My heart shrank, and I stared at the book with its swollen pages, as if it were sucking me in.

"I"ve reread this book so many times...It"s such a wonderful, beautiful story."

Did Miu really think so?

That it was a wonderful, beautiful story?

Feeling tense, as if I was breaking a taboo, I reached out for the faded cover when- I heard the door open behind me. I hurriedly pulled my arm back and turned around.

A woman about the same age as my mother stood there, wearing a beige coat.

Her face tightened in surprise.

"Are you Inoue?"

I thought my heart would stop.

I had only met her two or three times, but I remembered who this person was, glaring at me, her face thickly painted with white foundation and twisted in aversion.

"Miu says she doesn"t want to see you. She jumped because of something you did to her. Don"t come to see her again, Inoue."

Miu"s mother!

Her shoes clicking, she walked over to me with a harsh look on her face. I couldn"t move.

"It is you! What are you doing in Miu"s room? Is it your fault that she"s been getting violent again? That"s what happened when she jumped off the roof. Until then, she was such an attentive, obedient child, and then out of the blue, she does an awful thing like that!

"When she regained consciousness, she was extremely worked up and crying, "Not Konoha." And every day after that, she would swear, "I don"t want to see Konoha," "It"s Konoha"s fault," "I don"t want to see his face or hear his voice!""

Her sharp voice filled with hatred, and it bent and cracked like a dark whip, pinning me down. The things Miu"s mother was saying were the exact opposite of what Miu had told me.

"When you came to see me at the hospital, I wanted to see you more than anything. But my mom and dad...they wouldn"t let me see you...They thought you must have done something to me."

"All she would say was "I want to get away from Konoha," "I don"t want to be near him," "If I don"t get out, I"ll kill myself again." Our only option was to hurry and transfer her to another hospital."

"And then they forced me to change hospitals..."

Miu, her eyes filling with tears as she looked sadly up at me.

Miu laughing that she was so happy to see me.

The sight of Miu wreathed in pure light, her voice-both grew more and more distant until pitch-black darkness fell over me.

"My mother-in-law berated me mercilessly for taking Miu away. She said it was wrong, that Miu should have been raised by her side of the family from the very beginning, that I"d ruined her precious granddaughter.

"And my husband told me there was nothing we could do since Miu was sobbing that she didn"t want to stay with me, that he supposed I must have had a huge burden, and then my mother-in-law stuck her nose in and wouldn"t stop the proceedings for transferring her.

"And yet the instant my mother-in-law had a stroke and dropped dead, they made Miu transfer back here because they said there wasn"t anyone to help take care of her! They said I had an obligation as her mother to look after her! Now that his nagging mother is dead, that man just wants to formally divorce me and marry his girlfriend. Miu got in the way of that, and he shoved her off on me. He"s an absolute sc.u.mbag!"

Her spiteful voice filled the darkness. Her bloodshot eyes glinted lividly, like the sun setting for the last time over a blasted world, and tried to scorch my body and suck me in.

Hadn"t Miu"s father been posted somewhere else for work?

Formal divorce? His girlfriend?

I was shaken and disturbed by the words pelting me in quick succession.

What was Miu"s mother saying with her face that flushed and her voice that loud?

And Miu-had Miu really lied? Were the things Akutagawa and Kotobuki said true?

Had Miu hated me all along?

Then why had she said she was glad to see me? That she"d been working hard at physical therapy in order to see me?

My knees trembled and threatened to buckle. My ears roared, my fingertips grew numb, and my breathing became strained.

The rancorous words she was spewing out still wouldn"t stop.

Just then there was a hiss and a silver crutch came flying into the room. The vase on the bedside table fell onto the floor and broke apart.

"Stop it! Don"t make Konoha your trash can, too!"

The one who"d hurled the crutch into the vase and knocked it over was Miu.

Miu"s eyes burned with rage as she clung to the door. It was as if sparks were flying, crackling, from her irises. Her white face grew even paler and more translucent until she looked like a ghost.

Miu"s eyes were on her mother.

"What are you doing here?! I said you didn"t have to come, didn"t I?! Get out! Now!"

Fragments of the vase were strewn across the floor, along with water and the red flowers. Miu"s mother was just as pale as her daughter was.

"Miu! How could you do that?!"

"Get out! Get out!"

Miu tried to move forward, but she stumbled, unable to support her body, and she fell. She gritted her teeth in apparent pain and crawled over to the broken fragments. She picked one up and pressed it to the side of her neck.

"Miu!" I shuddered.

"Stop it at once, Miu!"

"Get out right now. If you don"t, I"ll cut myself. I"m serious!"

Her mother was speechless. After staring at each other for only a second or two, she muttered grimly, "I"ll get your father to come," put her coat on, and rushed out of the room.

The shard fell from Miu"s hand and struck the floor with a clatter.

"I wish they were dead...all of them...I"ll never forgive them for throwing their trash wherever they felt like it...I wish they were dead..."

"Miu..."

My tensed body finally moved, and I walked over to Miu, placed a hand on her shoulder, and tried to help her stand.

Miu slapped my hand and shook it off.

Her long nails scratched the back of my hand. As she looked up at me, I could see the same look she"d given her mother on her face. A face filled with fierce rage, pain, and loathing. A look like fire.

I was flabbergasted. In a low voice, Miu said, "Don"t touch me."

That made my heart freeze instantly.

The absolute rejection, the naked loathing in her voice.

Her daggerlike gaze.

My skin p.r.i.c.kled with the fear of toppling backward into the darkness.

"M-Miu, are the things your mother said true? That you wanted to transfer hospitals? Because you didn"t want to see me?"

Even now I didn"t want to see it.

If Miu denied it, if she said that everything had been a lie of her mother"s, I might have believed her.

No! It wasn"t true!

The pain digging into my chest condemned me for my own failings. It wasn"t as if I"d believed Miu. I had just wanted her to make me believe her. For my own peace of mind.

After all, I couldn"t bear to be hated by Miu!

Please, say it"s not true!

But Miu wasn"t trying to hide her loathing for me anymore. She fixed me with a cold, lucid glare as I trembled and paled like a small rabbit, and in a voice dripping with bile, she declared, "You never noticed? That I hate you? I didn"t want to see your face, so I went to be with my dad. Everything I told you was a lie."

The sound of something precious being pulverized echoed through my brain.

Miu"s smile.

Miu"s voice.

Miu"s touch.

Miu"s stories.

They froze solid in an instant and then shattered.

"But it"s true that I was intense about my physical therapy so that I could see you, Konoha. I wanted to see you and take my revenge. After all, you were the one who did this to me!"

A cold arrow penetrated my heart.

Cruel, pitiless words.

"I planned to take away everything important to you. To lie to you and trick you into losing your friends and your girlfriend like an idiot."

I couldn"t speak. My face, too, was hardened like stone and wouldn"t budge.

Unresisting, I was abused, shredded, and hollowed out.

Unable to move a muscle as if I"d stopped breathing but remained alive.

Miu picked up her crutch and decked me with it.

My head rolled back, and my body wheeled, and a burning pain dragged my consciousness back to the inescapable reality.

"How long are you gonna s.p.a.ce out?! Get out! I"m tired of looking at you!"

She pointed at the door with her crutch.

"Why...?" I whispered in a rough voice. "What about me...wasn"t good enough? What can I do so you"ll forgive me?"

I want you to tell me. I would do anything, as long as you desired it.

I would give anything-my hands, my legs, my eyes, my life.

I wouldn"t even mind being burned in eternal flames, like Scorpio in Night of the Milky Way Railroad.

What do you want me to do? How can I atone?

I felt as if my heart would stop from the despair pressing in on me. Miu thrust her crutch sharply into my chest and shouted, "Then grant Campanella"s wish! But you don"t have a chance of figuring it out!"

And then she beat my shoulders, my arms, my head, and my chest again and again with her crutch.

As if she would never calm down no matter how much she beat me, crumpled on the ground, her face twisting, baring her teeth, again and again.

"Get out! Now! Get out! Get out! I hate you! Get ooout!"

The sound of Miu"s voice shouting crazily. The metallic sound ringing out clang, clang on my body. The pain slamming into my flesh.

I stood with a groan and fled the room as she had demanded. Because that was the sole thing of which I was capable.

When I touched my hand to my forehead, I felt a slimy sensation. I looked down at my palm and saw a red stain tingeing it. I pressed down on on my forehead firmly and wobbled down the hall.

My entire body still hurt, tortured, and I couldn"t breathe, as if I were still being beaten. A hot lump pushed in to fill my throat, and the world before me blurred.

Why? Why, Miu?

What did Campanella wish for? What is it you wish for?