"The sky full of stars shining overhead made him imagine the milky way station and the train that departed from it. I imagine that people who haven't read Milky Way Railroad have at least heard how the story goes.

"The protagonist Giovanni is working while he goes to school in order to help his sick mother.

"Giovanni had a childhood friend name Campanella, but as they grew up, the two grew apart, and for a while, they hadn't even been able to talk to each other.

"On the night of a festival, Campanella goes to a river surrounded by friends to launch candlelit gourds onto the river, but Giovanni was all alone.

"Then, before he realizes it, Giovanni is inside a train running through the universe. Campanella was waiting for him there. The two of them went off on a journey on the Milky Way Railroad together."

The round sky looming over our heads got a little darker again.

"They say there were inspirations for Giovanni and Campanella.

"The shy and lonely Giovanni was Miyazawa himself, and there are several theories as to the model for Campanella, but in general, people agree it was Miyazawa's little sister, Toshi.

"Toshi was two years younger than Miyazawa and was always an excellent student at the head of her cla.s.s. It was only natural that Miyazawa was proud of her, and she adored him, too. They were the best of friends, and even when Toshi went to a school in Tokyo and they were separated, they continued writing to each other the whole time.

"When he was eighteen, he was enlightened by the Lotus Sutra and his conflicts with his father, who was a fervent believer in Pure Land Buddhism, deepened. Toshi understood why he'd done that, and alone in all the family to believe the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, she became a support for Miyazawa. For him, Toshi had a role without equal, more than being his little sister, with whom he could share the world and his thoughts."

I wondered what Tohko was trying to tell us.

A fuzzy mist spread through my heart. But entranced by her clear voice and kind gaze, I listened, fixated.

Miu was staring at Tohko, too, her face stiff.

"Giovanni and Campanella were the same way. Clever Campanella was a brilliant person that Giovanni admired, was the person with whom he shared a warm history, and was the dear traveling companion he wished would go everywhere, on and on forever with him."

Tohko smiled with a placid look in her eyes.

"Their relationship is a little bit like Itsuki and Hatori's from Miu Inoue's novel."

Miu started in surprise.

Beside me, it felt like Kotobuki was squirming, too. And although I, too, felt my mouth drying out, I held my breath.

"In this case, I suppose Itsuki would be Giovanni. Itsuki is the one telling the story, a girl in her second year of middle school. She cares deeply for her childhood friend Hatori, and they come and go from school together and do their homework at the library near school and spend their days in modest happiness.

"Hatori is a cheerful boy who resembles the open sky, and he always lets Itsuki read the stories that he's written. Hatori's dream is to be a writer, and Itsuki encouraged him in that. She would tell Hatori that if anyone could become a real author, it was him."

Miu was gripping the edge of her seat with quivering fingers. A searing irritation clouded her eyes.

"And like Giovanni and Campanella, Itsuki and Hatori were modeled on someone.

"In the real world, Itsuki was a boy and Hatori was a girl. And the one who had a glorious debut as a novelist wasn't Hatori; it was Itsuki."

A look of naked loathing was turned in Tohko's direction. Tohko stared it down and continued what she was saying.

"-As a result, the two were estranged, and Hatori began crafting another story on top of the one Itsuki had written. It was a story that denied Itsuki's world, a story of hatred, pain, and despair."

Miu's intensity was such that she might be able to kill Tohko with her eyes. The penetrating tension in the air p.r.i.c.kled my skin as well, just sitting beside her. But Tohko didn't quail.

"And that's not all. Hatori started to take revenge on Itsuki even in the real world.

"Since Hatori had broken her body, she was in the hospital, so she couldn't move around on her own. Therefore, she tried to use Itsuki's cla.s.smate. But he was an honest boy and became Itsuki's friend, and the test ended in failure. Even so, Hatori didn't give up. Next she shifted her target to a girl close to Itsuki and tried to make contact with her.

"In the midst of this, Hatori found an unexpected ally."

Miu gulped.

An ally?!

Who in the world was she talking about-Akutagawa? Kotobuki? No, that was impossible. They had both tried to keep Miu away from me.

Then who-?!

My heart grew heavy with an alarming premonition. Tohko posed a question to us.

"Did you know that there's a mysterious character named Professor Bulcanillo in Night of the Milky Way Railroad?

"This professor exists in the extant first, second, and third drafts, but he disappears in the final draft. He appears at the end of the story, relates how Giovanni's journey was a personal experiment of his, and shows Giovanni the path into the future. And in the alternate story that Hatori wrote as well, a person corresponding to Professor Bulcanillo appears. More accurately, in the scrawled notes written in the margins of the story-"

As if guided along by Tohko's words, Bulcanillo's experiment and the red letters surfaced in my mind.

She was right; those words had been in the notes. Along with references to a B.

"Shut up, B!" "Be quiet, B!" "Don't order me around, B!"

So B stood for Bulcanillo!

"While on the one hand, this B that appears again and again helps with Hatori's plans, the person constantly calls Hatori on the phone and annoys her and even drives her into a corner. Was B Hatori's ally? Her enemy? Either way, B's figure flits behind the events of reality."

Tohko turned her intelligent gaze on Miu and me and declared, "It wasn't chance that Konoha was reunited with Miu in the hospital.

"Nor that Konoha ran into Miu's mother later on in Miu's hospital room.

"Why did Miu's mother, who only comes once every other month, come on that day? There was a note calling B a traitor. From that, I imagined that perhaps it had been B who summoned Miu's mother."

My heart shrank tightly in on itself.

So B had caused Miu's mother and I to meet and made the hatred Miu had kept hidden explode.

Who was it who'd first told me that Kotobuki had been admitted to the hospital?

Who was it who'd asked me to go visit Kotobuki the day before I met Miu's mother-?

As I traced the memory out, a cold hand stroked my neck.

"I know it also wasn't chance that I went to visit Nanase that day and ran into Konoha in the lobby. And perhaps it was B who sent Hatori's story to Konoha's computer? I don't believe Miu had the time to scan in that many pages at that time, and Miu couldn't have gotten together the equipment for it on her own."

Tohko's gaze streamed past above us.

The shock of how impossible it was made my breathing harder.

"Who was B? What was B's objective? You know, don't you, Ryuto?"

Behind us, a formidable voice answered.

"Yeah. 'Cos I was the one who got Chee and Miu together in the first place."

Miu bit down on her lip with a grim expression and hung her head.

In contrast, Kotobuki and I turned to look up at him, though we stayed seated.

Akutagawa and Maki were both looking at Ryuto-Akutagawa with a look of surprise, Maki with a grimace.

And then Kotobuki and I were gaping.

A smile carved itself into Ryuto's lips, as if he was enjoying this situation. Beside him, Takeda was staring into s.p.a.ce with vacant eyes.

Clenching her fists, Miu suddenly moaned, her voice tinged with loathing, "That's right! He brought B-brought Chia Takeda to me!"

So it was her-Takeda was B.

I looked at Miu reflexively, then turned back to look up at Ryuto with bitter emotions.

"What in the world is going on, Ryuto? Since when have you known Miu?"

Keeping a smile on his lips that agitated my heart, he answered, "She called my house."

"Called? On the phone? Why would Miu-," I started to ask, then gasped.

Tohko had said she'd talked with Miu on the phone before. What if, the way Miu had sent a text to Kotobuki, she had also called Tohko- Tohko spoke in a kind voice.

"Miu called me. Ryuto was the one who answered."

Her fists still clenched, Miu bit down on her lip, mortified. "...Nngh."

I'd heard from Akutagawa that Miu had seen me when I'd visited Kotobuki in the hospital over the summer. That day Tohko had been with me. Miu must have remembered me saying Tohko's name.

Then she had called the house of the Tohko Amano in Akutagawa's phone.

In order to hara.s.s her as she had Kotobuki.

But Ryuto had been the one to pick up.

"She seemed pretty weird, and it got to me, y'know? So I listened in while Tohko talked to her."

Their conversation had been incredibly brief.

"This is Tohko speaking. Who is this?"

"What...Konoha?"

"Are you Miu?"

This was all that Ryuto heard, but Tohko had stood in front of the phone for a moment, lost in thought, after she hung up. Even when he asked who had called, she'd said, "Someone you don't know," and wouldn't tell him.

"I-it was because you scared me, saying my name out of the blue like that." Miu groaned again.

Tohko had probably made a sudden connection between the name Miu that I'd let slip earlier and the person on the phone. Even though she was usually happy-go-lucky, she had a sharp instinct about odd things.

On the other hand Ryuto, whose interest had been piqued by the person on the phone, had formed a theory about where she was from the music of an automaton clock and the voices of nurses he'd heard through the phone.

After that, he'd gotten friendly with people at the hospital, like usual, and was happy just to confirm that there was a girl by the name of Miu at the hospital.

Thus, Ryuto dropped by Miu's room unexpectedly one day.

"I can't believe you!" Miu muttered irritably, clenching her jaw.

After Ryuto had brazenly greeted Miu, he'd suggested, "I'll keep you a secret from Konoha. So I want you to let Tohko focus on her exams for a little while."

And then he started sauntering in unannounced from time to time.

"Y'know what I mean? She was deliciously dangerous and the type that I go for. I was curious how she related to you, too."

Miu glowered straight at Ryuto's grinning face as he brashly told the story. Akutagawa knit his brows in apparent displeasure as well.

Had the person Miu told me was a relative in fact been Ryuto?

"Ryuto, did you ever take orange roses when you went to visit her?"

"Oh, those were 'cos I'm friends with a girl who works at a flower shop near the hospital, so she gave them to me."

"I wish you'd die," Miu said in a harsh voice. It sounded like she really couldn't stand Ryuto.

I was confused. I understood why Ryuto was interested in Miu because he was a guy with certain leanings. But- "Why did you introduce Takeda to Miu?!"

Ryuto replied with an arrogant expression, "I wanted to see the real Chia Takeda. Because she would never let her mask slip in front of me."

"I don't get it! What does that have to do with introducing her to Miu?"

A sarcastic glint came into Ryuto's eyes. As my heart skipped a beat, he slowly said, "That's 'cos you're special to Chee. When we went to the ocean on Christmas Eve, she talked to me about it. 'Konoha is like the boy I used to love.'"

My heart stopped.

The boy Takeda used to love- That was the boy who had killed himself by throwing himself off the roof of Seijoh Academy ten years ago, Shuji Kataoka.

Takeda, who was upset that she couldn't sympathize with others, had felt an overwhelming sympathy for that one boy who she only knew through photographs.