Another, Vol. 1 (8 page)

“What happened to your eye?”

I tried changing the subject, to something I had been wondering this whole time.

“You’ve had that on since I saw you at the hospital. Did you get hurt?”

“You want to know?”

Mei tilted her head slightly, her right eye narrowing. Flustered, I told her, “Uh, if you don’t want, that’s okay…”

“Then I won’t tell you.”

Just then the crackling sound of a bell started up somewhere in the room. Apparently the battered old speaker was still being used, despite never being repaired.

It was the bell to start sixth period, but Mei made no move to stand up. Maybe she was going to cut again.

Should I leave her, or drag her with me? I was having trouble deciding.

“You should get to class.”

A voice came out of nowhere.

It was a male voice I had never heard before. There was a slight rasp to it, but it was deep and rich.

Startled, I looked around the room and discovered where it had come from.

Behind that counter in the corner of the room, where I had seen no one before, was a man dressed all in black.

“I haven’t seen you before,” the man said. He had frumpy black-rimmed glasses and a lot of white mixed into his strawlike hair.

“Um, I’m Sakakibara, in third-year Class 3. I just transferred to this school yesterday, and uh…”

“I’m Chibiki, the librarian.” He fixed his eyes on me, unwavering, as he spoke. “You can come here anytime you like, but for now: go on, get along.”

Sixth period was an extended homeroom, which we had once a week. If this were elementary school, it would be our class meeting time, but I doubted such lively and unrestricted discussions would be taking place while the head teacher was watching over us. Nowadays, public and private schools are probably both the same way.

There weren’t any problems that called for discussion right then, so we wound up being dismissed from class before school was over.

Mei Misaki never appeared in the classroom during this time, either. But it seemed to me that no one showed any sign of worrying particularly about it, including Mr. Kubodera and Ms. Mikami.

My grandmother had brought me to school in the car again today. I’d tried to stop her, telling her she didn’t have to do this, but she wouldn’t let it go. “This week, I have to,” she told me. And considering my position, I couldn’t really put up a whole lot of resistance, either…

To be honest, I wanted to stay at school a little longer and look for Mei, but I had to give it up. I declined an invitation from Teshigawara and the others to go home with them, too, and climbed into the car that had come to get me.

After dinner that night, before Reiko retreated to her office/bedroom in the side house, I had a chance to talk with her alone for a little while.

I’d saved up a bunch of stuff to ask her, but now that we were actually talking, I tensed up for some reason—as usual. We wound up talking about a bunch of fluff subjects, which wasn’t what I’d meant to do at all.

After much hesitation and waffling, I tried just jumping in headlong by leading with a question about the secondary library in Building Zero.

“Has that library always been there?”

“Yup. Obviously it was there when I was in middle school, and I’m pretty sure it was there when Ritsuko went there, too.”

“Was it the ‘secondary’ library back then?”

“No, that’s changed. It must have become the ‘secondary’ library after the new buildings were finished and the new library was ready.”

“Probably.”

Reiko had been propping her chin up on one hand, resting her elbow on the table. She switched arms and took a swig of beer from her glass. Then she gave a soft sigh. She didn’t show it openly, but she probably found her day-to-day adult life exhausting.

“Do you know the librarian in the secondary library? I caught this quick glimpse of him today, but there was something about him that made him seem like the ruler of that room…So I was thinking, he must have been there forever.”

“You mean Mr. Chibiki?”

“Yeah, that was his name.”

“You’re right, Koichi. He does give that sort of impression. The ‘ruler’ of the library. He’s been there since my time. He’s real crusty and always dresses all in black, and there’s something kind of mysterious about him. Most of the girls thought he was creepy.”

“I bet.”

“Did he say anything weird when you saw him today?”

“No, nothing special.”

Shaking my head slowly, I thought back on the scene.

I was the only one he’d ordered out of the library. What had become of Mei after that? Had she stayed there and kept working on her drawing? Or had she…

“By the way, Koichi,” Reiko said, holding the glass of beer in one hand. “Are you planning to join a club or do anything after school?”

“Oh…good point. I wonder what I should do.”

“Did you do anything at your last school?”

Since she’d asked, I answered honestly.

“I was in the culinary arts club.”

I’d joined it with a touch of sarcasm intended for my father, who was happy to foist all the housework off on his only son. My cooking skill had gone up a couple levels thanks to that, but my father never showed any sign of noticing the results.

“I-I-I don’t think North Yomi has anything like that,” Reiko answered, her eyes softening in a smile.

“It’s only one year anyway. I don’t need to force myself to join something. Oh, but today someone asked me if I wanted to join the art club.”

“Oh really?”

“But I dunno after all…”

“That’s just like you, Koichi.”

Draining what remained of her beer, Reiko rested both of her elbows on the table and put both hands to her cheeks. Then she looked straight into my face and asked, “Do you like art?”

“I dunno about
like
. I think it’s kind of interesting…”

Reiko’s gaze felt like a blinding light. Unconsciously, I dipped my head slightly as I replied with exactly the feelings that came bubbling out of my heart.

“But I’m not very good at drawing. More like just plain bad at it.”

“Hm-m-m.”

“But despite that I, uh—this is a secret, okay? No one knows yet. But I kind of want to go to college for something related to art, if I can.”

“Wow, you do? That’s the first I’ve heard of it!”

“I want to try sculpture or plastic arts or something along those lines.”

My glass was filled with my grandmother’s specialty vegetable juice, which she had made for me. I took a timid sip of it, trying to be strong about the celery (which I despise) that she had mixed into it.

“What do you think? Pretty harebrained, right?”

I steeled myself. Reiko folded her arms over her chest and murmured again. “Hm-m-m.”

Finally she said, “Some advice. First: Speaking from experience, parents usually refuse out of hand when their kids say they want to go to art school or a fine arts academy.”

“…Not a surprise.”

“I don’t know what your dad would do. Maybe he’s the type to tear into you if he finds out.”

“I wouldn’t expect that, but he might.”

“Second,” Reiko went on. “Even assuming you get into an art school or fine arts academy like you wanted, after you graduate you have shockingly few marketable job skills. Obviously some of that depends on how much talent you have, but the most important thing is luck, I think.”

So that’s what it was. Already with the realism…

“Third.”

All right, already—I was ready to call it quits then and there. But Reiko’s last piece of advice was a tiny bit of salvation, offered with kindness softening her eyes again.

“Despite that, if you really want to go for it, there’s no reason to be afraid. I think it’s very unbecoming to give up before you even try, whatever it is you’re doing.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. That’s important to you, right? Whether you’re cool or not?”

Reiko slowly rubbed her cheeks, which had flushed slightly with the effects of the alcohol, with both hands.

“Of course, the issue is whether or not
you
think you’re cool.”

The next day—Friday, May 8—I didn’t see Mei Misaki all morning.

I thought maybe she was out sick, but she hadn’t looked it yesterday at all…

Could it be…? My mind had hit on one possibility.

After we’d talked on the roof during gym class on Wednesday…

If you’re on the roof and you hear the cawing of a crow, when you go back inside, you must enter with your left foot.

That was the first of the “North Yomi fundamentals” that Reiko had taught me. If you disobeyed and went in with the wrong foot, you’d get hurt within a month.

Whether or not Mei had heard the repeated cawing of the crows, she had gone in by her right foot. So…could it be that she’d been badly hurt because of that? Get real.

The fact that I was thinking these things half seriously, honestly worried, seemed utterly laughable when I stopped and took a levelheaded look at myself.

No way
, I thought.
There was no way.
And yet, in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to ask anyone why she was absent, either.

I never experienced this at the private K*** Middle School, but in public school, the second and fourth Saturdays were basically days off. There were apparently places where they allotted “hands-on studies” outside school to those days, but North Yomi didn’t massage the system like that at all. It was up to the students how they would spend their increased free time.

And so the Saturday of the 9th, there was no school. I didn’t need to get up early, either—or I wouldn’t have, except I had to go to Yumigaoka Municipal Hospital today. I’d made a morning appointment for a checkup to see how my condition was progressing.

Of course, my grandmother had volunteered to go with me to the hospital; but when the time came, she wound up backing out. My grandfather, Ryohei, had developed a sudden fever that morning and had to stay in bed.

It didn’t sound like anything terribly serious, but he was an old man whose behavior showed more than a little cause for day-to-day concern anyway. I realized that he probably couldn’t be left alone in the house, and I reassured my grandmother, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine.”

“You will? Well, thank you, then.”

Just as I’d thought, she didn’t fight it this time.

“You be careful and come straight home. If you start to feel bad, you go right ahead and take a taxi home.”

“Okay, Grandma, I got it.”

“I don’t want you pushing yourself.”

“I won’t.”

“Do you have enough money?”

“Yes, Grandma, right here.”

We happened to be having this conversation near the porch on the first floor, so Ray the mynah bird overheard and cried out cheerily, “Why? Why?” in her shrill voice, ushering me out of the house.

“Why?…Cheer up. Cheer.”

“Good, good,” the lead physician murmured, nodding, after he’d scrutinized the images of my lungs lined up on the X-ray illuminator. He was a man just beginning to enter old age, and he issued his opinion with a breezy tone. “Everything looks clear. Excellent. No issues at all.

“Even so, exerting yourself is still out of the question. I’d say, let’s take another look in one or two weeks and if there are no changes, you should be okay for gym class.”

“Thank you.”

I bowed humbly, but I couldn’t help feeling a slight anxiety inside. Last fall, I’d had an outpatient checkup like this shortly after I was released from the hospital. I’d gotten the same go-ahead then, too…

But of course, no matter how much I worried about stuff like that going forward, it wouldn’t change anything.
“You should be out of the woods now, too.”
I should just go ahead and trust the optimistic view of a survivor…Yeah. That was best.

The outpatient ward at municipal hospitals is always horribly crowded, no matter where it is. By the time my checkup was over and I’d finished paying at the window, lunchtime was already long gone. As a now–mostly healthy fifteen-year-old boy, I felt my hunger begin to torment me, but I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of the hospital cafeteria. I’ll just find a hamburger place or some doughnuts on my way home. I had left the hospital and was heading for the bus stop when all at once I reconsidered.

I was visiting the hospital for the first time in ten days, and thankfully (though she’d probably get mad at me for saying it) my grandmother wasn’t with me. I had
nothing better to do
, so it would be stupid not to act somehow, even in the smallest way. This was a far more important issue than my current hunger, wasn’t it? Yes, it was.

I decided to go back into the hospital. And I headed for the place that had served as the main stage for my life at the end of last month: the inpatient ward.

“What’s this? How’s it going, Horror Boy?”

I’d taken the elevator up to the fourth floor and was just swinging by the window at the nurse’s station when I ran into a nurse I recognized, just then coming out into the hall. Skinny and tall, her large, bugging eyes giving her an unbalanced look…It was Ms. Mizuno.

She had told me that she’d just gotten her full qualifications as a nurse last year. It hadn’t been long since she started working there, but she was probably the hospital worker I’d talked to the most during my ten days there. Ms. Sanae Mizuno.

“Oh, hello.”

Ask and you shall receive—it wasn’t quite as grand as all that, but this chance encounter right at this moment was something I had hoped and prayed for.

“What’s wrong? It’s Sakakibara…Koichi, right? Your chest didn’t get messed up again, did it?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that.” I quickly shook my head. “I came for an outpatient checkup today. No issues, they said.”

“Oh. But then what are you doing up here?”

“Because, um, I wanted to see you.”

I realized that sounded kind of inappropriate even as I said it.

Ms. Mizuno instantly came back with a theatrical reaction. “Well, I’m flattered! I thought maybe you’d be lonely at your new school if you didn’t find some cronies to talk horror with…but you’re not, are you? How is it?”