Final Episode - Aliceliese's Allegations

Several days went by.

After the incident on the roof, I never once spoke to Janella, and she never came looking for me.

The day before, Abegail had said, "I haven't seen your girl lately. Did you two break up?"

I saw a little red along the tops of her cheeks, and she hung her head, fidgeting. Her voice almost sounded concerned.

"We were never going out in the first place. And she doesn't need my help anymore, so I don't think she's coming back."

"I—I didn't, I mean, it's not a big deal, I just thought… maybe I'd gone too far before. I mean… um…"

She looked up and as soon as our eyes met, she flushed an even darker red.

"N-never mind!"

She whirled around and walked away.

But just when I'd thought she was gone, she stopped in her tracks and circled back around, extremely agitated.

"That is, I—um… er… no, it's really nothing!" she stammered loudly, then hurried away.

She was probably trying to apologize. She could be harsh, but I guess she wasn't a bad person.

I went to literature club every day and passed the time politely listening to Alice as she expounded on her criticism of books while I wrote her improv stories.

"Today's topics are stapler, amusement park, and mutton hot pot. You

have exactly fifty minutes. Okay, go!"

Bang!

Alice started her silver stopwatch. She propped her elbows on the back of her fold-up chair and leaned forward. She kicked off her shoes and kneeled on the chair. Her manners were as bad as ever.

"What's mutton hot pot?"

"You haven't heard of it? It's mutton—so lamb would be okay, too—cut up into slices and then cooked really fast in soup. They did a story on a restaurant in Ginza on the news last night. They had such un-believ-ably thin cuts of meat for the soup. They said it didn't smell at all, and you could eat it raw and it would still melt on your tongue. The grape sherbet they had for dessert looked so yummy, too. After a hot meal, a cold dessert is really the only way to go. So I'd like a story that melts like lamb fillets for mutton hot pot and is chilly and sweet like ice cream."

"You need to stop ordering all this bizarre stuff. I mean, how can you be so easily influenced by TV and magazines and whatever else? How am I supposed to tie together a stapler, an amusement park, and lamb filets?"

"That is how the chef shows his skill. Heh-heh. I'm looking forward to this."

"Why don't you write something yourself for once?"

Alice's index finger popped up immediately and her face turned serious. "Andy, as your mentor, allow me to teach you something about life."

"That being?"

"Food that someone else makes for you tastes ten times better than your own cooking."

"You're avoiding the question."

"And also? Food cooked with affection is a hundred times better. That's also a fact."

She rested her chin on her hand, leaning on the back of her chair, and beamed at me as if she could compel me to write this story with a huge helping of affection.

I got it: a sheep with staplers sticking out of it like a hedgehog gets lost in an amusement park and gets tricked by a witch, who makes him into a mutton hot pot.

Alice watched me idly as my pen raced across the pages of the notebook. "It's hard to write with you watching me. Could you read a book or

something?"

"Sure thing, chef."

She spun around in her chair and started reading one of the old books in the room, dangling her legs over the edge of the chair.

After a while, the only noises in the cramped room were the scratching of my pen on the paper and the rustling of pages being turned in Alice's book, mingling with the dust motes suspended in the air.

Without warning, her back still turned to me, Alice murmured, "Hey, Andy. How do you think little Janella is doing?"

My pen paused momentarily.

I didn't want Alice to think I was shaken, so I quickly resumed writing. "I dunno… does it matter anymore?"

"But she still hasn't turned in her report."

Alice turned back around to look at me. "Andy, would you go and talk to her and get the report?"

I gaped. "Do you hear yourself talking? No. I don't want to."

"But, but, but, but—she promised she would write a report for me when the contract was finished."

"You'd be sick for a week if you ate a report about what happened. I won't do it! Absolutely not! If you want to eat weird stuff like that, why don't you go and get it yourself?"

Alice looked sad.

Uh-oh. Had I gone too far?

"Andy, little Janella may have lied to you, but wasn't there some truth to what she said after all?

"You haven't asked her why she did it. Are you going to let it end without knowing? You wrote all those love letters because you wanted to help Janella out, right?"

I said nothing, just pressed on with the story. "Done."

I tore three sheets of paper out of the packet and handed them to Alice. "Be sure to clean your plate."

My story about the sheep covered in staplers who gets filleted must have tasted pretty unusual. Alice struggled to choke down the three sheets of

paper, and there were tears in her eyes.

"Urf, gross… no I mean, that really spoke to me. The taste is v-very unique and th-this part… it's so gross… n-no, delicious. It's delicious… really. Urg… if I tell myself it's good, it'll taste good… bleh."

She was such a lost cause.

She'd eaten entire stories as nonsensical as that and with worse editing before.

She'd done the same thing when I had first joined the literature club last year.

She would try her very best to eat the grotesque stories that I wrote badly on purpose, without a single punctuation mark and my subjects and objects every which way. Then she would correct my errors with ridiculous gravity.

"That was good, but… I like punctuation because it shows you when to take a breath when you're telling a story. If there's too much of it, that can mess up the flow, too, but for now why don't you try it out? And maybe you shouldn't use the exact same sentence structure quite so much."

No matter how often I slapped together something weird to be mean, Alice would eat it all, and the next day she would come pick me up with a smile and say, "Time for the club meeting, Andy!"

Maybe it was because I was still inside my shell back then and avoided interacting with people, so she didn't feel like she could just abandon me.

She often struck me as unfiltered and self-absorbed, an utterly carefree literature maiden living in her own world who cared not at all about the world around her. But Alice could also be a busybody.

Maybe being with Alice for a whole year had had an effect on me. The next day I headed to the library to see Janella.

"I don't care what her reasons were for tricking me. Alice is a pig, and now she wants to eat Janella's report, so I'm just here to collect it," I reminded myself as I spiraled down the rusty staircase to the basement storage room.

Clang-clang-clang.

The noise of my footsteps was swallowed up in the underground stillness.

Descending the final step, I went to the door at the end of the corridor and knocked. A cautious voice responded, "Er, yes?"

"It's Inoue, from the literature club."

"Andy! J-just a second!"

Beyond the door, I heard the sound of books toppling over and being tossed aside, a mouse squeaking, a voice saying, "Shh! Go away!" to chase it off, then a brief silence before the door opened and Janella appeared, looking sheepish. "Um… c-come in. The mice are gone so… it's safe."

"… Thanks."

The storage room was the same as the last time I'd been there, with the sweet smell of old paper in the air, dingy with dust.

The lamp that stood on the school desk gave off a faint illumination, like a streetlight casting its isolated glow into the darkness. An orange thermos sat on top of the desk alongside a box of cookies and a mug with a drawing of a duck on it.

"Alice told me to come and ask you when your report is going to be ready."

Janella lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry. I made a draft, but then I reread it and… it was totally unusable… I guess I have no writing ability after all."

Not knowing how to respond, I said nothing. Janella kept her face down and made herself even smaller.

"I really am sorry that I lied to you and Alice. I—I wanted to be a detective. My life was so ordinary and boring. I thought it might make it more interesting if I had a boyfriend, so I started dating Henry, and I really liked him a lot so I tried to be satisfied with that, but… the duck never changed into a princess. It was fun at first, but after I got used to it, I felt like, oh… this is all it is.

"That's when I found Anthony's letter.

"My heart ached so badly while I was reading it, I just started to cry. "It was like the world had changed color.

"I wanted to find out more about him. "I wanted to get closer to him.

"I thought I might be able to become someone different than who I'd always been. Maybe even a girl like me could be part of a wonderful story that was full of thrills and excitement.

"That's… what I thought."

"You're the one who cut his picture out of the yearbook, aren't you?" "Yes. While I was researching Anthony, it started getting more and more important to me to know whether or not he'd really committed suicide…

"I would hole up in this room after school and make up all kinds of theories. It was a lot of fun. I felt like I'd become a detective for real.

"I should have left it at that.

"When I saw you handing out flyers at the school entrance, I—you looked so much like Anthony that I almost forgot to breathe.

"That's when I realized that if I could have you meet the old archery club members, I'd be able to tell who S was and then I could learn the truth about Anthony's death."

So Janella had used the relationship advice box that Alice set up as an excuse to get close to me so she could achieve her own goals.

Anthony does too exist! Really!

Janella had sworn it to me again and again.

For her, Anthony Flavier was not merely a phantom known only through his letters: he was a real flesh-and-blood human being.

She'd wanted to believe that.

That was how powerful a role Anthony had played for her. But now Janella seemed bereft.

"My stupid ideas put you through a lot of trouble, and I'm sorry. Even now that I know the truth, my heart still hurts and nothing's changed."

Janella picked up her mug with the drawing of the duck on it. "My best friend, the one who gave me this cup, died two years ago in an accident. She was hit by a car, just like Marianna."

So that's what it was.

Maybe the reason Janella had been so obsessed with Anthony was because, like him, she'd lost someone she cared about in a traffic accident. I felt like I could understand that a little better, and my heart ached for her.

"She was strong and smart and optimistic, and she was our class monitor.

She would have lived a much more spectacular life than someone like me will," Janella murmured, her voice cracking.

Sorrow colored her eyes as she gazed at the mug.

"Janella… I don't think there's anything wrong with being ordinary. I, at least, prefer it that way."

"I suppose…" Janella smiled sadly.

Then she looked up and said in a suddenly cheerful tone, "Did you know that today is the tenth anniversary of Anthony's death? So I've just been…

enjoying a few last memories of him. But I have to get going. I'm meeting up with Henry."

Janella started gathering up the things on the desk.

She was smiling brightly, but there were tears rising in her eyes. She kept her eyes open as wide as possible to stop the tears from falling, and occasionally she would blink rapidly.

When she'd gotten her things together, Janella smiled at me.

"I'm going to go. I'm really glad I got to talk to you, Andy. Thank you for coming to see me."

"Janella… you don't need to force yourself to write that report. I'm sure it's not very pleasant work, and I don't think writing it down will change anything."

A frail look passed over Janella's face for a moment, then she blinked again and tilted her head back slightly. When she looked back at me, the corners of her mouth were pulled up.

"You're right. I'll only feel miserable if I write about it. It's not going to change anything."

Even though I'd spoken the words myself, they cut into my heart when she repeated them.

No, writing doesn't change anything. Writing won't save anybody.

Janella murmured a good-bye, and the last smile she gave me was radiant.

Clang-clang-clang-clang…

I lingered in the sweet-smelling storage room and listened as Janella's footsteps on the spiral staircase grew distant.

I remembered how she'd cried, clinging to me in the rain.

And I remembered her smile as she ate lunch with her boyfriend in the school yard.

Stephen and Reona had chosen to go on living together, never forgetting Anthony Flavier.

But maybe Janella had moved on.

Maybe she would spend her days in ordinary tranquillity with Henry. I believed she'd be happy that way.

All things pass.

Even Crumbling said so in Never Been Human. Perhaps the passage of time is a kind of healing, or a kind of salvation granted equally to all people.

Feeling somewhat melancholy, I walked among the bookshelves, reading the titles of the volumes they contained.

Some titles I knew, some titles I didn't, some titles too worn to read: they all slipped by in the dim light of the room.

"Oh—"

But when I saw that title, I stopped. "Never Been Human…" This might've been the book that Anthony put his letter in.

I hooked it with my finger and pulled it off the shelf. The book was inside a slipcover that had turned yellow, speckled with brown stains.

"Hm—it's stuck."

I couldn't get the book out.

"Maybe it's caught on something? Ack!"

I tugged harder and the book flew out of its case, along with a little notebook. They both landed on the floor and fell open.

When I bent over to pick them up, my heart skipped a beat.

There was a tiny photo on the floor that looked like it had been cut out of a larger picture. The boy in the picture looked back at me with my face.

A small notebook with a duck printed on the cover had fallen beside the photo.

This picture… was it from the yearbook? And wasn't this the notebook that Janella was always carrying?

Why had she hidden it in a place like this? And why inside a copy of Never Been Human?

It was almost like—

I felt a terrible sense of foreboding.

I picked up the notebook and urgently scanned the narrow letters that packed each page.

As soon as I read the first line, I felt as if a pit were yawning open at my feet and I was going to topple headlong into it.

I read a bit more and then, unable to contain myself, flipped ahead to the last page. Cursing my stupidity, I shut the notebook and ran out of the room.

Mine has been a life of shame.

My grandmother's death was the first incident that showed me I was out of step with the rest of the world.

She'd been very fond of me. Even after an illness in her chest meant that she did little other than sleep, she wanted me by her side. She stroked my hair and called me "such a good girl, such a nice girl," her eyes crinkling with happiness.

But I wasn't the simple child my grandmother wished me to be. Her emaciated hands, her face guttered by wrinkles, her white, whispering husks of hair, her breath that reeked of medicine; all of it repelled and frightened me.

"You're a good girl, a nice girl."

Each time her croaking voice whispered in my ear, I felt as if she were putting a curse on me. My neck stiffened and goose bumps prickled my skin.

I was terrified that she would discover that I was not in fact a good girl; that as soon as my grandmother saw that in my heart I despised her, she would become a demon, her white hair bristling and her eyes burning red, and she would devour me. I would break into a cold, heavy sweat and some nights I found sleep impossible.

As I grew older, my impression that there was a significant disconnect between the way that I and other people experienced things only grew stronger. It took all the energy I had to summon even the slightest sympathy for things that made other people happy or sad.

Why does that make them happy? Why does that make them sad?

When everyone was excited, cheering for their friends in sports competitions, when they were depressed at losing a friend who transferred to another school, I felt as uncomfortable as if I were in a room full of foreigners with whom I shared no common language. I flinched away from them and felt sharp pains in my stomach. The

crushing din of words that everyone spoke around me was utterly incomprehensible.

Why? Why were they all crying? I just couldn't understand it. But it

would be odd for one person to be unperturbed while the rest of them wept. I had to act like I was crying. My face was tense, so I couldn't cry very convincingly. My cheeks burned. What would I do if someone realized I was faking my tears? I just wouldn't lift my face. Hang your head and look upset. Ah, and now everyone's guffawing. I wonder what's so funny. I have no idea. But if I don't do the same as everyone else, they'll think I'm strange and cast me out.

Laugh. Laugh. Laugh. No, cry. Cry. No, laugh, you have to laugh.

I did my best to smile pleasantly at my parents, my teachers, my classmates; I acted the clown to make them laugh. Oh please, don't notice that I'm a monster who doesn't understand human emotion. I'll pretend to be a person so stupid they redefine idiocy, and while everyone is laughing at me and pitying me and forgiving me, please let me live on.

No one saw through my act, until I started middle school and met S.

Breathing raggedly, I ran up the stairs to the roof.

The third letter had been written not by Anthony Flavier, but by Janella. How could I have been so stupid?

I'd only been able to see Janella Pendelton within the bounds my common sense had dictated: as a silly, simpleminded girl.

Why had she been searching for S? Was she so obsessed with Anthony Flavier's last moments?

I'd lacked the imagination necessary to understand.

Janella's plump face, her wandering eyes, her childish mannerisms, her cheerful smile, her puppylike innocence, her single-mindedness, my desire to help her; I had seen only how they all appeared on the surface.

I'd never even considered that they could all be an act.

Why don't I tell you about S?

S was the person who understood me better than any in the world,

was my nemesis, my best friend, my other half, my eternal opponent.

The terrifying wisdom S possessed penetrated everything.

My act, which hoodwinked everyone I ever met, failed to convince S. I feared S accordingly.

The more fear I felt of S, the less I was able to escape. In classes and after, I was with S.

I felt as though S's gaze was a judge employed by God to check me— a thought which caused my limbs to tremble and sweat to break out with fear and shame.

This world is hell. I was a slave to S.

On my fourteenth birthday, S gave me a mug with a duck on it as a gift.

S told me that the duck's clumsy, stupid face looked exactly like me.

I giggled and agreed, and S glared at me, demanding to know if I really thought that was okay.

It scared me.

It pained S to think that I was a monster playing the part of a duck.

I rattled off a few jokes in an effort to reassure S somehow and appear lighthearted.

But S didn't laugh. S told me, "Quit it, Chee. I don't care if you're never anything more than a clumsy duck," and she stormed away.

I ran after S.

If S turned away from me, she might tell everyone that I was a monster.

I had to get S to laugh. I had to stop her.

I would have preferred death to S leaving me.

As these thoughts ran through my mind, I let S see me fall in the middle of the road.

S turned back in surprise, then frowned in annoyed resignation and ran over to me.

Just as relief began to wash over me, a car sped toward us. S's slender body was thrown into the air, then fell to the earth and went still.

Sophia died to save a monster named Janella Pendelton.

That day, when tender flesh was pulverized and red blood spread its tangy aroma across the black asphalt, I watched with an empty heart.

I had killed a person.

I doubt that God will ever forgive me.

I'm just an ordinary kid.

Even after I read Never Been Human, I didn't understand.

I'm just an ordinary, dumb kid, really, really ordinary, and so, so awful, so I couldn't understand why Benedict Crumblings or Anthony would want to die, no matter how hard I tried. I read Never Been Human five times. But I still couldn't sympathize with them at all. Finally, I just started to cry.

What had been going through Janella's mind, I wondered, as she told me that she couldn't understand Never Been Human?

I just started to cry.

What had she been thinking when she said that?

That's weird. It's deluded. There was no reason for him to ever suffer like that.

What had she been thinking as she spoke these words that cut into her?

I told the boy that I would go out with him. He smiled, as naively as a puppy.

He had placed an innocent trust in me.

An uncorrupted, pure-hearted, gentle, happy white sheep beloved by God.

I envied him, was repelled by him, but at the same time I couldn't help but adore his simple effervescence.

But, perhaps, just such a boy might be able to change me. They say that love changes people.

If so, that boy might be my salvation.

I might become a normal human being, rather than a monster possessing neither love nor kindness.

Oh, how I wish that I could.

I wished it so ardently that my heart seemed on fire. Let me come to care for that boy.

Even if at first it's only an act, I know that eventually it would have to become true.

I replayed all the things Janella had told me in my mind. They had mutated into new words with completely different meanings.

I had seen her look sad, like the day she had clung to me outside the school in the rain, or when I had told her that Anthony didn't exist as a way of hurting her.

But I had completely misinterpreted the source of that sadness.

I coddled the boy, smiling cheerfully at him and telling him over and over again how much I liked him.

It seems to have made him like me even more, but with each day that goes by I feel sadder.

Even when I continue my performance and seem the same as always on the surface, my spirit is like a terminally ill patient, growing ever more feeble and exhausted, and at times I experience suffering that torments my entire body.

One day when it was raining, the boy awkwardly touched his lips to mine behind the school building, and something burst inside me. It was not happiness; all the hair on my body stood up in antipathy.

I laughed for him shyly and told him I hadn't expected him to do that, then I ran away.

My mind was racing, and I felt a warm lump rising in my throat, pulling my nausea with it. I wiped my mouth off again and again and just kept running through the rain.

I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it.

I hate it so much. I hate everything, all of it, completely. Why did my life continue after I killed S?

Shouldn't it have been the other way around? Shouldn't I have been killed by S?

Hadn't I enslaved myself to S and heaped flattery on her because I

wished for exactly that?

I hated S and also feared her. But deep in my heart, I wished she would destroy me.

Only S could have killed me; she should have! But S is no more.

Unable to face the disappointment, the reproach, the rejection of others, too petty and fragile, I have no choice but to spend the rest of my life as a mime in order to fool the rest of the world.

That is a hell far more cruel and even further beyond salvation than the time I spent with S.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with being ordinary." "I suppose…"

Why had I said something so thoughtless? I didn't know. I hadn't known anything.

How much Janella must have despaired, how it must have hurt her to hear me say, "There's nothing wrong with being ordinary."

I read a letter by someone very much like me.

It was like seeing myself. My heart was filled with it, and tears streamed from my eyes.

Finally, I'd met someone with the same spirit as me.

I was sure he would have understood my suffering and misery. He inspired me to begin this letter.

I feel that as I write this letter, I grow closer to him.

It was not because Anthony Flavier had something that Janella lacked in her life, that she had been drawn to him so powerfully that she needed to discover the truth about his death.

It was not because he was her opposite.

It was because once she discovered that he had been created with the

exact same soul that she possessed, Janella had needed to find some proof of his existence.

I wonder who his S is.

How can I use S's weakness?

How can I move S's heart and drag out all of its secrets? Only S knows about his last moments.

How did he die? Did he choose death for himself? Did S kill him?

What did he whisper in his last moments? With what expression did he meet his end?

What answers had he found, this boy with the same soul as mine? He will be my guide, whether I should live or die.

I have to know. Whatever it takes, I need to know.

I turned the problem over incessantly, but I stumbled upon the key to destroying S when I wasn't even looking.

As pain seared vividly through my chest like an iron brand, I finally understood.

Janella and Anthony Flavier were the same.

They both wished to be destroyed by a person named S, who was both their confidante and their enemy, and they had both lost people close to them through their own blunders.

They berated themselves unflaggingly for that, and it finally broke them.

Ever since losing her best friend, Sophia, Janella had suffered only from her need for atonement. To her, Anthony's letter seemed like a map to escape her pain.

That was why Janella acted as she had.

She brought me before the archery team alums and then sent letters to Stephen, whom she'd pegged as S.

Like poison falling—drip, drip—I watched with naked awareness on my face as—little by little—S went insane.

I can tell that S's usual ease has disappeared.

And that S's eyes are roving skittishly, and that S's voice is quavering.

Now and then, S has begun to sigh when no one is around and to tear at his hair, and to spin around to look over his shoulder in surprise.

What had been in Anthony Flavier's mind just before he died, this boy who was her double?

How had he died?

Was it murder, or suicide?

Was he killed by another, or had he brought about his own death? Janella had needed to know that.

Whatever it took to do so.

Very soon.

My preparations are complete.

All that remains is to turn the key and open the door.

In order to decide her own future, Janella needed to know, at any cost.

I have written a letter to S. I'm waiting on the roof.

Let's discuss the truth.

On the last page of Janella's notebook was written:

Anthony has given me my answer. It's time to go to the roof.

Second floor—

Third floor—

Fourth floor—

The stairs seemed to continue up and up forever, and I was worried, terrified, that I would never be able to reach Janella.

It seemed as though the farther up I went, the longer the stairs became, and waiting at their end might only be an irreversible tragedy.

Wouldn't I just wind up standing there, watching without an inkling as to a course of action, as Janella threw herself off the roof, like I had with Mia?

My heart was about to burst, and I felt light-headed, tempted to stop and rest.

It was no use.

I wouldn't make it there in time, just like before.

It was better not to go to the roof at all. I would only witness something I didn't want to see again. I would feel awful.

Don't go.

My lips and fingertips were tingling, my breathing animalistic, and white dots were swimming over my vision.

I hadn't had symptoms like these since starting high school. But when Soeda dragged me up to the roof, I'd been unable to breathe.

Just like last time, I was assaulted by a vicious hunger and unease; my entire body went cold; painful, whistling breaths escaped my throat; my body listed to one side, and I bent over the stair's handrail.

It hurt.

I was going to die.

I wasn't going to make it. There wasn't any time left. I shouldn't be going up there anyway. Everything about this was wrong. This situation was just going to make everyone unhappy. There was nothing to be done about it now. I was too late.

No, that's not true.

Just as I was being sucked into a morass of despair, an invisible hand took hold of my own and lifted me out of it.

Maybe it was Alice's hand.

Alice was the one who'd brought me this far, tugging on my apathetic hand and never giving up on me.

Alice would never abandon me.

When I sobbed that I hated everything, that I didn't understand anything, she told me that I needed to find the answers to my questions on my own.

That even if it hurt or made me sad or tested me, I needed to get there on my own two feet.

Like Melos trusting in Selinuntius, I picked myself back up and sped recklessly up the stairs.

If it hurt or stung or my heart came close to rupturing or I couldn't catch my breath or my eyes clouded over, I couldn't feel any of it. I could only run toward my goal, my mind busy elsewhere.

At the end of the staircase I'd imagined might spiral on forever was a heavy door, and I practically threw myself against it to open it.

The May sky was as lovely and clear as ever. Janella was standing on the other side of the railing. Her wispy frame seemed horrifyingly unstable.

"Janella! Don't do it!" I shouted, running over, and she whirled around in surprise. When I saw the duck mug she cradled in both hands, my heart constricted with the certainty that she intended to die.

"Don't do it, Janella. You can't kill yourself. It can't end that way! You're not Anthony! You're Janella Pendelton, a totally different person! Just because Anthony killed himself doesn't mean you have to die, too!"

Janella looked like she was about to cry.

I grabbed hold of Janella's arm through the railing.

My shoulders heaving with each ragged breath, I snapped, "You have to find a different path than Anthony did!"

When she saw her rolled-up notebook in my hand, Janella smiled ruefully.

"You read my notebook… didn't you, Andy? I didn't want anyone to find it for ten years. It's a message to myself ten years from now. Just like the letter Anthony left for himself—for me—ten years later…"

"Don't be stupid. There's no reason you have to follow the same path he did. Get back here!"

Translucent beads welled up in Janella's eyes. Her tears seemed to spring from the pain that her feelings would never be understood.

"But, Andy, it would be too bitter and shameful for me to keep living.

There's no other way."

Her restrained voice hid within it a scream of anguish, and it ripped into my heart, tossing aside anything I might have said.

Andy, I don't think you would ever understand.

So I'm just repeating what happened with Mia, then.

"You know, Andy, Anthony didn't die because he felt guilty about Marianna's death. When that car killed her, he was disgusted with himself for not feeling even a hint of grief.

"I'm the same.

"I killed Soph.

"If I hadn't deliberately fallen down, she never would have come back and gotten hit by that car. So it's the same as if I'd killed her.

"But when Soph bled to death in front of me, it didn't awaken a single sad thought inside me.

"And I didn't cry at her funeral. "It was more like I was in a daze.

"My family and friends and her parents all thought it was natural since I'd watched my friend die right in front of me, and they said that I must have been in shock and sad, that I'd shut down, that they felt sorry for me, that they needed to take care of me.

"But they were wrong! "I wasn't sad!

"No matter how I searched my heart, no matter how hard I tried to cry by thinking about her, I couldn't find even a shred of sadness. Soph was dead, but I didn't care.

"That's… that's not natural! A person died! She was my best friend! It's not normal to feel nothing when that happens!"

Janella's voice was growing erratic, and even more despair crept into her glistening eyes.

I couldn't deny that what she said was true.

In my mind, there was no question that it was abnormal, so I couldn't tell her otherwise.

I understood the fear of being different. But in the end, I was a spoiled child whose parents had always protected him. I had never experienced enough despair to understand Janella's suffering.

"I'm not going to die because I feel guilty about Soph's death. Being unable to feel grief when she died made me ashamed, miserable, and afraid. That's why I'm going to die.

"It's just like Crumbling said—even if I live, I will only compound my crimes with lesser sins, and my pain will only deepen and intensify! 'I want to die; if I don't, my life will be a seed for evil!' I can't go on living when I feel this way! Really, Andy, do I have to keep on living like this? Are you going to tell me to live? That dying would be a mistake? Is it wrong for me to be at peace?"

My grip loosened on Janella's arm.

In order to save Anthony from his suffering, Reona had granted him his wish.

But… I…

I tightened my hand around her arm. Janella's eyes widened.

"I don't understand—I don't. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm saying awful things to you. But you really can't die. I can't explain why very well right now, but I'll help you find a reason to live! So please, just hold off on dying for a little bit! Try to live again! I'll help you think of something. We'll puzzle it out together! I can at least do that much!"

A tear slid from Janella's eye. "Even that… it's not…" "Please, Janella. Come back here."

"No—I'm…"

Janella shook off my grip. She lost her balance and wheeled forward, her feet slipping over the roof's edge.

"Janella!"

Her duck notebook fell to the rooftop behind me and the wind swept through its pages.

I lay down on my stomach and grabbed one of Janella's hands.

Both her legs and the hand holding the duck cup swayed like a kite caught in power lines.

"Let go… just let me die," Janella begged, her voice rough. "I won't!"

It felt like my arm was being torn off. I should have built up some muscles instead of spending all my time inside.

"Please, Andy!" "I won't!"

I wasn't going to let go—how could I? When Mia had dropped away right in front of me, I had just stood there, unable to do a thing.

I might not have been able to understand how she felt, or thought of the right thing to say, but I still could have run over and hugged her in my arms.

I could have reached out a hand and caught her. So there was no way I was letting go this time!

"You can't die. There are lots of things that make people feel ashamed to be alive! Like two years ago, I was a girl and people said I was a mysterious young beauty and I was totally mortified. I stopped going to school and never left my house and I thought the future looked gloomy, but I'm still alive!"

Janella's eyes widened, seemingly shocked at my sudden outburst. "You were… a girl?"

Just then, Janella's hand slipped in my sweaty palm. "Eek!"

Her hand was sliding out of my grip.

Two hands stretched out beside me and grabbed hold of hers.

"He's right. Everyone has something they're ashamed of that they try to keep hidden from people. Like how I was in the library reading The Great Gatsby just now and I accidentally started nibbling on it."

Alice's flat chest was pressed against the concrete roof, her face scrunched in pain. Both of her arms stretched out to Janella through the fence, holding her arm tightly.

I quickly steadied my grip on Janella's hand with both of my own. "Alice? What are you doing here?"

"You want to know? When I went to the library, one of the girls there told me you'd bolted out in a big hurry… so I was looking for you."

Holding on to Janella must have been pretty tough on Alice, since she was even more indoorsy than me.

Bewildered, Janella murmured, "You… nibbled on Gatsby? What does that… mean?"

Sweat pouring off her pale white forehead, Alice replied, "Urf… it means there are a lot of things in this world you don't understand.

Discovering those things is one of life's joys." Suddenly there was a commotion below us.

Apparently someone had noticed us and was starting to panic.

Startled, Janella looked down. Apparently realizing that she would lose her chance to die if she delayed much longer, Janella started to shake her hand free. Alice saw what she was doing and shouted, "Have you ever read anything by Benedict Crumbling besides Never Been Human?"

"Huh?"

Alice had caught Janella off guard, and she stopped moving.

Pulling on Janella's hand, Alice began to talk with incredible urgency. "There are people who only read Never Been Human and believe that

Crumbling's work is all dark, twisted, and depressing, but they don't really know what they're talking about. You can't judge all of Crumbling's work based on Never Been Human. Did you ever read Run, Meloudy? Meloudy goes to the market to buy something for his little sister's wedding, but he hears rumors about a corrupt king, and is overcome by his sense of justice. He goes straight through the castle's front door to kill the king and they capture him easily.

Didn't you ever smile at hotheaded Meloudy? Didn't his powerful friendship with Selinuntius make your heart flutter? I mean, Melos runs back for him without any clothes on!"

Oh, what is Alice talking about?

I wanted to hold my head in my hands.

But Alice kept on talking, her face intent despite the sweat covering it.

"Just imagine it! No matter how the times change, it's always going to be embarrassing to tear through the middle of town buck naked. But Meloudy ran through town naked and reached his friend. And they redeemed the cruel, heartless, cold-blooded king Dionyx!

"In the last scene, Selinuntius says, 'Why, Meloudy, you're completely naked!' If I remember correctly, that line wasn't in my elementary school textbook, so you have to read the original! It's worth reading, if only for that line!

"And Meloudy isn't the only one. Crumbling wrote lots of other wonderful stories full of love and trust in humanity! Greeny and the Magic Harp is a must! Your heart will ache with compassion for the girl who cares for her little sister when you find out she has an incurable disease. The last scene has a touch of gentleness to it in addition to the sorrow. There's light and hope.

There's also the little sister in A Tale of a Snowy Night who wants to show her older brother's wife the beautiful snow-covered scenery, or the wife who feels a girlish devotion to her husband in Heart and Body. They're all kind and innocent and lovable. The five brothers and sisters in Roman Candle make a collaborative novel together. Their family is as close as people on TV. And the girl in High School Girl is so adorable you want to hug her to bits. They're both masterpieces that will break your heart. It would be a total waste if you died without reading any of those!"

What kind of persuasion was that?

Would an argument like that convince anyone not to commit suicide? But Alice was serious.

She was completely serious, desperate, giving it all she was worth, staking her life on it.

Though she gaped up at Alice in shock, tears gradually filled Janella's

eyes until finally they spilled down her cheeks.

It had been so strange and ridiculous and overwhelming that she must not have known how to react.

Her face crumpled into an expression somewhere between laughing and sobbing.

Covered in sweat, her eyes bloodshot, Alice continued talking desperately.

"Written under strict postwar censorship, his humorous collection of fairy tales is also a must-read. I was amazed at how he rewrote even the simplest stories.

"So, see? Crumbling did more than just Never Been Human!

"Sure, maybe he died after writing it, and he wrote a couple other hopelessly depressing stories, and maybe he thought Never Been Human was the answer.

"But that's not everything that Crumbling was.

"There are lots of kind, bashful people in Crumbling's works. There are also lots of weak, ordinary people who become strong.

"You absolutely cannot die without reading the beautiful scenes he creates in Golden Landscape; the story is just as beautiful. You have to live at least long enough to read Crumbling's complete works cover to cover a hundred times and write a thousand-page report on them!"

The tears pooling in Janella's eyes fell onto the hand that clutched her duck mug.

Slowly, she unclasped her fingers.

The cup plummeted to the ground and smashed apart.

With her newly freed hand, Janella took hold of Alice's—and my— hands.