Free Book Girl and the Famished Spirit by Mizuki Nomura Page A

Kayano smiled prettily.
    “Hello, Konoha.”
    Even the way she said my name reminded me of Miu.
    A sweet voice, tickling at my ears.
    She was not Miu. Even worse, she didn’t even belong to the world of the living anymore, but still I couldn’t stop my heart from trembling.
    “You made a promise. Tell me. What do those numbers that you leave in our mailbox mean?”
    “Now, now, I only said I would give you a hint.”
    “Then would you give it to me?”
    Kayano spread out the hem of her skirt and sat down on one of the black desks.
    “The hint is my name. K-a-y-a-n-o.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “Hee-hee. Think a little harder, detective.”
    “I’m just a high school student. I can’t figure anything out from such a small clue. Can you give me another hint?”
    “In that case, I’ll tell you about him,” she whispered, a tender warmth flickering to life in her eyes as she looked at me. “He was closer to me than anyone. He was a part of my soul and my other half. Everywhere we went and everything we did, it was together…”
    The pristine moonlight shining through the window carried with it memories of the distant past.
    The fragments of time became white feathers, which fluttered slowly down around me with the light of the moon.
    It had been the same for us…
    Wherever we went, whatever we did, it was together. Miu had been the other half of my soul. Or at least that’s how I had felt about her.
    “He and I had a lot of fun together. But”—Kayano’s lashes drooped sadly—“he got angry at me and went away. We never saw each other again.”
    I pressed down on my chest as pain seared through my heart.
    I would never see her again, either.
    Miu had rejected me, her eyes filled with such loathing.
    I had loved her so much, but I would never see her again…
    “Say, Konoha—do you know how you can get back the things you’ve lost?” Kayano asked soberly, looking straight at me.
    I bunched the front of my shirt in my fist and answered, my voice shaking, “That’s impossible. You can’t get something back once it’s gone.”
    Kayano lowered her eyes ever so slightly and declared with perfect detachment, “No, it’s actually very easy. You just have to reverse time. Then you won’t make the same mistakes you did before.”
    It was like a devil was whispering in my ear.
    If I could reverse time… if I could go back to that day…
    How often had I wished to do exactly that during that interminable winter I spent in bed, the covers pulled over my head?
    If I could go back to how things were before I wrote the novel, could go back to that day Miu threw herself off the roof…
    Please, God—grant me this wish. Please let me go back.
    I didn’t need anything else as long as I didn’t have to lose Miu.
    Please, God.
    But time didn’t reverse itself.
    I was here alone.
    “That’s impossible. Nobody can go back in time.”
    Kayano saw how badly I shook, and her face suddenly saddened. She murmured very quietly, “I see… so you’ve wanted to go back before, too.”
    She slid off the desk and walked toward me. She reached out both arms and gently wrapped them around my head, pulling me to her frail chest.
    I had no idea what emotions inspired that act.
    She only seemed to be very sad, and she was trembling a little. Her thin body was as cool as snow and had a clean scent I’d smelled somewhere before.
    I relinquished myself to the phantom embrace, feeling a faint relief and also a deep ache.
    I wouldn’t have minded if time had frozen forever in that moment.
    But after a little while, Kayano pulled away from me and whispered, “I have to go. Someone is waiting for me.”
    I watched her walk out to the hallway and finally came back to my senses. I still hadn’t said anything. I didn’t want to let her go.
    “W-wait—uh, do… do you want to g-get something to eat?”
    Ugh, what an awful line. Couldn’t I think of anything more original?
    Kayano turned around.
    “I can’t… I only eat