Asakura was laughing!

His words were filled with dark rage and criticism.

When I wasn't there, Miu was laughing! Akutagawa had said it clearly.

Miu was tricking me. That she was mocking me behind my back- So then what was I supposed to do?!

What was he saying I could have done right then in that situation?! Should I have defended Kotobuki and condemned Miu? Should I have shouted that Miu was a liar? Was I supposed to just watch in silence as Miu jumped out of the window?!

Kotobuki's silent cascade of tears and Miu's satisfied-looking smile came to my mind one after another, and my mind grew muddied. It felt like my breath would stop in my throat.

I hadn't wanted to hurt Kotobuki like that, either! I hadn't wanted to make her cry!

But it wasn't possible to take both Miu's and Kotobuki's hands at the same time. The instant I held Kotobuki's hands to pull her back, Miu might have thrown herself from the building like she did two years ago!

But he was still blaming me?

He was telling me that Miu's tears and screaming were all fake?

My head thudded with the rage that came welling up from deep inside my chest.

What...what was he doing having conversations like that with Miu when I wasn't around?!

The colorful roses I'd seen in Miu's room reawakened sharply on my eyelids, and a futile displeasure stabbed sharply into my chest.

"Oh, I see. Those flowers...they weren't from a relative; they were from you."

My voice was harsh as I whispered and cold enough to make even me shiver.

"What are you talking about?" Akutagawa asked, looking disgruntled. I shook off his grip and raised my voice as loud as he had.

"You told me not to go see Miu again, but you were seeing her on the side and keeping it secret from me! That's why you kept looking at me so guiltily! You're just like me! You can't stay away from Miu, either! And yet you're angry at me because I took her side? You hit me? You really just want Miu to yourself, don't you?"

"Are you serious? If so, you're an awful person. You don't have a clue, Inoue!!"

"And what is it I need to get a clue about?! You're the one who's an awful person, attacking me out of nowhere!"

"If I didn't hit you, you'd go your whole life without waking up, so that's why I did you the favor! How long are you planning to keep the covers pulled over your head, dreaming?! Asakura isn't the girl you think she is! You want to drive her into a corner again because you're idealizing her like that?! You're hurting her!"

My depression exploded, and I punched Akutagawa on his right cheek.

An aching shock coursed through my clenched fist, and this time Akutagawa staggered back and ran into a desk.

Shrill screams went up around us. We were so caught up in battle that no one tried to get in between us.

Akutagawa gritted his teeth and wiped his mouth with a sharp look. I glared back at him, right in his face.

"So you say I don't understand? So that means you understand everything about Miu? You sure you're not just trying to be her confidant, that you get all worked up when she says your name?"

Akutagawa decked me again. My teeth rattled at the impact.

"Yeah, I want to understand Asakura! As a matter of fact, I have feelings for Asakura as a girl. But I don't deify her like you do, and I don't believe everything she says! I don't deny who she really is!"

My body was practically twitching with rage.

What did he mean, who she really was? Was Akutagawa trying to say he knew what that was?! So he knew what Campanella wished for? Even though I don't-!

The core of my brain was trembling with heat, and my blood boiled and coursed through my body. I punched him again on the chin.

"Nngh! I've watched Miu ever since we were kids! We were always together! Just 'cos Miu talks to you like a friend, don't think you've got it made!!"

Without even acknowledging the blood seeping from one corner of his mouth, Akutagawa grabbed my collar.

"Does it bug you that much that Asakura disrespects me? Were you jealous of me? Then see her for who she is!!"

He brought his face close to mine, narrowed his eyes in apparent suffering, and scrunched his brow.

"I don't care if you believe me. But please-you need to learn who the real Miu Asakura is, not the ideal you have in your mind. She's not an angel or a G.o.ddess. She's an ordinary girl with faults and weaknesses."

The bell rang, announcing the start of homeroom through the commotion our cla.s.smates were causing.

Akutagawa shoved me away roughly and went back to his seat.

Rage still smoldering within me, I turned my back on him, too, and sat down at my desk.

Neither Akutagawa nor I moved from our seats even during the breaks, our faces still rigid, and we stubbornly refused to look at each other.

Everyone else watched us from a distance.

Even when school was over for the day, the swelling of my cheek didn't go down.

Alone in the book club, I thought about what Akutagawa had said. I rested my elbows on the old oak table and hung my head, groaning low at the pain burrowing into my chest.

Akutagawa had clearly said that I was driving Miu into a corner.

Placid, forthright Akutagawa had harangued me with those crazed accusations, had transformed with rage and punched me.

"Asakura's...not an angel or a G.o.ddess. She's an ordinary girl with faults and weaknesses... See her for who she is!"

Had the girl I'd seen up until now been an ideal Miu who I wished could be a certain way?

I'd been by her side since childhood and watched her smile like light.

But one day Miu turned a look like daggers on me and started avoiding me.

Just like Giovanni and Campanella, who had been the best of friends, at some point stopped speaking to each other.

Campanella, who was surrounded by friends, looked with pity on lonely Giovanni, who was teased by his cla.s.smates about his father and trembled with embarra.s.sment.

Never knowing what Campanella thought, Giovanni was always uneasy. He didn't know what Campanella wished for!

In that same way-I wonder when I'd first lost sight of Miu? When had we first slipped past each other?

After I revealed that I was Miu Inoue?

At that time, Miu Inoue's name was a topic of conversation everywhere. The fuss was getting too big, and I didn't know how I should tell Miu.

That I'd kept from her that I was writing a novel in secret and had submitted it and that it had been selected for the grand prize- That I was now selling under the overblown t.i.tle of a beautiful and mysterious masked young author- So when I caught Miu at the water fountains on her way back from gym cla.s.s and revealed the truth to her, I couldn't fully meet her eye.

"I'm...Miu Inoue."

I hunched up and flushed to my ears, as if I were a child who's done something spectacularly wrong and expects to be scolded. I don't know what Miu looked like as I forced the words out.

Just: "Oh...so that was you."

The flat tone lingering in my ears; the blank face as cold as a doll's, which I saw when I hesitantly lifted my eyes; and the bottomless terror that a.s.saulted me then were all that remained in my memory.

Without saying another word, Miu turned her back on me and left. After that, she started blatantly ignoring me.

I was sure Miu was angry at me for winning.

I'd always thought so, but had that really been the first time that Miu looked at me with those frigid, empty eyes?

I sank into a sea of dark memories amid a sickening sensation that felt like bare hands squishing up my brain and a torturous pain that seemed to wring my heart out.

The library I'd spent my time at with Miu, Miu's favorite crepe shop, the fashion boutique for girls that she would drag me along to so often despite my embarra.s.sment.

The convenience store.

The bookstore.

And actually...when the deadline for the new author prize was approaching at the close of my second year in middle school, I spotted Miu at a discount store near my house.

For some reason, she was staring at the shelves of men's hair care products with a cold look on her face.

What was she doing over there? Was it for someone in her family?

I started to call out to her, but she spun around and walked farther inside.

When I asked her about it the next day, she looked shaken, and her face twisted before she laughed and answered, "I dunno. Maybe you mistook someone else for me."

When I said it wasn't a mistake, that it was her, she glared at me in irritation and harshly asked, "Can't you tell the difference between me and other girls, Konoha?" so I'd hastily apologized.

Hadn't Miu been acting strangely ever since then?

It became common for her to say, "I want to focus on my entry," and get up from her seat early, when until then, we had stayed at the library until it closed.

Deep in my heart, I had felt terribly sad about that, but since the deadline for the prize was the beginning of the new year, I gave into it as inevitable. I'd thought that Miu zoning out in cla.s.s and her bloodshot eyes were because she was staying up late every night working on her story.

The day before the deadline, when she'd dropped a brown envelope with her application materials into the mail, Miu finally turned around with a sunny smile.

Thinking about it now, those really were subtle changes, and after she finished her entry, Miu smiled a lot and liked to tease me, and we stayed late at the library every day until spring came, just like before.

But if I thought about it carefully, something had already changed.

And so had I- It was early April when I received the phone call from the publisher that my story had been chosen for the grand prize.

In the midst of my anxiety over the crazy situation and feeling disoriented, sure that there must have been some mistake, I started the work of revising for publication, as directed by my editor. I was told not to write by hand, but to use a word processor instead, and every day I typed the ma.n.u.script I'd written into the computer.

The plans for publication were already set, and there were announcements in magazines saying "History-Making Prizewinner on Sale!" while the name and t.i.tle were still totally under wraps.

About the time I learned how to touch-type, we were changing from winter to summer uniforms.

Then at the end of May, it was announced everywhere that the winner of the grand prize was a fourteen-year-old middle schooler, and two weeks later, Miu Inoue's debut work went on sale.

For two months, it was all I could do to handle the problems before me, and I had no time to worry about how Miu was changing. Plus, since I was keeping it a secret from Miu, I was actually grateful that she was busy, and we had less time to spend together.

During the s.p.a.ce of those two months that we'd distanced ourselves from each other-no, maybe even before that-while I was writing my entry, maybe something had happened to Miu.

What was it about Miu that I had overlooked?

Would I be able to figure out what Campanella wished for-?

When it seemed like I would be swallowed up in a muddy anxiety, there was the soft sound of a footstep on the other side of the door.

Tohko hadn't actually come to school, had she? If so, I was in trouble!

I didn't want her to see my puffy face and didn't want to reveal any more wretchedness than I already had, so I did something stupid and impulsively hid myself behind the curtains.

I was so rushed that I didn't think of the fact that I wouldn't be able to hide there forever. My chest burned, my mind was in chaos, and I grew more cowardly.

I held my breath and listened intently to the sounds coming from the other side of the door.

The door opened quietly, and I sensed someone come in.

The sound of a chair being pulled out, the softer sound of the edge of the chair hitting a desk.

As I felt sweat beading up on the palms of my hands I slyly peeked out at the room through a gap in the curtains.

It wasn't Tohko who sat beside the desk in a fold-up chair with her back turned to me; it was a pet.i.te girl with billowing hair cut straight across, just above her shoulders.

Takeda...?

Had she come to see Tohko? Or was she waiting for me?

Takeda held her bag on her lap, never budging.

Her slight back faced me and was held rigid.