We went back to Kotobuki's room, arranged Tohko's flowers and mine together in a vase, left a note for Kotobuki, and then left the hospital.

"Konoha, are you going out with Nanase?" Tohko asked as we walked beneath the leaden sky that threatened sleet.

Her tone was offhanded, as if she was discussing something not at all out of the ordinary.

But I felt a sense of guilt sc.r.a.ping deep in my chest and muttered only, "...Well, you know."

I supposed the reason I couldn't fully look Tohko in the eye was because I was embarra.s.sed.

Or was there another reason?

I advanced without breaking my gaze, and in a kind voice like an older sister's, Tohko said, "Okay. Don't be like Ryuto and cheat on her."

My heart spasmed again. In a gruff tone, I muttered, "Even if I wanted to act like Ryuto, I couldn't do it."

I started telling her about how I'd run into Ryuto with some girls at the shrine during our visit on New Year's in order to change the subject, and Tohko glowered staunchly.

"Honestly, that kid...he'll do anything."

Apparently she was worried, as an older sister, about a kid brother who loved women and excelled at violent scenes. She muttered discontentedly.

Maybe in Tohko's eyes, I was the same as Ryuto-a little brother she had to look after.

For some reason, I felt melancholic.

We reached the road where we would part ways without another word.

When we got there, Tohko's look again became gentle and enveloping, and she asked, "Are you going to go visit Nanase again tomorrow?"

"I'm planning to, yes."

"I can't go tomorrow, but tell Nanase to take it easy with her physical therapy for me, okay?"

"Okay, I'll tell her."

At my answer, Tohko turned a smile as clear as water on me, and then left.

As I walked along the edge of a road busy with cars, I thought things over.

I'd started to care for Kotobuki.

I hoped that the distance between us would keep shrinking.

And when her tests were over and the gloomy winter pa.s.sed and summer came, Tohko would graduate. In contrast, the distance between Tohko and me would probably get bigger when that happened.

It felt as if the sky had grown even darker and heavier.

I wonder what schools Tohko's gonna take exams for? I thought.

As I speculated on whether there were any national schools that Tohko could get into close enough to get to by train, I went into a convenience store.

As I was pa.s.sing the magazine rack, my eyes locked onto the headline of a weekly magazine.

A jolt went through me.

The thing that caused my knees to buckle where I stood was the fact that I'd seen the name Miu Inoue.

The magazine ran nothing but bogus articles and was one I often saw in ads on the train. Any other time, I would have looked right past it.

I would have again if I hadn't once been that very Miu Inoue, a beautiful, young girl who was called a mysterious genius of an author.

Did Miu Inoue Commit Suicide?!

My throat grew tight, as if I was being strangled by a burly hand, and my fingertips grew cold.

I forced down a hard lump in my throat, and with a trembling hand, I picked up the magazine reporting on my death and headed toward the register.

As soon as the door to my room closed, I forgot to even turn on my heater and lost myself in reading the article, still wearing my jacket.

Miu Inoue was, at fourteen, the youngest to win a literary magazine's new author prize in its history, and her work became a ma.s.sive best seller-why had she disappeared? She was called a mysterious genius, a coddled beauty-why hadn't she written a sequel?

In fact, the article said, right after Miu's award-winning story was published, she committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the middle school she was attending at the time.

Miu's true ident.i.ty was that of an ordinary girl attending a middle school in the city. The article told how, isolated from her cla.s.smates, she constantly wrote the stories that were her hobby alone during breaks.

The article featured testimony from cla.s.smates: "After Miu Inoue's book won that prize, we all talked about how she was probably X. I mean, their names were the same, and when we read the story that won that award, there were descriptions that really seemed to be using our school as a model."

Also, the testimony said she had begun to act strangely right after receiving the award. "She'd always been stuck-up and acted like she didn't want to be friends with the likes of us, but around that time, she was especially irritable and went home early a lot. We thought maybe she was busy writing a sequel, but...her skin started to look awful, her eyes were all red, and she looked like she might be sick."

And then, her cla.s.smates even touched on this: "We showed Miu's book to X and asked her, 'Did you write this?' And she glared at us with this awful look, then grabbed the book and threw it onto the floor. Then she stomped on it and yelled, 'None of your business!' It was after that that X jumped off the roof."

X survived, but she transferred schools, and no one knew where she had gone.

Miu Inoue, the brief spark of genius that appeared like a comet in the literary world, would most likely never surface again. The moment X threw herself off the roof, she'd killed the author Miu Inoue.

That was how the article concluded.

I crumpled the pages in my fist and tore them out.

I focused intently on ripping them apart with my frozen hands, which had lost all feeling. My heart was twisted up, and my head hurt so much it felt like it was splitting in two.

I didn't know if the testimony of the cla.s.smates was real or a fabrication of the author's. But what they'd written about on these pages was not Miu Inoue-not me!

This was my Miu!

Why did the tabloid have to mistake Miu for me and write such an awful article about her?

Miu wasn't Miu Inoue.

That was me.

The backs of my eyes turned bright red with rage, and my throat felt like it was burning. This-this article was horrible! This evil article-that dragged people's names through the mud out of idle curiosity!

Ah, but- Kotobuki had said it as well. "That girl you were always with in middle school was Miu Inoue, wasn't she?"

Miu was always writing stories on loose-leaf paper and talked about applying for a new author prize, and her name was "Miu." When Miu Inoue won, Kotobuki had thought Miu had won.

It wouldn't be unusual if our other cla.s.smates thought the same thing. In fact, it was more natural than thinking that I was Miu Inoue, when I had been nothing more than an una.s.suming middle school student who was glued to Miu and only listened to the stories she told.

When I thought that, a shudder ran down my spine and I felt dizzy.

At the time I received the award, I'd been baffled since I'd had no intention of winning. Plus, Miu was ignoring me, and I didn't know what I should do, so I had my hands full with my own problems and hadn't realized that our cla.s.smates were spreading rumors like that about her.

How could they have believed that Miu was actually Miu Inoue?!

Miu had known about that, too! When the article said she'd thrown Miu Inoue's book onto the floor and stomped on it, that cut into my heart.

How must Miu have felt, hearing our cla.s.smates gossiping? What went through her mind as she weathered the gazes, filled with curiosity and envy, that were turned on her?

But I'd been sure Miu would be chosen for the grand prize and become an author, not me! It was her dream! She only whispered it to me!

I had told her, "I know you'll win the grand prize. I support you!"

I tore and I tore, but the evil words latched onto my brain and wouldn't go away. I cut my hand on the edge of a piece of paper and blood welled up, stinging. Even so, I went on tearing madly.

"Nngh-"

Nausea welled up in my throat, my brain was on fire, and I knelt amid the shreds of the article, digging my fingers into the clothes covering my chest, practically beating them against my body.

My throat convulsed, and I couldn't breathe-!

I writhed on the floor, dragging my face against the carpet, and a moan escaped my lips. The sweat exploding from me robbed the warmth from my body.

I had been trying not to think about it this whole time.

But the reason Miu had jumped off the roof was because I, her most important reader, had taken the prize instead of her.

Because I had stolen Miu's dream from her!

No-no! That wasn't true! I hadn't written a novel and applied to the same contest as Miu in order to usurp her prize!

The pain in my heart-it felt as if it was being carved out by blades-drove me into unconsciousness.

I couldn't get the pain under control no matter how much I dug my nails into the carpet and moaned. Cold hands twisted my heart into a rope.

Help me. Forgive me, Miu!! Miu!!

I'll take everything from you. I wonder when I first had that thought.

When we were in elementary school, I went to your house to play a lot, remember?

There were sky-blue curtains hanging in your room with pictures of clouds printed on them, and you had a gra.s.s-green carpet with all kinds of pillows shaped like animals laying on it.

"My mom made too many," you said and laughed as you hugged a zebra pillow to your chest.

I think I remember a golden birdcage was set in front of your bay window and the snow-white bird in it would chirrup cutely.

Whenever you brought your face close to the cage, the bird came closer, too. When you laughed at it, the bird would flap its wings happily, too. You would open the cage, put the bird on your finger, and kiss it on the beak or sing with it.

We would lie on the gra.s.s-green carpet and do our homework or look at picture books or talk about outer s.p.a.ce.

Sometimes the door would open, and your mother would bring in sweet milk tea or pancakes on a tray.

Then, with a smile like honey, she would kindly say, "Wash your hands, and then you can eat."

When school ended, I went to your house every single day, remember? Every single day.

But really, I didn't want to go there.

Your house was like a pretty birdcage. I felt as if my wings had been clipped and I was locked up like that little white bird. It was gut-wrenching.

When I came to the front door of your house, I always hardened the pit of my stomach and stopped breathing so I wouldn't inhale the sugary air that smelled like candy.

If I hadn't dreaded going back to my house, I never would have gone to such an awful place willingly.

And I'm positive that bird only pretended to like you in order to get food.

So when it pecked at your lips with its beak, I would think, my brain burning like fire, It probably despises you for stealing its freedom. Bite her lip; peck out her eyes! Rip off her nose to teach her a lesson.

Your mother was a spiteful pig, too.

Whenever I came over, she would give me a slimy, snakelike look from behind her smile. Blue flames would roar up in her eyes. She would stare at me, and there was murder in her gaze.

She pretended to bring us snacks in order to watch me covertly. When I went downstairs to use the bathroom, she would come out of the kitchen and follow me every single time.

A tiny baby that looked like you came at me, dribbling and crawling, so I tried to be nice to it. She descended with a demonic look on her face and picked the baby up and took it away from me.

Your mother never gave up her cruel tricks, all of them like needles dipped in poison that peck at the skin. She continued giving me bitter candy wrapped up in a blanket of sweet sugar.

When she told me she didn't want me coming over so much, I considered slicing her throat with the scissors I had in my hands.

I hated your house.

I hated your family so much it made me sick.

But you-I hated you most of all.