Book Girl and the Famished Spirit (3 page)

The girl’s face was as fair as a Western doll’s, but her skin was pale as a will-o’-the-wisp and her expression was as desolate as a cavern, offering no hint of emotion.

“Wh-who are you? What are you doing?”

Only then did consciousness flicker to life in her empty eyes.

I watched with amazement as a rosy color flashed across her cheeks and a vibrant, almost arrogant smile pulled at her lips.

What
is
this girl?

She answered in a haughty, sweet voice. “I am Kayano Kujo. What I do and where I choose to do it is my business. I’ll do whatever I like, whenever I like.”

I was stupefied by the change in the girl, but Tohko took a step forward, pulling at my shirt.

“I’m Tohko Amano, president of the book club. Are you the one leaving strange notes in our mailbox every night?”

“That’s right. I wrote those letters. At the manor, Uncle Hironobu and the others are always watching and criticize everything I do.”

“Are the letters for us? Or for someone else?”

The girl jutted her slender chin and turned away curtly at the question.

“I won’t tell you that. I’m going home. You’ve interrupted me, and it’s not fun anymore.”

She stuffed the notebook and writing implement into her schoolbag, closed the top, and then stood up and walked briskly away without so much as brushing off the grass stuck to her skirt.

Wow, she really is leaving
…

“Hold on! What are these numbers?”

Tohko grabbed the notes from her pocket and thrust them toward the girl.

She turned around and narrowed her eyes impishly. “That’s a secret only he and I know.”

I felt as if her sweet, sensual eyes had penetrated my heart, and I shuddered.

The girl looked about the same age as us, but her eyes were so mature and eerie.

Like someone who hasn’t passed on and has been alive a very, very long time.

“Wait!”

Tohko grabbed the girl’s arm and held her back. As soon as she touched her, Tohko seemed to be startled by something. Her dark eyes were wide with fright, but she planted her feet firmly and continued.

“L-look… If you’re doing this because something’s bothering you, you can talk to me about it. I’ll listen.”

The girl started laughing. “Heh-heh-heh, heh, hee-hee…” Her tittering sounded breezy, but it was strident and morbid. Tohko must have grown frightened at last. Her grip slackened.

The girl slipped out of her grasp and then quirked her mouth into a pretty smile.

“Heh-heh. There’s no point.
I’m already dead, after all.
”

A chill pierced my spine.

Tohko’s eyes widened, and she lurched back.

Still laughing, the girl ran to the school gates. Her chestnut hair swayed bewitchingly below her shoulders, and the hem of her skirt whipped around her as if in dance. Her pale calves bounded away entrancingly through the moonlight. I watched her go, unable to say a word.

Her thin body bobbed like a mirage before finally melting into the darkness.

“Tohko!”

I rushed over to her. She grabbed my shirt and then said in a quavering voice, “Th-that girl… her arms were so thin. It felt like an old woman’s arm, like she was more than a hundred years old. It was nothing but bone and skin.”

“Do you think she was real?”

“It couldn’t…”

She tried to stand back up, but her legs collapsed feebly beneath her. Tohko’s shoulders slumped, and she looked up at me with a pathetic expression as she confessed, “What am I going to do, Konoha? I’m petrified.”

She was dead
…

He was disappointed when he learned of it upon his return to the country.

What had happened? Why was she not there?

His revenge against her was the only thing that had propelled him. She had betrayed him. He had come back to this land in order to drag her down to hell and force her to atone.

And yet she was dead? She, the other half of his soul?

His world fractured, his soul was thrown into a turbulent ocean, and he sank beneath the raging black waves.

He pounded at the walls so often that he might have shattered his fists, and he howled like a wild animal.

“Um… well… just so there’s no misunderstanding. It wasn’t because I was scared of the ghost that I couldn’t stand up. I have a bad back, and it was just acting up.”

An hour after we’d seen the ghost in the school yard, Tohko and
I were walking through a darkened neighborhood, huddling close together.

It wasn’t a flirtatious thing. Tohko had been scared stiff and was totally unable to walk on her own, so I had to walk her home.

“I swear, it’s just a bad back. Not because of the ghost. I sprained my back when I was little, and it’s just flaring up,” she persisted, her face a deep red, wobbling and clinging to my arm.

Amazingly, even in a state like this, Tohko had proclaimed, “I’m going after the ghost!” and forced herself to her feet. She had then wheeled forward and face-planted into the grass. The tip of her nose was still red.

“I never heard about you having a bad back before.”

My bag was slung over my left shoulder, and I carried Tohko’s bag in that same hand. With my right, I supported her. When I took my jab at her through ragged breaths, she drooped her head, apparently in the repentance I had expected.

“I’m
so
sorry! I’m an awful role model.”

Maybe I was being too harsh… But no, if I let up now, she would definitely get cocky.

“If you realize that, then why don’t you stay away from crazy stuff like this? No matter how flat chested you may be, you’re still a girl, so—ow!”

Tohko’s face immediately transformed, and she pinched my cheeks hard.

“You’re awful! That’s sexual harassment! You should have more respect for your elders.”

She pulled at my cheeks, clamped between her thumb and forefinger.

“Owwww. And I think you should have more consideration for people younger than you.”

“I can walk on my own now. You can go.”

“You’re still wobbling, though.”

“After that corner, I’m only another minute or two from home. I’ll manage.”

She pursed her lips and turned curtly away.

“You’re
awful!
”

We heard the shrill voice of a girl nearby.

“Just what am I to you, Ryu?”

“Yeah, let’s hear it! Are you going to pick me or her?”

“Hey! Don’t pretend like I’m not here!”

It sounded like some people were getting worked up to fight around the next corner. Tohko and I peeked around at them and saw three girls surrounding a boy, shouting at one another under a streetlight.

All three of the girls were fuming, snapping at each other: “I’m the one dating Ryu!” “You’re just in the way!” “No, you are!” It looked like the boy had been three-timing. But even though it was his fault, he was doing nothing to stop the girls. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and he had his arms folded casually. He was tall and broad shouldered, a manly physique that meant he was probably an athlete or something. His clothes and hairstyle were casual, too. He looked like someone girls would go crazy over. Was he a college student?

“Look, why don’t we go somewhere else? Getting into it here is gonna get me in trouble. We’re right next to my house.”

When the boy said that, I felt a frigid jolt down my spine.

I looked over and saw Tohko grinding her teeth, charging up her rage for some reason.

Huh? Wait, what? Why is Tohko angry?
I started to panic in my ignorance.

Tohko grabbed her bag out of my hand and strode forward.

But, Tohko—what about your back?

Her eyes burned and she squared her shoulders, but all of that
obliterated in the face of her rage. She headed straight toward the group of arguing girls.

Then her bag arced over her head and she shouted, “
Ryuto!
Take that!”

“Urk—Tohko!”

The boy’s eyes bugged out as she swung her bag down right into his face.

There was a
whump
as her bag and his face collided. The girls around him recoiled. I was gaping myself.

“I can’t believe you! How often have we told you not to start these fights near the house? What will the neighbors think? And now you’re three-timing again! How can you like girls that much? Don’t you have even a shred of loyalty?”

The boy had been knocked back onto the ground, and Tohko was peppering his head and face with blows, using both hands.

The girls were frozen in terror at Tohko’s aggression. I quickly ran over to her and caught her arms behind her back.

“Stop, Tohko! I don’t know what’s going on, but you can’t hit people. You have to calm down or you’ll hurt your back again.”

“You stay out of this, Konoha!”

Tohko shook my arms off and turned to the girls frostily.

“You girls would be a lot better off at home reading the complete works of Sōseki Natsume instead of arguing over a worthless, three-timing guy like this. Start with his collection of interconnected short stories,
Ten Nights’ Dreams
! The aesthetic, phantasmagoric stories have the flavor of a mature wine. Drink yourselves silly on the unparalleled fragrance and warmth of the poetic sentences slipping down your throat! You’ll be grateful you were born Japanese. Once you finish reading that, you start his first trilogy. Even more powerful emotion is waiting for you in that.”

The girls’ mouths hung open while she said her piece in utter seriousness. Then Tohko grabbed the boy sharply by the ear. “We’re going home now, Ryuto.”

“Ow! Quit it, quit it, quit-it!”

Just like that, she dragged the boy away, though he was bigger and beefier than her, sailing off down the moonlit street.

“Wh-what just happened?”

“I-I’m not sure. What’s a first trilogy?”

“The real question is how that girl knows Ryu!”

I stood in shocked silence beside the girls as they muttered.

How
did
Tohko know that guy?

The next morning, I left home at my usual time and headed to school. Along the way, I spotted a long braid like a cat tail swinging out from behind a utility pole.

“Look who it is…”

Tohko emerged sheepishly, ducking her head with her face bright red, holding an open paperback in her hand. “Good morning, Konoha.”

It looked very much like she had been waiting for me. There was color high in her cheeks when she bowed her head.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. You were nice enough to walk me home, but then I just lost it and forgot all about you… I’m really sorry.”

Tohko seemed to feel truly bad about it. She looked like she was worried that I would be angry at her, and she kept peeking out at me from behind her copy of Atsushi Nakajima’s
Legend of Moon Mountain.
The fact that she had come expressly to apologize did a lot to placate me, but something still bothered me.

“Who’s that Ryuto guy? You guys seemed to know each other pretty well.”

Tohko answered with some difficulty. “I board with a family, and Ryuto is their son, so he’s sort of like my little brother.”

“You board with a family? Are your parents in the goblin lands?”

She quickly swatted me with her fist. “Stop calling me a goblin!”

Tohko pouted, prickling with anger, because she said it wounded a girl’s innocent heart to be called a goblin and she didn’t know how I could be so careless. I still wondered whether her parents were really goblins and just where they were and what they were doing after leaving their daughter in someone’s house, and whether the people Tohko was staying with knew that she chewed up books, but I didn’t think I could ask about any of that.

I gave up. “We’re going to be late,” I said and started walking.

“Wait for me!”

Tohko hurried after me.

“So what do you think that supernatural phenomenon last night really was? And that girl…”

As we walked side by side to school, I changed the subject. Tohko bent her mouth into a frown and folded her arms.

“It has to be some kind of trick. I’m going to figure it out.”

“What? You still want to continue the investigation?”

I was astounded, but Tohko replied crisply, “Of course.”

At the school entrance, she waved good-bye and headed off to the third-year lockers. “I’ll see you later, Konoha.”

She hadn’t repented at all!

The day had just started, and I was already exhausted. As I headed to my classroom, a classmate called out to me, “Morning.”

I returned his greeting. “Oh. Morning, Akutagawa.”

Lately, I’d spent a lot of time with Akutagawa in class. He was a sedate guy, both inside and out, tall and taciturn. He never said more than he needed to and never got emotional. He had an unswerving spirit that was like a strong tree, and it was easy to be
around him. He wasn’t a particularly close friend, but I found a certain distance pleasant these days.

“Did you do the math homework? Can I check my answers against yours?”

“Sure.”

We opened up our notebooks and started talking when Akutagawa poked me in the arm and subtly pointed behind me.

I turned around and saw our classmate Kotobuki watching me reproachfully.

Not again
…

Kotobuki had some kind of animosity toward me and was always glaring at me like that. I had once overheard her telling some girls in our class that she hated me. Apparently it made her uncomfortable that I gave feeble, deliberate-looking smiles so that no one would know what I was actually thinking.

But would she be so persistent about giving me dirty looks just because I bugged her? What had I done to her?

Akutagawa signaled “see you” with his eyes and then moved away nonchalantly.

Kotobuki took a step forward, then pulled back, then fiddled with her manicured nails, looking conflicted. But when she realized I was watching her, she blushed and came up to me.

“What do you want, Kotobuki?”

She pinched her lips in annoyance and curtly answered, “Nothing from you.”

She had lovely dyed brown hair. She also had long, shapely legs and large breasts, which made her extremely popular with the boys in our class. Apparently they even liked this harshness of hers because they said it hid a softer side. But I had never once seen Kotobuki soften up. I couldn’t picture her ever smiling sweetly for a boy she liked.

“If you don’t want anything, then I’d like to review for math.”

“What a jerk. You think acting like the perfect student impresses me?”

“… Did you want to chat, Kotobuki?”

“N-no way. Why would you say that? I would never talk to you—I just—” Kotobuki looked away and then muttered with the barest hint of timidity, “You came to school with Amano this morning, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb. You two came in together.”

Her gaze fell on me again and she leaned forward pointedly.

“I’m not playing dumb… I was just wondering how you knew that.”

“I just happened to see you! It’s not like I was watching for you! But since you came in side by side, I just thought maybe you had come together on purpose… N-n-not that I care even if you did, of course. Nobody cares about you, Inoue. But Amano has helped me out at the library, so I owe her my respect.”

That caught me off guard.

“Really? You found something to respect about her?”

Was there something about Tohko that an underclassman could look up to?

Kotobuki answered, her face red, “She reads a lot of books, and she knows practically everything about the library. And she doesn’t have a big head about how beautiful she is. She’s nice.”