Book Girl and the Captive Fool (8 page)

At lunch the next day, I took a boxed lunch my mother had made for me to the book club room. Tohko had gotten there first and sat with her legs pulled up on a fold-up chair, eating her “food.”

A copy of Françoise Sagan’s
Do You Like Brahms?
rested on her knees. She would turn a page, then delicately tear it out and make a hushed chewing sound and swallow, then smile ecstatically.

“Sagan has the refined taste of a city. It’s a beautiful, brisk, elegant flavor like a duck terrine in the hors d’oeuvres of French cuisine.

“Her subtle psychological description of a woman wavering between her flirtatious older lover and the gorgeous young man several years her junior, who loves her passionately, is truly amazing!

“It’s like you’re enjoying the rustic flavor of duck and the subtle texture of the terrine, and then the amber-colored consommé gelée paired with it makes your mouth quiver at the complexity of the sensation, which makes your heart squeeze tight. When Sagan was eighteen years old, she debuted with
Hello Sadness,
the story of a true-to-life seventeen-year-old girl. But when she wrote this story about a middle-aged woman of thirty-nine as its heroine, she was only twenty-four.”

As she expounded on the book, I stayed bent over the lunch my mother had made for me, eating.

“What did you mean when… you said that yesterday?” I asked in a murmur, and Tohko’s voice turned cheerful again.

“You mean when I said we should find out ‘the truth’?”

“Not that,” I responded, raising my head.

Tohko had been smiling indulgently, so heat shot through my ears. I looked back down and muttered, “When you said Akutagawa wasn’t the one cutting up library books. You
saw
him cutting a page out with his box cutter.”

I hadn’t been able to talk to him much in class today, either. He’d asked me how my hand was, and it had taken everything I had to say that it was fine. He seemed to find it difficult, too. I didn’t want to interact with him again; I knew that with all of my heart. So then why had I gone along with Tohko’s suggestion and come here?

Tohko closed the book she’d been eating.

“Sure, we witnessed Akutagawa cutting pages out of that Takeo Arishima book. But look, Konoha.”

She picked the book up, held it out to me, and flipped through the pages.

The book was almost split in two by all the places where the pages had been cut out. As she continued flipping through the pages, others fell out. And two or three times after that…

“See? It’s not just cut in one place. All Akutagawa cut out was one page, remember? And look at this.”

Tohko slid her finger down the length of the page below the one that had been cut out. There was a single line about a tenth of an inch from the book’s center.

“All of the lines are away from the center fold. The mark from the knife is left on the page underneath. So don’t you think it’s strange that there’s a mark here, too?” she asked gently, pointing out the two equidistant lines.

“Maybe this was cut with something other than a box cutter. I’m sure this book had pages missing before Akutagawa started cutting. But when we talked to him here in the club room, he didn’t say a word about it. He was talking as if it was the first time he’d ever cut a book. So I thought maybe there was someone else cutting up books. Maybe it was that person cutting up the other books, not Akutagawa.”

“Akutagawa might have cut them all. You have no proof, after all.”

“That’s true. But Akutagawa’s not the sort of person who would do something like that without a reason.”

“That’s just what you think. Couldn’t the real Akutagawa be different from the one we know?”

I remembered the expression twisted by hatred that he’d given me in the nurse’s office, and the core of my body trembled with cold.

“It’s still a fact that Akutagawa cut that book up right in front of us, though. If he’s not the culprit, then why would he go to the trouble of doing that? His explanation is still more convincing. He was cutting books up out of stress.”

Tohko murmured gloomily, “He could be covering for someone.”

Then she looked at me a little sadly.

“You know, I asked one of the archery team members in my class about Akutagawa. He said when Akutagawa was in first year, one of the second-years harassed him. He made Akutagawa clean up by himself and forced him to follow an impossible practice regimen that strained his body. He also made him run dozens of laps around the school without any shoes on. My classmate said he felt bad for Akutagawa.”

“Who was this second-year?”

“Igarashi, the guy you saw behind the school. He’s in third year now.”

The image of the muscular boy in the school uniform, his shoulders broader than Akutagawa’s, resurfaced in my mind. He’d beaten Akutagawa up behind the school without suffering any blows in return, and Akutagawa had even groveled to him.

“Apparently at first, Igarashi was a good mentor to Akutagawa. He had a high opinion of Akutagawa and chatted with him a lot. He was very fond of him. And apparently, Akutagawa had a lot of respect for Igarashi, too.”

“Why did Igarashi start tormenting him?”

Sarashina’s face flashed through a corner of my mind. Behind the school, she had clung to Akutagawa’s back and wept. I knew she was involved somehow.

Tohko’s response was exactly what I’d imagined.

“My classmate told me that Akutagawa stole the girl that Igarashi had been dating. A second-year named Sarashina. She was in Akutagawa’s class last year.”

A sigh escaped me.

So Sarashina was the cause of it, after all.

Thinking back on the situation now, Akutagawa had seemed to hate Omiya, who had betrayed his best friend by choosing Sugiko. When I had tried to compliment him and said that he was perfect for the role, he’d looked bitter, and when Tohko and the other girls had been in a tizzy over whether Omiya or Nojima was cooler, he’d had some harsh criticism for Omiya.

He must have had Igarashi and Sarashina in mind. He had identified with Omiya, and it had pained him.

“Akutagawa was the one who first introduced Igarashi to Sarashina, it seems. At first, the three of them would go out together. That was last summer. Then around the end of autumn, Igarashi’s attitude toward Akutagawa changed. His bullying got real bad, and when a third-year couldn’t stand to watch it anymore, he asked what was going on. Igarashi apparently told him that Akutagawa had stolen his girlfriend. And Akutagawa didn’t deny it. He said, ‘Igarashi is right. It’s all my fault.’ After that, Igarashi quit the archery team.”

Tohko drooped.

What she’d told me was nothing more than a run-of-the-mill love triangle. Falling for an upperclassman’s girl happened all the time and so did hooking up with your friend’s girlfriend on the sly. It was everywhere in books and on TV.

There were even love triangles at the turn of the century, and even before that—ever since the age of legend, people had reenacted moronic love stories of stealing and being stolen from, of falling in love and breaking up.

But for those involved, it probably wasn’t so easy to accept.

Omiya agonized over the knowledge of his crime against Nojima, and like him, Akutagawa must have blamed himself
fiercely. In the nurse’s office, he’d told me that everything was his fault.

“I’m a contemptible person… Of course they’d hate me.”

Wait—but why would Sarashina hate him? I could understand Igarashi since his girlfriend had been taken from him. But why Sarashina? When she was clinging to Akutagawa, it definitely didn’t look like she hated him.

It was strange. There had to be something more going on between Akutagawa and Sarashina…

Just as I seized on this question, a paralyzing anxiety welled up in me. I couldn’t. Hadn’t I decided I wouldn’t get involved?

My breathing grew labored, and in a quiet voice, I said, “Tohko… you said before that maybe Akutagawa was covering for someone? Considering what you just said, the only people important enough to Akutagawa—or the only ones he owed enough—to protect would be Sarashina and Igarashi.”

“Yeah.”

Tohko nodded.

“Which one do you think he’s protecting, Tohko?”

“I—”

As she hesitantly opened her blushing pink lips, a beeping sound started in Tohko’s pocket. She pulled out not a cell phone, but her beloved silver stopwatch. Apparently it had a regular clock in it, too, because she looked at it and then her eyes went wide.

“Omigosh. Lunch is over in five minutes!”

We both bolted to our feet and rushed out of the room. As we ran down the hall, Tohko explained quickly, “I’m not quite sure yet who’s cutting up books. Or why they did it.”

Tohko pulled to a stop in front of the stairwell where we would part ways.

“I thought it might scare you so I wasn’t going to say anything, but I heard another rabbit has disappeared from the biology club. A girl from the club was worrying about it this morning.”

I recalled the rabbit, held by its ears, blood dripping from it, and I gulped. Tohko grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to murmur encouragingly into my ear, “Look, you absolutely cannot miss rehearsal today. We’re doing the costumes today. Not for any reason, okay? Promise?”

Her warm breath struck my ear, and her soft lips brushed it for an instant, then pulled away.

“See you after school! If you skip, I’m going to your house to get you!”

She smiled, then ran up the stairs.

Tohko… I can see up your skirt. Are those shorts?
… But no.

They were white.

My ears and cheeks slowly grew warmer. I hurried off to my own classroom.

And just then, Akutagawa cut across my vision as he walked down the hall.

I felt as if someone had thrown water into my burning face.

Fifth period was about to start. Where could he be going? Was Akutagawa
cutting class
?

Oops, no—I’ll pretend I didn’t see him. Don’t even think about following him. You can’t get involved!

I was so violently torn that I felt my throat dry out, but my feet betrayed me and moved in the direction Akutagawa had disappeared.

When I turned a corner in the hallway, I heard the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. Holding my breath and listening carefully, I followed him. Overhead, the bell rang announcing
the start of fifth period. I was jumpy, wanting to get back to class, but I couldn’t keep my feet from following him. Cold sweat spread over the back of my neck.

We arrived at the open area where all the shoe lockers were. Hiding behind an aluminum locker, I searched for Akutagawa.

Then I spotted him standing in front of our class’s lockers.

He looked down harshly at an envelope he held in his hands. Had he taken it out of his locker just now?

It was not the white rectangular envelopes I’d seen before, but rather a sky blue envelope with white angel wings on it. It was from the same collection as Takeda’s binder, the one Miu had liked. A girl must have given it to him.

I sensed a fierce rage in Akutagawa’s expression, and I shrank back.

When I’d seen Akutagawa standing at the mailboxes before, he had always worn a morose, pained expression.

But now his eyes were filled with a fiery hostility and anger.

Akutagawa tore the letter.

My heart jumped at the sound.

He tore the letter a second time, walked over to the trash can beside the lockers, and started to throw the note away.

But then he stopped.

He groaned quietly and narrowed his eyes, looking troubled. He gritted his teeth firmly, closed his hand around the rumpled letter, and shoved it roughly into his pants pocket.

That was all I saw. I ran back to class, unable to hold back the tension that was crushing my chest.

The teacher wasn’t there yet.

About ten minutes later in the middle of class, Akutagawa opened the door at the back of the room.

“I’m sorry. I was looking for something in the library.”

He bowed to the teacher and sat down. My eyes had already shot to his pants pocket, but as far as I could tell from the outside, there was nothing unusual about it.

Who had that letter been from…?

That question tangled gloomily in my heart, along with the thought that I couldn’t get involved.

Do you like me, I wonder?

You said so in a letter you sent me without the slightest hesitation.

Ever since the incident, I’ve avoided becoming close to the opposite sex, and I thought for sure I would never be in love.

But that winter, when I saw you—you glared at me as if you were looking at the filthiest, most loathsome creature in the world, and when you attacked me, I felt hot stabs of pain in my heart.

I thought you were beautiful, though you abused me mercilessly. I was captivated by the vivid blush of your cheek, the sharpness in your glinting eye, and I couldn’t look away.

I knew only too well that you had not a shred of desire to accept me. That you wanted only to satisfy your own dark, cruel cravings.

And I was not the sort of illustrious person who might win your heart.