Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel (6 page)

The last time Kotobuki had received a phone call from Mito was ten days ago. From that day on, Mito had been absent from school. But even after that, the two of them kept sending text messages to each other like they always did. Was there some reason that Mito didn’t want Kotobuki to find out about her disappearance?

And Mito’s messages had broken off three days ago…What was she up to now?

My brain was strained to its limit. A roar started up in my ears, and I lay back on my bed. I rested the open book on my chest and let out a shallow breath.

There was too much I didn’t understand.

If Tohko were here…

That nosy, thoughtless, slovenly, but still sensitive to odd stuff book girl with the kind eyes—I wondered how she would interpret this story.

“Maybe I should call her.”

I turned my head to the side and gazed at the cell phone on my desk, then felt an ache brush over me, deep in my heart.

“I still haven’t told her my phone number or e-mail address…”

Tohko didn’t have a cell phone. She was an incurable dud with machines, so even if I gave her my e-mail, she’d probably never use it.

But that was an excuse, and right now I wanted to hear her warm, carefree voice more than anything.

But no! Tohko was studying for her exams, so I couldn’t get her involved. This was Tohko, after all; obviously she would stick her nose in way too far if I told her about it.

My heart ached, and I tore my eyes from the phone, gripping my sheets tightly.

That’s right—in the spring, Tohko would graduate and then leave…

My phone suddenly rang, almost stopping my heart.

It couldn’t be Tohko, could it?!

I ran over to the desk and quickly checked who was calling. It was Akutagawa.

“Hey, Inoue?”

“Hey…what’s up?”

“Oh, I’m just calling about Kotobuki. Things seemed pretty crazy so I was worried. Nothing’s bothering you?”

That concern was typical of Akutagawa.

My tension eased, and my voice naturally softened. I thought how glad I was I’d become friends with him.

“Thanks. I’m fine. And I think Kotobuki made up with Mori and the others.”

“Ah. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. Doesn’t matter how minor. Don’t hesitate.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

The next day when I saw Akutagawa in class, my eyes bugged out.

“How’d you get those cuts?!”

He had claw marks running down his right cheek and neck. The three lines on his neck looked pretty deep and had puffed up purple and painful looking.

“It was just a cat…y’know.”

Akutagawa smiled ruefully and looked away slightly.

“That looks like it hurts a lot! You okay?”

“Yeah. No big deal.”

He turned his eyes away ever so slightly again.

“That’s a pretty violent cat. But wait—does your family even have a cat?”

I’d been to his house a couple times, but there had just been koi swimming in the garden pond. I hadn’t seen any cats…

“No…it’s a neighbor’s cat. I guess I was too rough with it and ticked it off.”

His gaze shifted around restlessly, and he spoke as if he was holding something clamped between his back teeth.

Then out of nowhere, his face turned serious and he looked straight at me and asked, “But what about you? Everything still good?”

“We just saw each other yesterday. And you even called me. Oh, thanks for that, by the way.”

“Oh, it was no problem…You didn’t get any weird calls or texts after that, though? I mean, I hear people have been getting a lot of calls like that lately.”

“So far, I haven’t even gotten random hang ups.”

Akutagawa leaned in even closer.

“Planning to change your phone number or e-mail?”

“No…what’s going on, Akutagawa?”

My question seemed to bring him back to his senses, and he drew back, a forced-looking smile coming over his face.

“Well, if nothing’s bothering you, it doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

That was weird.
What’s going on?
I wondered suspiciously, but I had my hands full with Kotobuki and I couldn’t pursue anything else.

After school, we met up with some of Mito’s classmates at the café from the day before.

They’d been surprised at how suddenly Mito’s singing had improved, too.

“She got picked for the lead out of a
ton
of other girls. Turandot is a cruel, arrogant princess, which isn’t Mito’s image at
all
.”

“The male lead, Calaf, is being played by Ogiwara, this young pro who’s a huge star. In the scene where Turandot asks her questions, people were bad-mouthing Mito and saying her voice paled next to Ogiwara’s and sounded like it was a total wreck.”

But then when rehearsals had started, Mito’s voice had enough energy to overwhelm the professional singer’s.

“Mito kept it a secret, but she must’ve been getting lessons from a superfamous teacher. Otherwise she’d never get a voice like that so fast. They’re even saying that the reason she’s out now is that she’s getting secret training somewhere.”

“I guess I can see why she wouldn’t step down from the role. There’ve been rumors about someone awesome backing her for a long time and that it was that person who got her picked for the lead,” said another girl.

“Do you know who that person is?”

“No clue.”

They shook their heads. Then as if suddenly remembering, one of them said, “Oh, but I saw Mito get into a car with a man in a black suit before! He had his arm around her, and it looked really fishy, and he called her ‘Camellia’…”

After leaving the café, Kotobuki and I walked side by side down the street lit by white and gold Christmas lights.

We talked in spurts.

“Is Camellia a nickname? Do you know, Kotobuki?”

“Nope. I don’t think anyone’s ever called Yuka ‘Camellia.’ But maybe Yuka really is with the angel. The whole time she’s been out of school, I was still getting messages from her that sounded like she was taking lessons from the angel. The man who called her Camellia might be the angel.”

Kotobuki’s expression was grim. It seemed like she felt seriously hostile toward the Angel of Music, and she seemed to believe that her best friend’s disappearance was linked entirely to him.

In
Phantom of the Opera
, it was the Phantom who abducted Christine, taking her to his underground kingdom by pretending to be an angel and wearing a mask to hide his ugliness, so I could understand why she felt that way.

But was Mito really with the angel as Kotobuki said?

She had been with her boyfriend the night before she disappeared, so I couldn’t say for certain.

Where exactly had Mito gone? Why didn’t she come back to the dorms?

She still hadn’t sent any new messages to Kotobuki.

The cool air ran over my skin with a prickly chill. The sky was cloudy, and I couldn’t see the moon or stars; man-made lights were the only illumination on the street. An upbeat Christmas song played, clashing with our mood.

The expression in Kotobuki’s eyes became vulnerable, and she said, “I feel like I’ve become Raoul. I’m jealous of Christine and the Phantom, and I keep wavering, but even if I go to save Christine from the Phantom who’s kidnapped her, I won’t do any good…”

“There are a lot of protagonists like that.”

“Isn’t the Phantom the protagonist of
Phantom of the Opera
?”

“I’m only partway through it, but since the story develops from Raoul’s perspective, I feel like it’s him.”

“But the second half is a monologue by a mysterious Persian.”

“It is?!”

“Raoul falls right into the Phantom’s trap. There’s nothing good about him.”

“Hmm…”

Kotobuki pursed her lips and whispered sadly, ruefully, “Raoul really is useless.”

“But I’m rooting for him,” I told her with a smile. “I keep reading the story, thinking how great it would be if he rescued Christine and got a happy ending.”

Kotobuki jerked her head up to look at me. She immediately buried her face in her scarf again and muttered shyly, “H…hmph. I see.”

She was cute when she turned away and blushed, and my mouth curved into a smile despite itself.

Without turning back, Kotobuki muttered, “Um…yesterday, I was going through my old letters and I found a postcard Yuka sent me one summer from her mom’s parents’ house. It had an address on it. I’m thinking of sending a letter there. I might be able to contact Yuka’s family.”

I smiled.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. It’d be nice to find out where Mito is soon.”

My angel always sings alone.

Beneath the moon, standing in the rustling grass, his melancholy voice reverberating across the indigo sky.

Even though my angel hates hymns, his voice is filled with a mournfulness and pleading that tears at my heart. I’m sure my angel thinks of someone who’s gone while he sings. To comfort the soul of someone I don’t know.

Long ago, my angel killed someone. He said bright red blood, like when you smash a strawberry, dyed the blue sheets and dripped onto the floor.

That after that, many people died for him.

My angel’s name was blackened, his wings stained with blood, and he could no longer stay in the daylight world.

I felt awful.

I felt awful for my angel.

I always cry in front of him. But he never cries. He puts an arm around my shoulders, strokes my hair, and smiles for me.

Even when I tell him he can cry, he says he has nothing to be sad about and the tears won’t come. He says he’s never once cried in his entire life.

And so he won’t sing me hymns, but he does sing lullabies for me.

So that I don’t have scary dreams; so that I can forget everything painful and bitter that’s happened and sleep soundly; so that tomorrow when I’m in the sunlight, I can hide my sins and smile purely, like every other perfectly ordinary girl.

The reason I can be his girlfriend and be Nanase’s best friend is because my angel sings for me. If he didn’t, I would be ashamed of how dirty and ugly I am. I would be paralyzed, and I wouldn’t have anywhere near enough courage to stand before either of them.

Even though my angel has forgiven me and rescued me, who on earth will save him, who cannot be allowed into the light of the sun, who has lost his name, who can only hide himself in the world of darkness?

I was going to the music room to tell Mr. Mariya that we would be taking a break from organizing papers for a while when I found him smack in the middle of a love scene.

The petite girl whose lips were locked with his shrieked and scrambled away from him.

Then she shouted, “E-excuse me!” in an adorable voice, hung her head, and flew out of the room.

“…Mr. Mariya, what was that?”

Appearing at such a critical juncture had left me dazed, but Mr. Mariya smiled at me shamelessly.

“Ha-ha-ha. I think you ought to knock when you go into a room, Konoha.”

“I did. And I think when you’re doing stuff like that at school, you should keep an eye on your surroundings.”