I started walking slowly, holding Miu up.

Just then, Miu's body bobbed away from me.

A big truck was coming from the other direction with a wail.

Miu threw herself in front of it, collapsing.

It was over in an instant.

The piercing sound of brakes.

Miu's body bouncing up, her red scarf dancing in the air.

Miu not moving, bent over in the snow.

"Noooooooooo! Sheeeeeeeeee!"

Takeda screamed.

As I listened to the sound of her voice, I too shouted as if the world had ended.

Hey, why do you follow me around?

I hate you, and I only ever did terrible things to you.

Why did you always grin at that?

When I lost you, I finally realized why.

That it was you that made my worlds shine with kindness and beauty.

A world without you was cold and dark, and I wanted to see you more than I could stand.

Actually, I had always wanted to be by your side.

I wanted to go on and on forever with you, gazing at the map we'd drawn together.

If we were able to reach the end of the universe, maybe we would have been able to find true happiness.

If we'd done that, maybe-maybe you would have looked me in the eye and said that you loved me.

Chapter 8-Lamentation.

Ten days pa.s.sed.

"I brought you something, Miu."

"Oh, Konoha, that makes me so happy!"

When I opened the door to the hospital room, Miu turned an innocent smile on me, spun the electric wheelchair around with a whir, and came closer.

"Ooh, it's the tea pudding from that place. I love how creamy it is. Thank you, Konoha. So, did anything happen at school today? Are the goldfish doing okay? I wonder if I'll get out of the hospital in time for closing ceremonies. I hope we're in the same cla.s.s in fourth grade, too."

Shaking her short, smooth hair, she pressed her small head that smelled of soap against my belly and cheerfully asked, "Konoha, will you feed me the pudding?"

"Sure..."

I pulled off the lid, scooped some up in a plastic spoon, and brought it to Miu's mouth.

Like a baby bird receiving food from its mother's mouth, Miu opened her lips a little, closed them around the spoon, and beamed.

"Yummm! Give me some more."

I scooped pudding up several more times, just as she prodded me to, then popped it between her cherry-colored lips. As I did so, my chest threatened to be crushed by Miu's childish behavior and expression.

On the day of the snow, ten days earlier, I hadn't been able to stop Miu from throwing herself in front of the truck.

Even though I was so close, I let Miu go off by herself again.

The driver was quick to hit the brakes, and the drifts of snow softened the impact, so Miu got away with minor wounds.

But when she woke up, her limbs had returned to the condition they'd been in before she'd done physical therapy and she could hardly move anymore.

And that wasn't all: Miu's spirit had returned to third grade-to the time she met me.

The doctors said the cause was probably that she'd hit her head hard in the accident.

But I couldn't help thinking it might be because I'd refused to go with her that day on the roof.

Miu watching the downy snow falling with vacant eyes.

I'd murdered Miu's spirit that day.

In order to look after Miu, I hadn't been going to school. I was circling between home and the hospital every day.

Tohko had called me a ton of times.

It came through that she was worried about me.

"Good luck on your exams..."

It was all I could do to tell her that in a detached voice.

Apparently Takeda had also been out of school ever since that day.

She had overlaid the image of her best friend, who died in an accident, over Miu being hit by the truck.

Her memories of that day reawakened, and she'd apparently withdrawn in shock.

Tohko told me with some difficulty that she was in her room, hugging her knees like a doll. Ryuto was going to see her every day, but her heart remained shut off.

Hearing that, I felt like my chest would rip apart.

I told Tohko that I wanted her to read the revisions Miu had made to Miu Inoue's novel, so I mailed the printouts from my computer to where she was staying. It may have been an act of contrition on my part.

In order to carve into my heart once more how much I had hurt Miu.

Miu must have thrown out the original book when she escaped from the hospital since we couldn't find it anywhere.

"What's wrong, Konoha? You seem sad."

When she finished eating the pudding, Miu looked up at me worriedly.

"It's nothing," I whispered in a soft voice, and I put the empty container into the trash.

"Hey, Konoha, I made a new story. Do you want to hear it?"

Miu pulled on my arm and starting talking happily.

"In a foreign land, there was a brother and sister who were very close, and they grew tomatoes on their farm.

"One day a yellow tomato grew, and when they saw it, the two of them thought, This must be gold.

"Each and every day the two of them gazed fondly at the golden tomato, and they felt totally happy.

"Around that time, the two of them spotted a dazzling circus coming toward them."

A smile came over her lips, her eyes gleamed, and she told her story innocently.

I knew how the story ended.

Pain creaked in the depths of my heart.

Melancholy that made me want to cry rose up in my throat.

"The two of them carried around golden tomatoes instead of money. But a knight told them, 'This is just an ordinary tomato. Are you trying to make a fool of me?' and he threw the tomatoes at them. The little girl started crying."

"...Miu, you didn't think of that story. It's 'Yellow Tomatoes' by Kenji Miyazawa," I informed her gently, fighting back my pain. Miu gaped at me. Her hair shook again smoothly.

"Whaaaat? I never heard of that. I made this story up myself."

Then she went on in a singsong voice.

"Ah, these woeful children. The woeful little boy and girl. They were very good children, you know. But then that happened to them-so woeful...so woeful..."

My heart ached.

If all they had done was gaze at the yellow fruit that grew in their field believing it was gold, the young siblings might have been happy.

If they'd never realized it was just an ordinary tomato.

"Come see me again tomorrow, Konoha. I can't do anything when you're not here. I wonder if my body will get any better. I wonder if I'll start to move right."

I could hear the creak-creak of my heart.

"If you keep going with your physical therapy, you'll get better."

"I guess..."

She looked up at me uneasily, then suddenly beamed.

"But even if I don't get better, I just want you to be with me. If you come to see me and we play together, I'll be plenty happy."

Her smile was clear and easy, and she looked truly happy.

"I'll come every day."

"'Kay. I'll wait for you every day. It's a promise. Stay with me all day today. Till it gets dark."

I lifted Miu from the electric wheelchair and laid her down in her bed. I stroked her smooth hair, told her I was going to change the water in her vase, and then left the room.

In the hall stood Akutagawa and Kotobuki, wearing coats over their school uniforms.

"Inoue..."

Akutagawa furrowed his brow in a pained expression.

Kotobuki was looking at me sadly, keeping her lips shut.

We went to a lounge, sat down in some chairs, and talked sporadically.

"Asakura still hasn't come back?"

"...Nope. She still thinks that she and I are in third grade."

Akutagawa tightly clenched the hands resting on his lap.

Kotobuki, who had been released from the hospital a few days ago, bit down slightly on her lip and hung her head.