Book Girl and the Captive Fool (20 page)

After the play was over, Sarashina came to the classroom that served as our dressing room. Her eyes were bright red and bloodshot, but something in her face was liberated and refreshed.

“I’m sorry for causing all that trouble. I’ll stay away from you, Akutagawa… I was afraid of being alone. All my parents do is fight, and ever since I was little I’ve spent my birthdays by myself. I wanted someone to celebrate my birthday with me. But after I saw your play, I felt like I would be fine on my own now.”

“I’m the one who should apologize.”

Akutagawa bowed to Sarashina.

Sarashina and Akutagawa… they both seemed a little lonely.

“Hey, there’s something I want you two to see,” Tohko said brightly, holding out an essay collection from some middle school. “I actually wanted Akutagawa to read this before the play started, but then Nanase fainted and we were running all over the place, and I missed my chance. Read the page with the bookmark.”

Akutagawa accepted the book dubiously, then opened it to the page with the violet-colored bookmark.

The rest of us peeked in from the sides.

When we did, we glimpsed the handwritten name and title on the page.

“P
ICKING
T
ANGERINES
” E
MI
K
ANOMATA
C
LASS
1, Y
EAR
2

“Is this an essay by Kanomata?”

Tohko smiled.

Akutagawa and Sarashina began to read it voraciously.

“On Sunday, my mother and father and I went to pick tangerines at the orchard nearby.”

The essay began with that one sentence, spinning a tender scene of a family enjoying themselves picking tangerines. It went on to say this:

We were all eating tangerines together, and I remembered a story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa called “Tangerines.” I read the story a long time ago with a friend of mine, and right after I changed schools, I would read it over and over whenever I felt lonely and it cheered me up. It was a very important story to me, and it is my favorite.

As Akutagawa and Sarashina read the essay, smiles touched with melancholy came over their faces.

Tohko murmured gently, “The future I talked about onstage had a little bit of truth mixed in.”

Kanomata had been unable to vent her depression about her parents except by cutting up textbooks, but living somewhere new, she had reconciled with them and was living at peace.

Kanomata was no longer unhappy and didn’t hold a grudge
against anyone. She cherished the days gone by as warm memories.

I was sure that finding that out meant that Akutagawa and Sarashina could both be happy and at ease.

Like seeing tangerines bobbing against a sunset…

That was how their faces looked.

“I hated Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s ‘Tangerines,’ ” Sarashina murmured. “But I’ll try reading it again. I bet I’ll feel differently when I read it now.”

Sarashina started to leave, but Akutagawa called her back.

“Konishi—I had Kanomata choose that rabbit to give you for your birthday. That part was true, too. I went past your house once, and I saw you crying alone in your yard, and after that I started to like you.”

Akutagawa had called her Konishi—not Sarashina.

At the hospital, I’d asked Akutagawa if he liked Sarashina, and he had gotten a melancholy look on his face and responded, “I used to.”

I guess that had been the unvarnished truth. It wasn’t just a sense of guilt, but the fact that he had liked her when they were little that made it impossible for Akutagawa to cut Sarashina off.

Sarashina’s eyes teared up ever so slightly, and she smiled.

“Thank you. Good-bye, Kazushi.”

Immediately after Sarashina left, Maki came in to replace her.

“Well done! You were great onstage, Tohko! I enjoyed every minute of it, so I’ll forgive you for making
me
waitress at your curry restaurant dressed as a maid.”

“You actually did it?! Dressed as a maid?” I shouted, aghast.

“Have I ever refused one of Tohko’s requests?” Maki replied brazenly. “Oh yes, Tohko! That profligate boy whose family you’re living with? He stopped by the restaurant.”

“You mean Ryuto?”

“Yes. With a herd of girls around him. That kid hasn’t changed. When I went to take his order, he actually recoiled and his eyes bugged out, and he said, ‘Now there’s a hair-raisin’ sight,’ so I kicked the leg of his chair and knocked him over.”

She smiled captivatingly.

When I imagined this girl dressed as a maid and welcoming customers to her restaurant, I felt hugely sympathetic to Ryuto’s outburst. Though if I said so, she might kick me, too.

“Thank you, Maki. For the play and everything else, too. I’m really glad you were there.”

Tohko usually avoided Maki as much as possible, but she thanked her with odd humility and bowed her head.

Maki must have used her connections to get the essay collection and had given it to Tohko.

But what had the “compensation” been?

Maki’s eyes glinted with satisfaction.

“Has my love finally gotten through to you? If I asked you right now, would you get naked for me?”

“I would not!” Tohko shouted, her face bright red, and Maki grinned.

“Oh well. Too bad. I’ve gotten enough in ‘compensation,’ anyway.”

Tohko sputtered.

Maki drew her face closer to mine and whispered, “The orchestra is giving a concert in the main hall soon. You should definitely come, Konoha. You’ll see something fun.”

“Heeey, what are you telling him?!”

Tohko thrashed her long kimono sleeves around in a frenzy. Maki gave her an affectionate wink and left the room.

“Huh? Something fun? I wonder what that means?”

Takeda cocked her head behind me. She’d overheard Maki.

“N-never mind, Chia. Forget about it! And you, Konoha, are absolutely forbidden to go to the concert!”

There was a huge rush to change back into our uniforms after that; then Takeda and Akutagawa said they needed to get back to their classes, and we parted ways. I ran to the music hall where the concert would be.

Tohko chased right behind me in her uniform and uneven braids.

“Are you really going? Why? Classical music will just put you to sleep. Wouldn’t you rather go get anmitsu fruit salad with me?”

“You can’t eat that, though.”

“Then we could just go back to the club room, and you could write a love story that tastes like it for your beloved president.”

“I don’t want to bother with your treats in the middle of the fair.”

“Why do you want to go to the orchestra’s concert so badly?”

“A better question is why you’re following me when you’re so out of breath.”

“But, but, but—”

Tohko balled her hands into fists as she ran and flailed her head and elbows back and forth in babyish refusal. Despite this tug-of-war, we reached the hall in the middle of campus.

“Nooo! Don’t go innnn!”

Tohko grabbed the cuff of my uniform sleeve and tried desperately to hold me back, but I bought tickets and went in with her still hanging on.

In the lobby, there was a billboard so big I had to look up to see it all.

It was a blown-up photo of Tohko.

Dressed like a cheerleader in a tank top and miniskirt, she held two pom-poms in her hands and was leaping in the air with a smile on her face. Her hair was in ponytails and—whether it was something Maki was into or something Tohko had wanted—she wore a big pair of glasses.

Her chest, covered by the sheer tank top, was spectacularly flat, and her white skin peeked out from under the bottom of it. It was a risky angle that almost, but not quite showed her belly button, and then in addition to that, her pleated skirt stopped right at the point where it very nearly almost, but not quite showed her underwear. Her white legs were bent, knees together, as she hung in the air.

Beside the billboard stood a slogan that read, “
THE SEIJOH ACADEMY ORCHESTRA PRESENTS: A RALLYING CRY TO THE FUTURE.
”

So this was the “compensation” this time around.

Actually, I was pretty sure I’d spotted Tohko running somewhere in a big hurry with her hair in strangely uneven braids before. Had that been after the photo shoot?

I was looking up at the billboard, convinced, while beside me Tohko turned bright red from the back of her neck to the tips of her ears and wailed, “N-no, Konoha… that’s not me. It’s someone from another class. Please, don’t look… Don’t look, Konoha.”

I chuckled. “You must be happy, then. There’s someone else just as flat chested as you.”

I felt an immediate bomp on my head.

“How mean! What a heartless kid! And after I lent you that handkerchief!”

“That was my handkerchief. Look, the concert’s starting. Besides, people are staring.”

I noticed the people in the lobby whispering, “Hey, it’s the girl in the picture,” and Tohko buried her face against my back.

“L-let’s hurry, and go get a seat, Konoha.”

This is just making them stare even more…

She kept her face buried, clutching fistfuls of my shirt in both hands, and I started walking off in resignation. Her warmth against my back felt ever so slightly ticklish.

“Grrrr. I am never,
ever
agreeing to do something for Maki
ever
again!”

Tohko continued growling even after we’d taken our seats.

“That reminds me, how’s your bear hunter boyfriend doing?” I asked, suddenly remembering. Her eyes went wide, her face turned bright red, and she reeled back.

“Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-whadddya mean?”

“Winter starts early in Hokkaido, so he’ll need his white scarf soon.”

“Urk—”

“Send me an invitation when you have your ceremony in the chapel. With a round-trip ticket attached.”

Tohko faltered, her cheeks still coloring; then she glowered at me, her eyes vulnerable.

“K-Konoha! You are despicable!”

Finally the curtain lifted, and the orchestra that was the pride of Seijoh Academy began its concert.

Maki was actually giddy and seemed to be enjoying herself, dressed in tails and waving her baton.

When the orchestra’s inspiring concert was over and we’d gone back outside, the campus was dyed in a gentle sunset.

“The closing ceremonies are beginning. All students please assemble in the gymnasium.”

The announcement from the event coordinators flowed through the orange-colored sky.

Tohko and I split up, and I went back to my classroom, where Akutagawa was standing by himself at a window, gazing at the view outside.

“Akutagawa?”

“Inoue…”

Akutagawa turned to look at me, and I walked over to stand beside him.

“You’re not going to the closing ceremonies?”

“It makes me strangely sad that the culture fair is ending. I was off in a reverie.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say something like that.”

A chilly wind blew in through the open window.

The classroom was painted the same color as the setting sun.

“But maybe I’m the same way. It’s like there’s a crack in my heart now. It’s not necessarily a bad sensation… I was in suspense all day long, but it was still fun,” I said.

Akutagawa smiled. “It was.”

This congenial mood was pleasant; I wanted to immerse myself in it forever.

“You know, after I started high school, I was never really into school events like this. I thought they were a pain, and I just needed to get through them. But… I’m glad I went onstage with you.”

“I was like you, too, Inoue. For me, the culture fair, the sports day, student life in general—they were nothing more than a duty that had to be carried out. I never did anything with friends and enjoyed myself like this. It’s thanks to you and Amano that I could experience that feeling.”

“Tohko was the one who got the lines out of you. I didn’t do anything.”

“No, if you hadn’t told me that we would face it together, I would have run away before I ever went onstage.”

“Really? Because you definitely didn’t run away. But if I managed to help you out, I’m glad.”

Akutagawa smiled, his face refreshed. It was a smile that only someone who has overcome their pain could make. He had bro
ken his chains with his own hands and had started moving toward the future.

And I had, too.

“I’d like to be your friend, Akutagawa.”

Akutagawa’s eyes widened just a little, and a look of surprise came over his face.

“I’ve been avoiding getting close to people. Something hurt me awhile ago, and I didn’t want to get hurt by being close to anyone ever again. You and I have a lot in common. But now, I’d like to be closer with you. Could you be my friend, Akutagawa?”

His bulging eyes dropped slightly, and he looked troubled.

“There are still some things I can’t talk about, Inoue. I might hurt you eventually.”

His confession surprised me.

What secrets could Akutagawa have locked away in his heart? About his mother? Or maybe—

Questions bubbled up one after another, but I gave him a smile.

“I don’t mind. If you don’t want to talk about it, you can keep it a secret forever.”