Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [91]
The doorman bent down in front of the intercom. “Ms. Ashikawa? This boy here is in elementary school, like he says. He seems to be in a big hurry.”
“Show him up.”
The automatic doors slid open. Wataru ran through, heading for the elevator. The doorman followed behind him. It seemed like he was going to show him the way, though he didn’t seem too pleased about it.
They got to the tenth floor and turned right out of the elevator. A slender woman was standing by the open door to the apartment.
“This is him, Ms. Ashikawa,” the concierge said, giving Wataru a push. “I don’t know what’s going on, but be careful. I don’t want any trouble like last time. If anything happens on my watch, it’s my responsibility, you see.”
The woman in the doorway thanked the concierge politely. He walked back, and disappeared into the elevator.
Wataru stood quietly, looking up at the woman. He could feel the warm trickle from his nose spreading. He was still bleeding.
The woman was very young. Wataru wasn’t sure exactly how old she might be, but there was no way she could be Mitsuru’s mother. She was really beautiful—a knockout. She wore a white sleeveless blouse and a light gray miniskirt. She was holding the door open with one hand, with the other resting lightly on her hip. A silver bangle shone on her wrist. Wataru was so sure the voice he had heard was Mitsuru’s mother that for a moment he stood there confused.
“Are you a friend of Mitsuru’s?” the woman asked, looking down at Wataru. It was the same voice he had heard over the intercom.
Wataru nodded silently. He only needed to nod once, but for some reason he kept nodding over and over, like a broken toy.
“Your nose is bleeding,” she said disapprovingly. She lifted her hand from her waist to her forehead and stood there for a moment. Then, sighing, she opened the door wider and waved him in.
While not particularly large, the room was bright and filled with sunlight. It was very clean. The furniture seemed like something from a designer’s catalog. Wataru’s head was spinning, so he couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t seem like the kind of house that people with kids would live in. He started to wonder if Mitsuru really lived here.
The girl shut the door and followed Wataru into the living room, taking a tissue out of a box on the coffee table and offering it to him. “There. Wipe your nose and tell me what happened.”
Wataru did as he was told. “I ran into the door downstairs.”
He pressed his nose with a tissue. It throbbed painfully. He hadn’t been able to feel it before, but now it hurt so much his eyes watered.
The woman pushed forward a chair on rollers for Wataru, and then sat down on a nearby sofa. Wataru sat in the chair. Sitting, their eyes were on the same level.
The woman looked like she was in even more pain than Wataru. “So Mitsuru really wasn’t at school?” she asked quietly.
“No, he wasn’t,” Wataru answered from beneath the tissue. His front teeth were hurting too. He was too scared to touch them, afraid they might be loose.
“What’s your name?”
Wataru introduced himself, and before she had a chance to say anything, he added “Mitsuru and I go to cram school together.”
The woman merely nodded silently. She didn’t seem suspicious at all. Wataru got the feeling that maybe Ashikawa never talked about school.
“Well, thank you for your concern,” she said, still looking pained. “You don’t have any idea where he might be, do you?”
“I haven’t seen him at all today.”
She nodded again. “He left a message. I think he’s run away from home.”
I suppose you could call that leaving home. So long. And where did he run away to? To some other place, some other world?
“Maybe you heard about me from Mitsuru. I’m his aunt.”
That explained her age.
“Mitsuru doesn’t talk much about home, so I really didn’t know anything. Just the rumors about him living overseas and stuff.”
For reasons Wataru couldn’t guess at, Mitsuru’s aunt suddenly looked even sadder. She put a hand to her forehead again. The bangle sparkled in