Book Girl and the Captive Fool (14 page)

Loathing, pain, suffering, rage—Sarashina’s expressions changed with dizzying speed, her body trembling.

Suddenly, Akutagawa’s voice sounded behind her.

“Cut it out! Don’t say another word about Igarashi! Don’t slander him!”

“I knew you’d come, Kazushi.”

Sarashina smiled at him as if they were meeting up for a date. Akutagawa stood before her, out of breath, his face twisted with pain. Then he forced out a pleading voice, saying, “Igarashi was a great guy. He was cheerful, and he looked out for me, and
everyone on the team adored him. Even when I was the only first-year chosen to be a full member of the team and the rest of the upperclassmen didn’t look very happy about it, Igarashi was the only one who was truly glad for me. He patted me on the back and told me to do my best.”

Akutagawa’s voice was hoarse.

“He really was a great person. So when he said he wanted me to introduce you to him, I did it. I thought you wouldn’t mind him. You always smiled so happily when you were with him. Don’t deny it.”

The smile slid off Sarashina’s face.

Akutagawa continued talking, his face fighting back pain.

“I—I thought you two were getting along. I was relieved. But then you lied and told me he’d hit you and was stalking you… You tricked me.”

“You tricked me first!” Sarashina shouted, her eyes timid now. “When you asked me to come watch a match, I was so happy. I went to watch lots of matches after that, and you came to talk to me every time. Igarashi was always with you, but I only cared about you, so I was okay with that.

“I thought we were getting closer, and I was so happy, and then when you invited me to an amusement park, I was overjoyed! Igarashi was with us, but I was happier than I’d ever been because it was the weekend, and I was going out with you.

“So whenever you invited me somewhere, I dressed up supernice and would go to the place we were supposed to meet ten minutes early, my heart pounding the whole time. But then in the middle of it, you would say that something urgent had come up or that you’d caught a cold, and you’d cancel at the last minute, and somehow that made me Igarashi’s girlfriend!”

Akutagawa didn’t answer. He let Sarashina talk, his lips pressed tightly together and his brow knit.

I felt as if my heart was on fire. Akutagawa hadn’t meant to deceive her. He had probably just fixed up a girl from his class with the upperclassman he respected so much as a favor to the guy.

The way Omiya had supported the match between Sugiko and his best friend Nojima.

But just as Sugiko had preferred Omiya, Sarashina’s heart was not with Igarashi: It had fixed instead on Akutagawa.

“I knew you were friends with Igarashi, so I put up with him that whole time because I didn’t want you to hate me. But going out to eat or see movies alone with him was pure torture for me. Gradually, just the sound of his laughter set my teeth on edge, and when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I told you so. Sure, Igarashi never hit me or anything, but he might as well have!”

Sarashina gripped the chisel in both hands, then pulled it close to her own chest and retreated a step, a look of heartrending sorrow on her face.

“I managed to break up with Igarashi, and you became my boyfriend, and we were finally happy. So why did you say we should break up, Kazushi? Because I stabbed Igarashi?
Kanomata made me do that.
She was threatening to take you away if I didn’t. I didn’t want to do anything that would make you hate me. But—but—I hated Igarashi, and Kanomata… that day she… When the blood splattered on me, she laughed that she had gotten her revenge… that she wanted me to get hurt, too, so… so it’s not my fault!”

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.