Epilogue-The Beginning of the End

I first saw Tohko Amano in early summer.

I was practicing walking in the halls of the hospital like I always did, and around a corner, I heard a voice call, "Konoha."

When I snuck a peek, Konoha had come up the stairs with a girl I didn't recognize.

My heart somersaulted in my chest, and I thought I might forget to breathe.

In the two years since I'd seen him, Konoha had gotten taller and a little more grown-up. He was carrying a bag from a candy store, and the girl with him was holding a bouquet of roses and baby's breath.

A girl with long braids, willowy and pale, pretty and kind looking.

She walked beside Konoha as if she belonged there and talked to him in familiar tones.

"You apologize to Nanase, too, Konoha."

"Sure, whatever. All I have to do is bow my head and say I'm sorry that she got wrapped up in my half-baked president's crime spree and got hurt, right?"

"I don't think you should say that. It lacks a certain consideration for your president!"

"You're the one who should stop causing so much trouble for your undercla.s.smen."

Konoha frowned and griped.

It was the first time I'd seen him look like that. I could see that even as he sighed in exasperation and abused her, he had opened up to her. My brain was on fire, and my chest felt like it was being stabbed with a knife.

Who? Who is she? Konoha? Who is that girl?

After you made me taste despair and threw me into darkness, why are you walking so close to a girl other than me that your shoulders are almost touching? She's calling you by your first name?

Spiraling black flames burned inside my heart, and it felt like I was going insane.

Afterward, I heard from Kazushi that the person I'd seen was your club president and that she was named Tohko Amano.

The two of you had come to visit your cla.s.smate Nanase Kotobuki.

Tohko Amano and Nanase Kotobuki.

I decided the one I would drive from your side first would be Tohko Amano. I couldn't stand Nanase Kotobuki, either, but I would hara.s.s her enough later. First was Tohko Amano.

So I decided what I would do, and I called the number I stole from Kazushi's cell phone, but I was dumbfounded when she said my name out of nowhere, and I hung up.

And then to top it off, a rude boy who said he was Amano's little brother showed up in my hospital room.

"If you really wanna get at Tohko, I won't stop you," Ryuto Sakurai said in a way that sounded like he was enjoying my reaction. "But Tohko's a killer, y'know. If you knock heads with her at the very beginning, you're definitely gonna lose."

I was so bitter that my heart sizzled with it, but it looked like he was right. No matter how I looked at it, I was the one unequipped to fight over the phone. When I remembered her clear, fearless voice asking "Miu?" an inexplicable anxiety rose up within me.

So I switched my target to Nanase Kotobuki, who seemed weaker than Tohko Amano.

When I wrote a text to her, Kotobuki responded with interest. I could tell right away that even though she was acting tough, she was scared, and I knew I could crush her easily. I was so pleased I could hardly stand it.

I sent her text after text, and just like I had done with Haraguchi, I told her that Konoha and I weren't exactly strangers, and I even told her where Konoha's moles were. The first time Kotobuki came to my room in the hospital, I smeared soap around the door and made her fall.

But while I tormented Nanase Kotobuki, somewhere inside myself I was still hesitant to see Konoha.

Unable to sleep at night, I thought back on the past again and again and wanted to see him so, so much, to hear his voice, until it felt like my heart would crumble-but I was equally afraid of seeing him. I didn't want Konoha to see the ugly bird I had become. I didn't want to acknowledge that weakness in myself.

It was then that Ryuto Sakurai brought the girl with him.

Chia Takeda watched me wail and storm with a face devoid of expression, as if she was wearing a mask.

The next day, when Takeda came to my room alone and offered her help, I was shocked. I asked her what she had to gain by doing something like that, and with a smile she responded, "It's an experiment."

I thought it sounded like something Professor Bulcanillo would say.

To be honest, it was a little disturbing, but since I couldn't move, I needed someone to help me.

And then when I heard Takeda say, "I don't really like Nanase that much. She's so ordinary and sneaky," I managed to find an interpretation I could accept. Kotobuki was probably an offense to her, and she wanted to use me to hara.s.s her.

In that case, I'll use her instead, I thought.

After I accepted B's-Takeda's-offer, it was like all the time that had been piling up burst its walls and started flowing.

I was going to be reunited with Konoha at long last.

After that night, it was even harder to sleep.

I hated Konoha. Hated him so, so much. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to break him.

But behind that wish that made my throat tremble and burn, I was still unsure of myself.

If I could pa.s.s off the lie, things would go back to the way they used to be, right? Konoha would love me, right? He would stay with me forever, right? There could be no greater happiness than that, right?

B wouldn't allow such naivete. As if to show me that Konoha and I both had to be hurt even worse, she called my mom and dragged my true thoughts out for Konoha to see.

After Konoha left, my body hurt so intensely it felt like I was being ripped apart. I wailed and lay defeated on the floor with tears spilling down my face. When B appeared before me in that state, she looked down at me with cold eyes and muttered, "You wished for all of this."

I threw Konoha's book at B. It hit her in the chest, but her expression didn't change at all. She picked the book up and left the room without a word.

I wonder if there was despair inside B-Chia Takeda-that day. If there was sadness.

Now, after the tale has ended, I think about how she felt. Maybe Chia Takeda was still seeking something un.o.btainable, just like me.

A little while ago, Takeda came with Sakurai to return the book.

All of us, who couldn't be what we wanted to be.

All of us, wishing to be it anyway.

When our fingers touched against the book, a very slight sense of affection welled up in me.

Takeda was smiling, and beside her Sakurai was laughing in huge amus.e.m.e.nt.

And so just as a star had lodged within me, I knew that a tiny star was twinkling inside Takeda's heart, as well.

Nanase Kotobuki came to see me, too.

"About that slap fight or whatever we had before...I'm sorry. I...went a little overboard."

I was astounded by how she stuttered, her face red and her lips pursed.

If I were Kotobuki, I would never have apologized.

But I was so shocked that I also felt the knot in my chest relaxing.

"I don't think I went too far. I actually regret not scratching you more."

When I said that to her, her eyebrows went up, and she glared at me.

I bit back a laugh at her straightforward reaction and said, "I mean, I thought you were weak, but you're actually tough. I was underestimating you."

Kotobuki's eyes went round, and then her mouth bent into a frown, and she said roughly, "I-if you're looking for a fight, I'll take you on anytime."

When I heard that, I thought how nice it would be to be able to fight again.

That had been the first time I'd ever fought someone head-on.

I had always avoided telling the truth and fled into my own world.

Maybe I'd been wrong to do that.

That day under the starry sky, that book girl taught me a lot of things.

She gave me lots of important things.

Konoha wasn't the boy who had chased after me back then.

Tohko Amano and Nanase Kotobuki had changed him, for sure.

If Miu Inoue wrote a second story, it wouldn't be a story about Itsuki and Hatori. It would be something different.

I managed to accept that calmly.

Soon I'm going to get permission to go out, and I might go to the ocean. I'm going to burn the story I wrote. At night, if possible. Somewhere I can see the stars.

The book burning quietly, flickering and engulfed in red flames, is probably going to look like Scorpio from Night of the Milky Way Railroad.

I want to become the kind of person who can wish for the happiness of others like he did.

The kind who can do something for the benefit of someone besides themselves, even if it means burning their body a hundred times over-the kind who can be honestly happy about doing it. That's who I want to be.

If I were, then someone else might say the same thing Konoha said to me.

That they're happy because of me.

I'll try to be a little bit...a very little bit...nicer to Kazushi, too.

Even though it's so frustrating when he lectures me with that composed face. Because yesterday when I was looking out the window and murmuring lines from "Song of the Defeated Youth" to myself, he stood beside me without saying a word.

O stars, as if born from the c.u.mulus clouds, suspicious in the night With your words quite unto yourselves Though you inquire of us as you burn.

Taking the shape of Good Lodite You decide to melt into the sky Fluttering, seeming to tremble with light You are mournful, simply by being stars.

When I recite this poem, it isn't simply sad.

Because I feel as if my heart were growing clearer...

Miu had told me she didn't want me to come visit.

That day in the theater in the planetarium, she had turned to me with a fresh smile and said, "I'm going to get better, and this time I'll come to see you."

Then she left, leaning on Akutagawa for support.

"Inoue...don't you want to go after her?" Kotobuki asked worriedly.

I too smiled and answered, "No. I'm pretty sure the next time Miu comes to see me will be a time for beginning and a time for ending."

The end of the past.

The beginning of the future.

"Does that mean that you...still love Asakura?"

Kotobuki looked at me, her face terribly vulnerable and verging on tears.

"No. It won't be like that. When I told Miu I loved her, it felt like a heavy lump that's been in my heart had melted away like snow. My feelings about Miu...about lots of stuff."

I didn't think that was something sad.

Some melancholy remained deep in my heart, but the joy that was like looking at an open blue sky was stronger.