I don't know! I don't!

As I walked through the hospital lobby, it felt like I b.u.mped into several arms and shoulders, but I couldn't apologize, either. I had such a terrible look on my face that they must have thought some catastrophe had befallen someone I loved. n.o.body said anything to me.

I was sure it was night outside. The darkness of midwinter that freezes even the breath might hide how miserable I was. But I didn't know if I would ever reach the place I sought, no matter where I walked.

I couldn't walk any farther. I couldn't even see the stars. I couldn't advance a single step.

I was on the verge of crumpling to the ground.

Just then, I b.u.mped into someone again.

This person didn't draw away. A cool hand gently touched my burning brow.

"Konoha..."

A worried voice spoke my name.

When I looked up, Tohko was looking at me with sad, pained eyes, her face disheartened.

Her soft fingertips gently caressed my cheek.

"Didn't I tell you to call me?"

The tears poured out and ran in big drops down my cheeks. I crumpled up at Tohko's feet and sobbed, my shoulders shaking.

Chapter 6-Who Killed the Little Bird?.

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.

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?

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.

But no!

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

It's your fault! You messed me up!

Even though I was the one who was supposed to take things from you.

Even though I was supposed to make you taste despair, to tie you up and keep you for the rest of your life.

Before I realized it, I was the one everything had been taken from.

Everything! You took everything! All of it! You stole it!

And yet you followed me around smiling without the least sense of guilt.

And you're looking for more?

Are you going to carve it out of my body? My heart?

I have nothing left!

Tohko gently squeezed my hands as I continued to cry soundlessly and took me to a karaoke booth.

"Here no one else will know if you cry."

Told that in a placid voice with a clear face, the tears I'd briefly reined in spilled out again, and for a good forty minutes, I snuffled and dripped salty sweat from my eyes.

In the midst of it, in broken flashes, I would feel as if Miu was telling me that she hated me, telling me to get out, accusing me.

Tohko sat down next to me and barely squeezed my right hand.

I sobbed so much that my throat burned and the insides tingled and my head started to hurt. Finally I grew tired, and no more tears would come. Even so, my head drooped and my shoulders shook a little, and Tohko started to talk to me kindly, as if she were an older sister.

"You know, before I ran into you, I was in Nanase's room. She was really worried about you. She asked me to help you."

My chest felt like it would tear open with a different kind of pain.

Kotobuki had said something like that to Tohko.

Despite the horrible things I'd done to her. Why did I hurt people even though I didn't mean to?

As I bit down on my lip and choked back tears, my throat trembling, Tohko softly ran her fingers, interlocked with mine, over the back of my hand and murmured in a warm voice, "You know, when you're sad, it helps to imagine something totally ridiculous. Like, how about a story about an uppercla.s.sman you admire who does pole vault for the track team and gets on a toy boat made of folded gra.s.s to go on a journey for ascetic training? Girls try to get the love letters they've poured themselves into to him, but he jumps, whoooosh! into the river."

"...That's an improv story I wrote," I said with a catching sob.

Then she said, "Oh, then what about a story where you go to the first day of cla.s.s and all your cla.s.smates are pandas? It's a little surreal, but it'd be pretty fun. And then-"

Again she started happily telling me the summary of a snack I'd written a while ago.

"And then-the pandas are all murderous with rage and stomp on the desks. See, if you picture that, you cheer right up."

"...Tohko, when you ate that story, you said it was like white chocolate sprinkled with dried sardines and wasn't a fairy tale; then you slumped over."

"Then let's forget that one. There's a macho surfer riding down Mount Fear..."

She recounted the improv stories I'd written for her up till now like gentle fairy tales a mother would tell her child, one after another. Despite the fact that she'd complained bitterly at the time that they tasted weird or weren't any good, that she had screamed and wept.

She told the tales in a pure, gentle voice and with a mild smile, and they seeped into my wounded heart, warm and familiar like sweet medicine, as if I were hearing a different story.

"Okay, the next one's a story of the friendship of country girls. The two were very close, and they exchanged letters to each other with origami. It's marvelously sweet and delicious, like fried bread dusted all over with soy flour."

"Aren't those all my stories?"

Tohko smiled like an unsullied flower.

"Well, they're all stories you wrote for me. I remember all of them. I would never forget a single one."

A warm voice like a spring breeze.

A gentle hand squeezing mine.

A tiny star was shining into my heart that had been shut off with despair. My feelings slowly buoyed up and were washed clean.

"You know, it's been two years now since I met you, Konoha. You've matured in that time, just a little. You're not the Konoha you used to be. You might not realize it yourself, but...since I, the book girl, who's been eating your stories the whole time, says so, it's for sure."

She made this cheerful declaration and squeezed the hand gripping mine a little.

Was that really true?

Even though my shreds of confidence had broken down and I was totally lost.

"Say...remember how when we were traveling through s.p.a.ce with your map, I got totally absorbed in reading Portrait of Shunkin at the library?

"In order to sear Shunkin's beauty in his heart forever, Sasuke destroys his own eyes.

"That's one form of a very crazed, reverent love, and no matter how often I read it, I'm overwhelmed by Sasuke's emotions, and I tremble.

"But I also wonder if he was right to do that. That maybe for Sasuke and for Shunkin, at least, attempting to preserve the beauty of the person you love and nothing more was a good thing. While I think that they were probably happy, I wonder if there wasn't another way. I think maybe they could have achieved a different form of happiness."

As I felt the warmth of Tohko's hand, I wondered, too.

If I had been able to simply hold on to the beautiful memories of Miu in my heart, would I have been happy now?

But I'd found out that Miu wasn't a white-winged angel; she was just an ordinary girl who tricked and despised others.

"You've always treasured Miu, and you've suffered because of her, so it would hurt to have her say that she hates you.

"But the way you are now, you can face the real Miu. I think you can show her a different path than simple hatred. That's...what I think."

For the last few hours, I'd thought it impossible to even stand up ever again-that the shadows were dark and deep, I didn't know which way to go, and could do nothing but crouch on the ground as my wounds bled.

But Tohko had put a bandage over my forehead and stopped the blood.

And the vicious sandstorm raging in my chest had quieted at some point.

The phone in the booth rang, and Tohko stood up to pick it up.

"Okay. No, we don't need an extension."

She put the phone down and turned around, and with a straightforward smile, she said, "They said we've got five minutes left. Those two hours went by so fast. Shall we go home now, Konoha?"

"...Okay."

I stood up, too.

The wind had stopped, but it was bone-chillingly cold outside. The air was sharp, and my face felt p.r.i.c.kly and numb.

As Tohko walked beside me, she shivered and huddled in on herself.

"Urgh, winter nights really ought to be spent at home relaxing at a heated table and eating The Tales of Ise or something like that. The forecast said it might snow next week, but that would be awful. My National Center Test is on Sat.u.r.day."

"What did you just say?"

Tohko bent her head to blow into her white hands, then repeated, "I said, Sat.u.r.day is the first day of my National Center Test."

"That's tomorrow, though!"

My eyes bugged out.

"Yes, ever since antiquity, the day after Friday has been Sat.u.r.day."

"That isn't what I'm saying! What are you doing here the day before your exam?!"

"What?...But when I went to visit Nanase, you were standing in the lobby looking sooo gloomy."

At Tohko's words, my cheeks grew hot in no time.

She had a point, but...She probably couldn't just go home and study in a situation like that, but...If she had gone home, I didn't know what would have become of me by now, but...

Ah, but-but-she's way too unaware of what it takes to prepare for exams! And she was in such a bad position with her low grades!

I pulled off my scarf and wrapped it around Tohko's neck.