That we don't want to give up.

"Miyazawa polished and repeatedly revised a colossal ma.n.u.script that he had no prospect of publishing until he was on the brink of death. If Miyazawa had lived, he might have given birth to a fifth or sixth draft of Night of the Milky Way Railroad. No matter how often he lost-no matter what the position he was put into, Miyazawa kept holding on to his ideals in exactly that way.

"That some day or other he wanted to become the kind of person he'd imagined in his heart.

"Miu, who was it that you wanted to be?"

A blank look came over Miu's face.

What Miu had wanted to be.

A dream she'd told me once with gleaming eyes. The ideal that she cherished in her heart.

"I'm gonna be a writer."

"Tons of people are going to read my books. It would be awesome if that made them happy."

Miu's face clouded, and her eyes filled with tears sadly, painfully. I watched her, feeling like my heart was tearing open.

Miu moved her lips slightly and tried to respond, but it was like she couldn't find the words. She hung her head like a lost child who can't manage to say her own name.

The air was heavy and tense.

Just then, a voice spoke behind us.

"I..."

Miu, Kotobuki, and I turned in shock to look at Takeda.

Her expression still as vacant as a doll's, Takeda had tears in her eyes. She went on just the same, her voice hoa.r.s.e.

"I...want to be a regular person."

Akutagawa and Maki held their breath and stared at Takeda, too. Ryuto and Tohko were listening to Takeda's voice with peaceful gazes.

Her bluish lips weakly pushed the words out.

"I really...don't want...to lie...to anyone. I want to be...somewhere quiet, all by myself...where I can't hear what anyone says...

"Because then...I wouldn't get embarra.s.sed about being different from everyone else. I wouldn't have to lie. But...I know...true happiness...isn't like that..."

Sadness poured from her vacant eyes together with her tears. The damaged, broken girl was doing everything she could to speak in her tiny voice.

Miu was staring at Takeda, trembling.

Takeda was trembling, too-her hands, her shoulders, her lips, and her voice. As she shook, emotion returned to her face little by little.

"What I really...want to be...is an ordinary girl...just like...everyone else. It's not who I really am, though...It's a lie about who I am, but...

"But...I...want to be able...to feel the things everyone else feels...just like everyone else does...like normal...Maybe it's impossible, but...all I can do is pretend right now, but...I get embarra.s.sed and want to die, but...being here with all of you...I want to be...a person like that!"

When Takeda finished speaking, tears spilled like rain from her sharply focused eyes, and she was looking at Tohko. In the faint light, Tohko was smiling gently.

"Yes. It would be wonderful if that happened, Chia."

"I wanna be the kind of man who can protect the girl he's into to the very end."

Ryuto spoke in a carefree voice before turning a sunny smile on Takeda.

A smile slowly came over Takeda's face, and she looked up at Ryuto with a puppy-like grin.

"Ryu, you're such a show-off."

"I'm actually just that good."

"Heh-heh-heh!"

It didn't matter if the smile broadening Takeda's tear-soaked cheeks was real or not.

"I...I want to be the kind of girl who can just say how she feels!" Kotobuki stammered beside me.

Next, Akutagawa sat up straighter and in a calm voice informed us, "I want to be an honest person in any situation. Even if it means failure, I want to stick with being honest."

Even Maki gave a vibrant smile and declared, "I want to be myself, free of anything that binds me."

I looked at Tohko, too.

"I want to be a person who can face the truth."

I had always frozen up with it in front of me. And I would probably get lost in the darkness several more times. The day that I become valiant might not ever come.

Even so, in this moment, I strongly wished that I could become capable of staring down the truth.

Tohko's lips relaxed, and her eyes softened kindly.

"What about you, Asakura?"

It was Akutagawa who had posed the question in his unflinching voice.

Miu, who had shrunk into a little ball and kept her head bent while she listened to everyone's answers, now tightened the hands resting on her knees into fists.

Everyone was looking at her.

She hesitated several times, gasping in apparent pain, and then finally, in a voice mingled with tears, she said, "...I wanted to be someone who could make people happy."

Below the silent stars, Miu's voice flowed out into the room with a sniffle.

"...The people around me-my mom and dad and my grandma-they were all unhappy and had nothing but complaints. I would think, I wish everyone could be happy and laugh. I wanted to be like Scorpio from Night of the Milky Way Railroad, who's useful to everyone.

"That's why I wanted to be an author! But it wasn't possible for me. The only thing I did was shackle Konoha with stories I stole from other people. I'm ugly! And despicable!!"

Miu buried her face in her knees and sobbed violently.

"Please use my body for the honest happiness of others."

On the brink of death, Scorpio had made that prayer to G.o.d. And he became a star shining in the darkness.

The truth was, Miu had wanted to be that kind of person.

"I hope the people who read my book will be happy."

Discovering that those words had been filled with such thoughts from Miu's loneliness, I felt a stabbing ache fill my chest.

Just then, Tohko shook her braids and stepped over to Miu.

She stood in front of Miu, who was still sobbing, and gently took hold of both her hands.

Miu looked up in surprise, and Tohko looked down at her with a clear, somewhat sad gaze and said, "Kenji Miyazawa didn't become what he wanted to, either.

"I'm sure he must have cried, too, just like you are.

"But Miyazawa's stories are still with us. And even now they're encouraging people who are lost and carrying the same burden of suffering. Like a tiny light in the darkness. Like Scorpio burning his own body to guide travelers."

Giovanni started talking to Campanella.

"If it really did make everyone happy, I wouldn't care if I burned my body a hundred times over, just like Scorpio."

A transparent tear ran down Miu's cheek.

Gripping her small, frail hands, the book girl wove her words together.

"What is true happiness? Everyone tries to keep walking, seeking it like pilgrims going to the land of happiness. There are a lot of cases where even if they travel all through the night, they just can't reach it, and they get discouraged. And even if they were to reach that land, true happiness might not be there. Then they might have to seek a new holy land and continue their difficult journey. But if they stopped walking instead, they might find peace.

"So then why do they continue the journey?

"When Miyazawa was working as a teacher at an agricultural school, apparently he asked his students this: 'Why were human beings brought into this world?'

"He personally answered it so: 'People were brought into this world in order to feel the need to find out why human beings were brought into this world.' And he believed that whether or not someone earnestly considered this question determined their value as people.

"So perhaps the truly important thing is not that you get hold of something, but that you keep searching for it. Perhaps that was the spirit in which Miyazawa continued revising the story he'd written on his sickbed. Believing that someday everyone would be able to reach a utopia where they can be happy."

Miu drooped as she cried.

"But I can't think up any dreams anymore. I can't imagine anything."

Tohko clutched Miu's fingers gently.

"n.o.body can be strong all the time. There are times when you get tired, too. It's for times like that that we have stories."

Miu shook her head fiercely from side to side like a child.

"Nngh...stories don't come to me anymore!"

"In that case, you need to go and meet them. If you open the cover of a book, you'll encounter someone's imagination there. And so, turning through the pages, bit by bit, you'll stock up imagination in your heart. When you're alone and you feel sad, try reading a book. Try touching someone's heart. Try to imagine what they were thinking, what they wanted to convey. If you do that, you might get something amazing. Okay, Miu? Lift your head and try looking at the sky! In this world, there are as many books and as much imagination as there are stars in the sky!"

She threw her head back, sending her long braids flying, and there-I don't know when it happened-enough stars began glittering to completely cover the dome.

Following Tohko, Miu raised her face, and her eyes, wet with tears, opened wide in subdued surprise, and her mouth fell open slightly.

The pristine stars shone brightly in the night, throwing down a gentle light on those of us on the Earth. The sky we knew to be artificial enveloped us more kindly and wholesomely than even the real sky.

"Today, I'm going to give you one of the stars from the sky, Miu."

Tohko smiled endearingly.

"I told you about how Night of the Milky Way Railroad was revised so many times over a period of nine years, right? The surviving ma.n.u.script has a first and second draft-the first halves of both of these are lost. There's also a third draft and the final fourth draft- "Professor Bulcanillo disappears from the fourth draft. That means there's a huge change between everything leading up to the last scene in the third and fourth drafts.

"It's not made clear to the reader that Campanella fell into the river until the third draft.

"But in the fourth draft, Professor Bulcanillo has become Campanella's father, and Giovanni is told that Campanella fell into the river.

"The rest isn't written down. In everything up through the third draft, Professor Bulcanillo shows Giovanni the path he should take, but in the fourth draft, Campanella's father only relates the facts, and that's all. How Giovanni took the news of Campanella's death and how he's going to go on with life from now on is left up to the reader's imagination."

Tohko broke off for a moment and gazed kindly at Miu, who wore a suspicious expression.

"Miu Inoue's novel ends at the point where, early in the morning in the school yard, Itsuki is trying to confess her feelings to Hatori."

Even more doubt showed on Miu's face. I leaned in, too.

"But if you read what the judges say at the end, you notice something strange.

"The four judges unanimously complain about the ending.

"It's 'too sweet,' 'extraneous,' 'tells too much, a trap that beginners fall into,' 'doesn't reverberate'-but the conclusion of the novel that was published has transparency and beauty, and it reverberates. It stirs up the reader's imagination. From these facts, you can imagine that when the prizewinning story was published, the ending was revised.

"So then what was the original ma.n.u.script like?

"What was written in the last scene that got cut out as extraneous?"

My heart sped up, and my cheeks burned. What-what was Tohko going to say?

With a shining smile, Tohko informed us, "Miu Inoue's lost ending. That is my-the book girl's-special gift to you."

Miu Inoue's first draft?! What was she saying?!

I gulped reflexively, but her gentle voice flowed outward, like music pouring down from the sky.

"You're exactly like a bird, Hatori.