Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel (2 page)

The music room in the southeast corner of the second floor was packed with tons of cardboard boxes. Our job was to sort the papers crammed in each box and put them into files.

“S-sorry…but he asked you to do it first…”

“If you hadn’t agreed, I would have said no. Geez, as if I wanted to work with you!”

Prickling with rage, she opened a box and started piling the papers in it on the floor. Mr. Mariya talked in a vibrantly cheerful voice.

“This is great. I’m so glad you could help, Nanase. You do enjoy bluntness, don’t you? It’s so charming the way that you sulk.”

“I’ve got no interest in old men! And stop calling me Nanase!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought Nanase was your last name and somehow just remembered you that way.”

“My full name was written on the class roll, though!”

“Hmm, was it?”

“Grrrr!”

Kotobuki growled in irritation, whirling to turn her back on him. He drew nearer to me and whispered in amusement, “She’s adorable when she loses her temper, don’t you think? It thrills me being rejected by a girl like that; it makes me want to squeeze her tight.”

“Mr. Mariya…I’m not sure a teacher should be saying things like that.”

“A teacher is nothing but an adult man once he leaves the classroom, Inoue.”

“Then please don’t say that until after you leave the building.”

As we whispered to each other, our faces pressed close together, Kotobuki turned slooowly back around.

The very same instant, Mr. Mariya shouted gleefully, “Oh, what’s this, Nanase? Are you curious what Inoue and I are talking about? We were just observing how cute you are. Isn’t that right, Inoue?”

“Er, uh—that is—” I was trapped.

“N-no! I don’t care.”

Kotobuki quickly turned her back on us.

“Oh! Nanase, there’s a worm on your thigh.”

“Eek!”

Kotobuki jumped and shook out her skirt. Her eyes were positively brimming with tears.

“Hmmm, so you don’t like worms then. I suspected as much. I’m good at guessing where a girl’s tastes lie. In any case, it’s commonly thought that worms hibernate in the winter and stop moving around, so you needn’t worry.”

“Grrrr. Y-you molester!”

She balled up a piece of paper and hurled it at him, but Mr. Mariya dodged it easily. The ball landed right in my face.

“Ow!”

Kotobuki looked frantic, her face bright red, and she turned her back on me, muttering, “Ack—! Y-you’re such a klutz, Inoue! Why didn’t you dodge?”

Or so it seemed until she turned to glance back worriedly and then hurriedly turned around again.

“See? Isn’t she cute?”

Mr. Mariya rested a hand on my shoulder and winked.

Kotobuki…he’s toying with you
, I thought.

I felt bad for her. But…Mr. Mariya was right: Kotobuki looked cute when she was angry or flustered. So that’s the kind of girl Kotobuki is. I could see now why the boys in our class made so much noise about how great Nanase Kotobuki was…

“Let’s take a break.”

After we’d been working away for about an hour, Mr. Mariya poured some tea into paper cups for us.

I thought it might be tea with milk, but the color and aroma were both rich and it tasted sweet. There was the light fragrance of cinnamon. Oh, and maybe there was some ginger in there, too.

“This is called chai. It’s a sweet, boiled tea with milk that’s drunk in India. What do you think?”

“It’s very good.”

It seemed like something Tohko would like. Sweet, warm, relaxing, melting away fatigue…

Mr. Mariya’s eyes crinkled as he smiled.

“I’m glad. I love serving my guests chai. Did it meet with your approval also, Nanase?”

“…It’s good.”

“If you married me, you’d be able to drink it every day.”

“Never! That will never, ever happen!”

Kotobuki howled like a cat with its fur standing on end, but Mr. Mariya was undaunted.

“Oh yes. A friend of mine sent me some tickets to the opera. It’s a student recital, but the lead tenor is a professional making a guest appearance. Would you like to go, Nanase?”

He held the tickets up between his fingers, and Kotobuki shot a sideways glance at them, maybe a little bit interested.

“…I have some, too.”

Mr. Mariya made a surprised face.

“Oh? What a coincidence. Do you like the opera? We have something in common then. Perhaps it’s fate.”

Kotobuki quickly denied it.

“No, I—one of my friends is performing, so I bought my own ticket!”

“Oh my, one of your friends is a student at the Shirafuji Music Academy high school? I’m an alumnus there! Incidentally, is she pretty?”

“So what if she is?!”

“Oh, I just thought it would be nice for the three of us to go get Nepalese food together. Your friend is available, isn’t she?”

“Yuka has a boyfriend! Even if she didn’t, I would never introduce a lazy music teacher who puts in earplugs in order to take naps during music classes to my best friend!”

“I’m a student of Buddhism, so when I hear Christian hymns, a beanstalk grows out of my belly.”

“I’ve never heard of that before!”

“That’s because it’s not true.”

“Grrrr!”

“M-Mr. Mariya, maybe you should stop. Don’t start waving your fists around, either, Kotobuki. Okay?”

Sensing the unquiet in the air, I quickly stepped into the fray. Kotobuki suddenly flushed and lowered her hands to sweep off her skirt; then she returned to the work with obvious haste.

Through a cloud of sweet-smelling steam, Mr. Mariya smiled serenely as he watched Kotobuki’s reaction.

“Marmar studied vocals. He studied abroad in Paris while he was in college, and he even won a competition while he was over there!”

At lunch the next day, while I ate my packed lunch with Akutagawa, Mori and her friends came purposefully over to us and started talking about Mr. Mariya.

“His parents are musicians, too, and I’ve heard that people called him a genius. Apparently he sings in a supersweet, liquid tenor. Marmar could have been as big as a pop star when he made his professional debut. Why did he become a teacher, you think? What a total waste!”

“Oh, but really, for a boyfriend you want a totally normal guy, not an older heartthrob with a past. Don’t give up, Inoue!”

“Yeah. Nanase doesn’t go for brand-name stuff, so relax and go for it.”

“Oh! Nanase’s back! Say hi to her for us, Inoue.”

Gaping, I watched Mori and the others patter off.

“Akutagawa, what just happened…?”

“Pretty sure I followed, but I can’t say. Kotobuki would never forgive me.”

Akutagawa set down his chopsticks, looking sorry.

But…oh,
I thought sluggishly, still holding my lettuce and scrambled egg sandwich.
Mr. Mariya had
also
been called a genius
.

Classes were over for the day. After I dropped off the improv story for Tohko’s provisions in the relationship advice box that had been set up without permission in the school yard, I went to the music room, where a boy I didn’t recognize stood in front of the door.

He was about my height. He had bright, colorless hair, was thin, and wore glasses—a perfectly ordinary student with no distinguishing features.

He kept his face down and glided past me like a breeze.

Huh? Didn’t that guy have some reason for being at the music room…?

When I opened the door, I saw Mr. Mariya sitting on a fold-up chair, drinking chai. He had a finger pressed to his lip, as if he was thinking about something, and the sight of him spacing out unguardedly called to mind a certain braided book girl, and I smirked. A heavy-looking watch glinted at his wrist.

“Hmm? By yourself, Inoue? Where’s Nanase?”

“She said she had to take care of something and was going to be late.”

“Ah, good. I thought I might have tormented her a little too much yesterday, and she’d run away on me. It was a chilling thought.”

“If you realize what you’re doing, why don’t you take some responsibility?”

“Oh, but her reactions are so much fun I can’t help myself.”

He grinned at me, his eyes seeming to declare, “It’s a secret.”

Ever since the day before, Mr. Mariya had been giving me that same sort of familiar look, as if he was a kindly older brother. Whenever he did, it made my chest squirm a little.

“I heard that you won a competition abroad, and people used to call you a genius.”

“Ha-ha, it’s been said, yes.”

Mister Mariya laughed lightly.

His smile was so natural I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Why didn’t you go professional?”

The moment it was said, a thorn shot through my heart. As I waited for his answer, I held my breath completely in earnest.

Because I had once been called a genius, too.

It was in the spring of my third year that I, an ordinary middle schooler, had been swallowed up by a gigantic wave.

At fourteen years old, I won the new author’s prize of a literary magazine that I’d entered on a whim, their youngest winner ever, and because my pen name was Miu Inoue—a girl’s name—I was crowned with the exaggerated title of a mysterious genius in the body of a masked, young female author, and I became famous throughout the country.

Now that more than two years had gone by, I was spending my days peaceably again. I’d even made friends and learned how to laugh.

How had it been for Mr. Mariya?

He’d been hailed as a genius by everyone around him and had great things expected of his future, so why had he become a teacher?

What did he think about it all now?

Through the sweet-smelling steam, Mr. Mariya’s lips bent into a soft smile.

“I wanted the time I spent at leisure with the person I loved to be more important than anything. Florid strangers, gut-wrenching practices, intense schedules—they weren’t for me.”

His voice was clear and unwavering.

His eyes narrowed in a gentle smile like gooey, golden honey, and he raised his paper cup as if in a toast.

“So I can affirm that I have no regrets about my decision. So long as I have a cup of chai, life is wonderful, and an ordinary life beats anything else.”

His words and his voice penetrated my heart like beams of light, and like the sweet chai that gave off the aroma of cinnamon, they seeped slowly and warmly into every corner of my body, leaving a sharp excitement behind.

I couldn’t take my eyes from Mr. Mariya’s smile.

Man, that would be great.

Someday, I wanted to be able to validate my own life like he had.

I wanted to spend every day in easy normalcy while cherishing the gentleness of the ordinary.

Mr. Mariya, who I’d only thought of as a weirdo, seemed like a very broad-minded, generous person.

Finally Kotobuki appeared, out of breath.

“Hello, Nanase. You were so eager to see me that you rushed that much to get here?”

“N-no, I—”

“Oh no, is that a worm?”

“Eek!”

“Kotobuki, worms are hibernating right now.”

“Er…shut up, Inoue!”

Mr. Mariya was teasing Kotobuki the same as he had yesterday.

Kotobuki was getting red faced and angry. I was getting into the middle of things…

This kind of trivial interaction was fun, warm, and comfortable.

Whoa! She saw right through me.

After school, I read the letter from Tohko that was in the mailbox, and my cheeks grew slowly warmer. It tasted like chai…Well, of course it did, though I hadn’t been aware of it.

And then she got an F.
Are you going to be all right, Tohko?