The Wayfarer's Lamentation Part 25

The pain that pierced my beating heart made me dizzy.

Miu, Miu, did you despise me that much?

Since I had kept clicking through with my mouse without ever turning on my heater, my body was frozen solid, and my hands were completely numb. I couldn't feel anything.

Even so, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the red letters on the screen.

How much time had pa.s.sed?

In the cold room where all I could hear was my own breathing, a music box started playing.

I jumped in surprise and looked at the cell phone I'd tossed aside on my desk.

The gentle, clear melody was the theme song from Beauty and the Beast.

It was Kotobuki!

I'd thought Miu had thrown Kotobuki's cell phone out her window, but maybe she'd had it repaired? Or maybe she'd bought a new one?

In either case, this ring tone was set up for only Kotobuki's phone number or e-mail address.

I grabbed my phone, opened it up, and pressed it to my ear.

"h.e.l.lo-Kotobuki?"

A hoa.r.s.e voice came leaping through the thin piece of metal.

"I-Inoue!"

"What's up? Is something wrong?"

"She..."

Kotobuki was forcing the words out.

"Asakura disappeared somewhere! It's snowing so hard-but she's not at the hospital. And I heard she left a note in her room that said, 'I'm going to s.p.a.ce.'"

Chapter 7-Journey in Dark of Night.

Outside the snow was blowing about wildly, driven sideways.

Even with an umbrella, I got beaten by the wind and covered in snow in no time, so it was pointless. I closed my umbrella partway there, and tripping over the snow that had deepened halfway up to my s.h.i.+ns, I pushed ahead.

After I'd gotten the phone call from Kotobuki, I had quickly changed into street clothes, put on a coat, and rushed out of the house.

Right before I left, I'd also received a call from Akutagawa. He said Kotobuki had called him. He told me he was going to the hospital.

"After Asakura let out her hatred and beat you, she got even more unstable. When I visited her over the weekend, she was screaming, 'n.o.body but Konoha can come in here!' and threw stuff from her room at me. She said, 'The only one who's allowed to touch me or talk to me is Konoha!' She was waiting for you to come."

In a tortured voice, Akutagawa asked me to save her.

Why had Miu suddenly disappeared?

Why had she tried to keep hold of me while screaming that she hated me?

Why did she continue telling lies to my face?

Pus.h.i.+ng furiously through the heavily falling snow, Hatori's confessions came to mind one after another, tinged with a different import than when I'd first read them.

I wonder what true happiness is.

I'm pretty sure, at least, that it's not having a lot of money or succeeding at work or marrying the right kind of guy.

I wonder what happiness is.

I wonder where I would have to go to find it.

When I think about stuff like that, my heart goes pitch-black all of a sudden, and I get so scared I start shaking, and it feels like my head is going to crack open.

What had Campanella wished for?

What had happiness been to Campanella?

Hadn't the strong and solitary Campanella-Miu-himself been the one seeking it?

I had never expected that she would someday climb aboard the Milky Way Railroad and go off into s.p.a.ce just like Campanella.

If Miu would tell that story, then hadn't she been tortured, unable to find a place for herself on Earth?

And so wasn't that why she'd wished to take a journey on a train to the stars?

The imagination that would allow her to freely traverse the sea of stars was Miu's only weapon, her only comfort, her only salvation.

Yes, until I appeared before her- Miu, who had spun her stories alone, got her first reader in me, and through Miu, I shared her world.

I was overjoyed about that, I enjoyed it, and I was happy.

And Miu-hadn't she been, too?

Hadn't she wanted me by her side, even as she hated me and found me repugnant, even as she tormented me from the shadows?

Hadn't she wanted me to hear her stories?

But at some point something had drifted apart, little by little, and gotten out of sync.

What have I done!

Strange, this is a first. Again and again and again I did it. But still nothing happens. n.o.body comes. I can't hear them! I can't see them! I can't feel them!

Whenever I do that, the trash that they've tossed aside is supposed to be expelled from my body and disappear.

But still, nothing. No matter how much I do it, nothing changes. The black, sticky, reeking stuff continues to collect inside me.

The confusion and fear that Miu felt.

I imagined what it must have been like, and it became difficult to breathe.

Even though I did it!

Even though I did it over and over!

It's still not enough? Do I have to keep doing it?

Miu opening her sky-blue binder and joyously writing out a story on her loose-leaf paper.

The flood of vivid words. The beautiful world spilling over with transparency.

Every single day I do it, feeling like my stomach is twisting into knots. And before long, just the thought of doing it makes my head start to hurt, and I feel a wave of nausea.

But still, when I do it, everything gets better. I believed that the dirty stuff collecting in my chest, that the trembling anxiety, fear, rage, despair, all went away.

And if-if Miu were to lose that world- If the stories that had surrounded Miu up till now were to suddenly go away- But no!

Even when I do it, the trash can doesn't empty.

It's your fault!

You messed me up!

Miu staring at me with an irritated look when I tried to take a Kenji Miyazawa book out of the library.

Me timidly returning the book to the shelf.

So the only thing of Kenji Miyazawa's I know is Night of the Milky Way Railroad that I read in a picture book.

Even so- Whenever Tohko tells me about Kenji Miyazawa's stories, I get a nostalgic feeling.

That familiarity wasn't something that called up warmth or ease.

On the contrary, I felt anxiety and fear that seemed to crush my chest.

Why was that?

Why was I so scared of Kenji Miyazawa?

Was it because when I heard his stories, I felt like I was doing something bad, and that made it harder for me to breathe?

I know the story Miyazawa had painted of the brief meeting between a female singer and a girl who admires her.

I know the story of the bunny that saves a lark and recovers a treasure.

The flashy onomatopoeia echoed through my mind over and over and over.

"Clang, clang, clangerang, clabang-clabang-ang."

"Vereeen-zan, ch-ring, vereeen."

"Pla-pla-pum, pum, pummm, shhh."

"Tanpararata, tanpararata, plonk, plonk, plonk."

"Bom, bom, bom, bom, bom."

That voice I was hearing-high, then low-wasn't Tohko's.

It was Miu's voice!

Miu had told it to me.

Almost as if Kenji Miyazawa's story were her own story-!

A cold shock pierced my brain.

A doubt that I had denied several times in my mind, had tricked myself about, hidden, and tried to forget about.

But I was sure it was true.

Miu had plagiarized!

When Miu wasn't able to make up her stories anymore, she had told me Kenji Miyazawa's stories as if they were something she'd thought up herself.

That was why she'd given me such a terrifying look and tried to stop me when I'd wanted to borrow a collection of his stories.

My throat squeezed shut hotly. Snow struck my cheeks, my forehead, and my eyes like needles.

Why? Why did you have to go that far to keep telling stories?

Knowing that they were someone else's stories and not your own.

Fearing that you might be exposed eventually.