to do that, and in the end I tore up the letter and threw it away.
Being an honorable person.
I think I told you how after that incident in the past, I’ve lived my life with that resolution in mind: that I had to be an honorable person at all times, and that I could never hurt anyone ever again.
And yet you asked that of me.
To betray a classmate and hurt him.
I can’t listen to requests like that. It isn’t honorable. But even as the annoyance and intensity of your letters increased, Konishi was slowly going crazy from the inadequacy of my responses, and I was being driven into a corner.
I was frantic to save her somehow, but I was just spinning my wheels. Konishi’s actions violated all reason, and she was approaching unassailable madness.
I barely managed to rein myself in by addressing the letters I would have sent you to my mother instead.
And that took me to my absolute limit. I was unable to save Konishi as she descended into madness, but even in a situation like that, I couldn’t help thinking about you, which made me feel like an awful person. I felt such despair that it blacked out everything else in my mind.
I believed I was unworthy of seeing you as I was then. Even when I went to visit my mom, I couldn’t stop by your room.
I’ve been suffering these last two months. I swear I haven’t abandoned you. It’s selfish of me to ask, but I want you to understand that at least, if nothing else. These last two months have been essential, at least for me.
Now that the issues with Konishi are resolved and I’m free from the past, I’m finally able to send you a letter.
I’ll start with the conclusion.
I won’t be able to drive him into a trap or demean him.
Because I’ve become friends with him. You are important to me, and so is he.
I may hurt him eventually because of you. But I want to be as honorable toward my friend as possible from now on. I don’t want to set up traps or make any other cowardly acts against him.
I’m making that clear to you.
I’ve been unable to say something as simple as that to you these last two months, and I was caught in a loop of foolish acts like slicing your letters apart with a box cutter and cutting myself. I kept sending my replies to my mother.
I’m probably still a fool.
But someone taught me something: All people are fools.
So at least be a fool who acts with ideals in your heart.
And so I recognize the fool that I am, and with that knowledge I’d like to move toward you and toward him.
A week had gone by since the culture fair.
Our play had gotten good reviews, and messages of support trickled into the goblin mailbox—I mean, the love advice mailbox—in the school yard, saying things like “That was really good. I felt my heart just ache” and “Now I want to read Saneatsu Mushanokōji’s books,” which made Tohko happy.
She ripped up the notes she got from the mailbox and would bring them to her lips, beaming cheerily.
“Yummmm! It tastes exactly like sweet, fr
eshly picked peaches—or maybe grapes—that you had to work hard to gather. I can feel it filling my belly with freshness!”
On the other hand, there were some notes mixed in that said things like “Let’s see you dress up like a nurse” or “Next time, please slash Nojima and Omiya.” She dutifully ate these, too, whining as she went.
“Urk, this is so weirrrrd. It’s like roasted chestnuts and mashed sweet potatoes with mayonnaise on top! It’s like smoked squid with condensed milk sprinkled all over it!”
“How has Akutagawa been?” Tohko asked me when I reached the club room after school, her legs pulled up on a fold-up chair as she read Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.
“He’s staying upbeat. He said that Igarashi came to the archery hall yesterday and apologized. Oh, there’s a match next week, and I promised I’d go cheer them on. And then we found out we both like movies, so we’re going to see one together sometime.”
I told her various tidbits as I set my pen case and paper on the table.
“That’s nice.”
Her eyes softened, and the corners of her mouth curved into a smile like a violet blooming.
I felt a tickle deep in my chest.
Just then, Kotobuki popped in.
“Ummm… sorry to bother you. I just… wanted to apologize for what happened at the culture fair. So, uh, I made some more cookies. I want you to have them as my way of saying sorry.”
She bowed to Tohko, then stole a glance at me and flushed.
“Oooooh, thank you, Nanase. I’ll share these with Konoha, then. Why don’t you join us?”
“What—?! Uh, no, I have library duty. I’ve gotta go.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.”
“Next time, then, Kotobuki.”
I smiled at her. Her eyes went wide, and she turned even redder.
“S-see you.”
Then she speedily left the room. I thought she was kind of cute when she acted like that.
Hugging the bundle of neatly wrapped cookies to her chest, Tohko bent forward to peer up into my face and, a teasing glint in her eyes, she asked, “All right, Konoha, did something happen between you and Nanase?”
“I’m not telling.”
“Ohhh, so something did happen!” she shouted and puffed her cheeks out indignantly.
I probably ought to sit down and talk to Kotobuki soon. Ask her where we met back in middle school.
“Come on, Konoha. You can tell your president. Just whisper it.”
“I can’t respond to private questions.”
“Oh, I’m scandalized!”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What are you picturing?”
Tohko whined, “No fair keeping secrets.” But then she looked down at the bundle of cookies and sadly murmured, “I’m… lying to Nanase and to all the others, aren’t I?”
Her sudden admission lodged into my heart.
Tohko untied the ribbon and opened the bundle. Cookies shaped like hearts and stars sat cheerfully atop a flower-print napkin, sending the fragrance of sugar and butter into the cramped room.
Sweet treats that Tohko couldn’t taste.
She plucked out a star-shaped cookie with her slender fingers and tossed it into her mouth, chewed it hungrily, and then smiled brightly.
“I bet this tastes like Travers’s Mary Poppins! Sweet, crunchy, and redolent of its almond topping!” she exclaimed breezily, then ate up one cookie after another, rhythmically chewing it up and swallowing it with a smile.
“This one tastes like Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs! The scent of lemon spreads so brightly over my tongue! This one tastes like Burnett’s The Secret Garden! Like rose-colored jam that’s sweet, tart, and totally romantic. Could this cookie with the tea leaves in it be Alice in Wonderland? The slightly bitter parts are the tastiest thing ever!”
Tohko was boundlessly cheerful and optimistic as she related what she imagined each cookie tasted like.
They were all impenetrable mysteries to her.
Secreting gloomy thoughts such as I’m different from other people away in her heart, Tohko pictured the flavors of sweet treats and beamed joyfully.
I was sure of the book girl’s existence, and just like you and I, she laughs, and whines, and cries, and fails when she tries to do handstands, and leaps in the air dressed like a cheerleader, and cheers people up, and falls down, and gets back up.
I sat in a fold-up chair and flipped through the paper in the notebook I’d set on the table.
Then I started to write a treat whose sweetness Tohko would be able to appreciate.
My prompts today were “friends,” “buddies,” and “friendship”…
Ms. Miu Asakura,
When this letter reaches you, I’ll visit.
And I’ll tell you the feelings I couldn’t write in a letter, and tell you clearly and with my own voice about becoming friends with Konoha Inoue, who even now dominates your heart.
Kazushi Akutagawa
Afterword
Hello, Mizuki Nomura here. This is the third installment of the Book Girl series. We’re right at the halfway point in the story, and even Konoha, who bursts into tears every time, has grown up a little bit.
The inspiration was Saneatsu Mushanokōji’s Friendship. The protagonists of Mushanokōji’s story are so passionate! They’re a treasure house of famous lines! I can’t say enough good things about his book! I drew from the source more than I usually have in this story, but there are spots where I tweaked things slightly for the play, so please don’t be mad. I stayed true to the phrasing of the original as best I could. There are lots of famous lines I didn’t have the space to introduce, though, so you should definitely get your hands on a copy of Friendship or any of his other stories and read it for yourself. I’m certain you’ll encounter words that will echo through your soul.
This time, as usual, I felt terrible for poor little Kotobuki. She never has a very big role, and she keeps getting sidelined without ever getting involved in the central story. In a sense, she might be the most unfortunate person in the entire series. I’d like to try and do something for her in the next volume.
And now, the thank-yous.
Thank you to the illustrator, Miho Takeoka, for her always amazing drawings. The prefatory color drawings in the second installment were fantastic! In fact, in the yearly rankings of This Light Novel Is Amazing! which is published by Takarajimasha, the first installment of this series (The Suicidal Mime) was ranked first in the cover art category! Thanks to that, we managed to rank in the top ten for the overall category and character category, too. My editor was extremely pleased, and I was very happy, too. Thank you so much to everyone who voted for us.
I struggle over this series every time and I’m writing down to the very last second, but I’ve received a lot of encouragement and joy from it. I’m going to stay fired up and fighting till the very last volume, so I hope you’ll stick around. Until next time.
Mizuki Nomura
December 3, 2006
Copyright
BOOK GIRL AND THE CAPTIVE FOOL
Story: MIZUKI NOMURA
Illustrations: Miho Takeoka
Translation by Karen McGillicuddy
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Bungakushoujo to tsunagareta fool
© 2006 Mizuki Nomura. All rights reserved.
First published in Japan in 2006 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION ENTERBRAIN
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION ENTERBRAIN
through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
English translation © 2011 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Cover design by Kirk Benshoff
Cover © 2010 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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First ebook edition: December 2012
ISBN 978-0-316-24600-2
E3
Book Girl and the Captive Fool Page 19
