The Wayfarer's Lamentation Part 31

"Yeah. Kotobuki took it upon herself to be the bad guy in order to free you from Asakura with the full understanding that you might hate her for it."

Kotobuki's face was florid, and she gritted her teeth as she brawled with Miu.

"Inoue cared about you, and he was in pain the whole time, you know! You monopolized his affections!"

Tears colored her eyes, and her lips were trembling slightly.

That was how Kotobuki looked when she was giving everything she had to look strong.

"Is...there anything I can do for you?"

"Maybe I can't help, but...if there's anything I can do, just say so."

I remembered her using all of her strength to say that to me, looking like she was about to cry, and my heart swelled.

I'd hurt Kotobuki a lot, but she was still fighting with Miu to help me.

"Inoue loved you!! He treasured you! His smiles were only ever for you! The whole time I could see that. So why do you hurt him?! Why do you jump off buildings and throw yourself in front of cars in front of him?! Why do you lie and make him suffer?!"

"Because-because if I didn't, Konoha would forget me! He would go away from me!"

Wringing her hair wildly, the three top b.u.t.tons of her pajamas ripped off, Miu crouched flat on the floor and started pouring out tears.

"You've got family and friends who'll come visit you, so you wouldn't understand. When you were in the hospital this summer, I snuck over to get a look at you. You were surrounded by friends from school teasing you about Konoha, and you were denying it all and blushing.

"Then I saw your dad and your mom and your grandma helping you out, too. Your family looked really close, and you whined that you didn't want to be treated like a child. You've got people besides Konoha you can be with! Konoha is all I have!"

Kotobuki watched Miu declare all this, tears spilling from her eyes and her voice hitching, and she lowered her raised hand, and her face went blank.

Miu had lost all her fight, and her slumped shoulders trembling slightly, she sobbed like a child.

"My dad and my mom and my grandma...they never did anything but use me as a trash can. Konoha was the only one who ever said clean, nice things to me. And yet Konoha went away, too."

Beads rolled from her cheeks to strike the floor like rain.

Akutagawa was furrowing his brow and looking at Miu in apparent pain. My heart fluttered at the poignancy of it, too.

"...Ngh, I...can't imagine anything anymore. I can't picture a clean world! There's nothing but filth inside me. There's no such thing as true happiness. This world and I are both bleak and ugly! So I'm going to stay a child. I'm going to stay the way I was when we promised we would go to s.p.a.ce together. Because if I become an adult, Konoha will leave me. He wouldn't go with me.

"So I'm gonna stay a child forever and ever! Don't interfere, please! Don't take Konoha from me! Don't!!"

Miu raising her voice and crying.

A lament that served no purpose. Despair. A pitch-black world like the farthest reaches of s.p.a.ce. A heart being steadily sliced up. Pain-that pain, that scream that stabbed into my chest.

How much Miu had sought me.

How she had tried to confine my whole body, my whole spirit.

Miu was that isolated, that sad, that tortured-not allowed even to flee into sleep in the middle of the night, unable even to find comfort in imagining a beautiful world, only ever dragging her wounded body along to continue wandering, lost.

I had stolen salvation from Miu.

I'd broken Miu's world and refused her final wish.

Said that I couldn't go with her. I'd let go of Miu's hand and murdered her spirit for a second time.

My entire body was flayed by the continuous despair, and my mind became gloomy.

What can I do to give you happiness?

What can we do to reach the land of happiness?

Akutagawa, Kotobuki, and I all fell silent, cherishing a sadness that continued to ache, and stared at Miu. Just then- At the door, we heard a clear voice.

"I'll tell you where you can glimpse happiness."

Her long, thin braids spilling over her shoulders, her black eyes gently at peace, a smile like a violet on her lips-Tohko stood there wearing a navy coat over her school uniform.

Miu raised her eyes, wet with tears.

"You..."

Innocent surprise spread over Miu's face.

Tohko stepped slowly over to Miu, bent slightly at the waist, and in a voice colored with familiarity, she said, "I don't think I introduced myself when we met on the roof. We also spoke on the phone once, but you hung up that day, too."

I was staggered and confused. What was Tohko saying?

She'd talked to Miu on the phone?

Miu looked ever so slightly scared.

She was looking up at Tohko entranced, as if she couldn't tear her eyes away.

Inexplicably, right before my stunned eyes, Tohko extended a pure white hand and said, "h.e.l.lo, Miu.

"My name is Tohko Amano-I'm Konoha's club president and, as you can see, a book girl."

Chapter 9-Back When You Looked at the Sky.

Outside the sky was dyed with a fiery setting sun.

A black limousine was parked in front of the hospital, and we got into it as Tohko instructed.

Tohko, Miu, Akutagawa, Kotobuki, and I arrived at an observatory on the outskirts of town. It was a domed building surrounded by dark trees and was apparently a planetarium. Tohko pushed open the door, which had a CLOSED sign hung on it, and went inside.

Miu, her eyes bright red from crying too much, hunched her body over like an adopted kitten and clung to me tightly as we walked. Kotobuki and Akutagawa followed behind us. Both of their faces were hard, perhaps because they were nervous.

I was confused, too.

I didn't know what Tohko was thinking.

I had missed my chance to ask, but I wondered about how Miu and Tohko had talked on the phone before.

The theater was dyed in an unsullied indigo, as if the sun had just fallen below the horizon. Scattered stars dotted the round ceiling, still small and faint. The projector set up in the center of the concentric rings of seats was like a rocket preparing to launch into s.p.a.ce.

"Tohko. Come in."

Her brown hair waving, exuding a vibrant aura, Maki came to greet us.

The granddaughter of our school's director and a font of information, she was also a bit of a weirdo. She was usually in her studio on the top floor of the school's music building, drawing the pictures that were her hobby. She was also obsessed with Tohko and had made ardent appeals for Tohko to model nude for her.

"I prepared everything exactly like you told me to. After last time, this makes two favors you owe me. I'm going to get you to pay me back in full before graduation, you know. I wouldn't want you covered in bruises or open wounds. Although that in itself might be erotic."

She scooped up one of Tohko's braids with the tips of her fingers and smiled mysteriously.

Tohko's cheeks flushed, and she scrambled away from her. "I-I told you we'd talk about it after my exams are done. Um...I wonder where Ryuto is."

Tohko bent her mouth into a frown and looked a little petulant.

"That libertine boy is already here with his girlfriend. Look-"

I could see Ryuto sitting in the upper seats in the direction Maki pointed.

Ryuto had Takeda on his knee and was stroking her hair affectionately. Then he brought his face close to hers and seemed to be whispering to her. Reclining on Ryuto's chest, Takeda didn't move a muscle. The look on her face as it floated out of the clear darkness was as vacant as a doll's, and she didn't so much as blink. There was no sense of life to her.

When I saw her like that, I felt a chill.

I had heard how Takeda was doing from Tohko, but I'd had no idea it had gotten this bad!

Miu clung tightly to my arm and hoa.r.s.ely murmured, "What's wrong with that girl?"

She seemed to be shocked by Takeda's state, fear coming into her eyes, and trembled slightly.

Kotobuki and Akutagawa's expressions were both frozen with tension.

"Ryuto."

When Tohko called out to him, Ryuto looked in our direction.

He turned to Tohko and smiled sunnily at her, then whispered something to Takeda again. He lifted her to her feet, then came down the aisle with his arm around her shoulders.

"'Sup, Konoha. Looks like you made it out of the hospital all right, huh, Kotobuki?"

Ryuto's voice and expression were normal enough to confuse us.

"Ryuto, is Takeda...?"

Takeda was still staring blankly into s.p.a.ce, not showing any interest in us, leaning back against Ryuto without a word.

"It seems like she can hear my voice at least. But it's like she can't react."

No one said a word. Ryuto pulled Takeda's head against him and gave a sparkling laugh.

"I've got lots of experience with girls a teensy bit more delicate than normal. She'll get better sooner or later. Right, Chee?"

His words and the hand stroking Takeda's hair were both strong and cheerful.

Tohko smiled kindly at Takeda.

"I thought I'd try to cheer Chia up, so I had Ryuto bring her along today. Enjoy yourselves, okay?"

Takeda stayed silent, of course.

Tohko sat us down and stood in front of the projector.

Miu sat on my right and Kotobuki on my left. Both of their faces were tense. Akutagawa sat down in the seat behind Miu; then Ryuto and Takeda sat two seats down the row from him. Maki sat in a seat that was diagonally across from us, pretty far away, and crossed her legs regally.

The lights dimmed gradually, and the number of stars scattered on the ceiling grew.

The faint spotlight shining on the projector was like moonlight pouring down from heaven, picking out Tohko's willowy frame.

A pleasant, gentle voice flowed into the clear darkness.

"This is the night sky as it appears from Taneyamagahara in Iwate Prefecture.

"When the author Kenji Miyazawa was in his third year at Morioka Agriculture and Forestry College, he came to this place as part of a geological survey.

"At the time, Miyazawa had just published the journal Azaria with his friends, and every day was fulfilling, and he was overflowing with idealism and hopes for the future. Having been deeply impressed by the beauty of nature he'd seen at this happiest time of his life, Miyazawa made Taneyamagahara the subject of several stories in his later creative work. For example, this poem is an unfinished draft composed of four parts, which he wrote eight years later in 1925."

Tohko closed her eyes as if imagining the scene as Miyazawa had seen it and recited part of the poem.

"Banded ridges flowing across the ocean, layer on layer, The horizon swelling and falling silently, silently.

Ah-everything is transparent. All of it."

She barely lifted her lowered eyelids, gave a small smile, and went on.

"It's said that Miyazawa's most famous work, Night of the Milky Way Railroad, was inspired by this place.