For the past twenty-four hours, though, Wakana had been insufferable. All the crying had gotten under Mai’s skin so much that she could barely stand to be in the same room with the girl-which was a problem, since they were roommates. Wakana had been talking about Daisuke nonstop since May. The two of them had met in Noh club and were apparently boyfriend and girlfriend, although they never really went out anywhere, so Mai had her doubts that they could be considered a couple. If Daisuke really liked Wakana, he would have taken her to dinner, or done something romantic with her. At least, that was what Mai had told Wakana, over and over.
Daisuke did like to hang around, though. He commuted from home to school, but every day he seemed to linger, quietly flirting with Wakana. As her roommate, Mai saw a lot of Daisuke as well, and against her better judgment-as much as it drove her crazy how much Wakana talked about him-she ended up liking the guy. He had a cute smile and a nice laugh and a self-effacing sense of humor that charmed Mai completely.
Now Daisuke was missing. Her roommate’s boyfriend. Ever since Mr. Sato and Mr. Yamato came to their room last night to ask if they had any idea where he might be, all Wakana had been able to do was cry, and Mai couldn’t listen to her anymore.
She stood in the shower, the water too hot now, the spray like tiny pinpricks, her skin almost scalding, but she didn’t turn it off. If she did, she would have to dry off and go back to her room and listen to Wakana cry. She wished she could stay in here until her roommate had cried herself to sleep. Mai especially did not want to go back into the room until she could stop her own tears, for she was crying for Daisuke as well.
You shouldn’t be. He’s not your boyfriend, she told herself. Mai knew that there wasn’t anything wrong with crying out of worry for a friend’s safety. But the problem was, she had started to think of Daisuke as more than a friend-her roommate’s boyfriend or not. And if she went back into their room with tears in her eyes, she would never be able to hide that from Wakana.
Mai didn’t want that. Acting like a bitch to that teacher’s pet gaijin girl, Kara Harper, was one thing. But hurting Wakana, the most harmless person in the world, would not sit right in her heart. The other soccer girls, the ones who had worshipped Ume and were now turning that worship to Mai herself, would never understand such thoughts. They were merciless, those girls, and the only reason Mai stepped up into the queen bitch role was to prevent any of them from doing so. She had taken enough crap from Ume.
But Wakana… all she ever did was read, and try hard to stay out of the way. It was difficult enough for her to deal with Daisuke just vanishing, or running away, if that was really what happened. Mai just wished she would stop crying. And she wished that she could pretend Ume had never told her the crazy stories about ghosts and demons or whatever those things were back in April.
Mai hadn’t really believed Ume then, and though Daisuke’s disappearance had freaked her out, she didn’t really believe her now. But it had been clear from the fervor in her eyes that Ume had believed, and she found that deeply unsettling.
“Stop,” she whispered to herself, the word lost in the hiss of the shower. She took another deep breath. “Just stop.”
The command seemed to work. She turned and let the hot water spray her face, eyes tightly shut. When she shut off the water, grabbed her towel, and ran the soft cloth over her features, her tears had ceased. Mai paused a second to make sure they wouldn’t return, and then finished drying herself off before stepping out of the shower.
Clad in her robe with a towel wrapped around her head, she peeked into the hall to make sure there weren’t any boys out there. This time of night, the two sides of the dorm were off-limits to the opposite sexes, but rules were made to be broken. When she saw that the coast was clear, she darted down the hall, carrying the small shower caddy where she kept her shampoo and body wash, her room key dangling from a hook there.
Mai gave the door a quick rap and tried the knob, but it didn’t turn. She frowned. When she’d gone to shower, she had left it unlocked so that she wouldn’t have to disturb Wakana, but the girl had actually shaken herself from her sobbing long enough to lock the door behind her?
And people think I’m a bitch, Mai thought.
With a sigh, she pushed her key into the lock. As she turned it, she heard a noise from inside the room-a kind of helpless, plaintive sound that was neither sob nor grunt, but something in between.
The door trembled, pressing slightly outward, and she felt a cool breeze come underneath it, sweeping past her feet. As the door resettled, she turned the key and pushed it open. She entered to discover one of the two windows wide open, as far as its frame would allow, which made no sense because the air-conditioning was humming along nicely. Another gust of wind came through the window as she went to close the door, snatching the knob from her damp hand and slamming it behind her, making her jump.
The dormitory rooms were small. Two beds, tatami mats, two tiny desks, a small futon-chair, built-in closets, and a mirror.
“Wakana?” Mai said, an odd feeling creeping up her spine.
It might have been possible for her roommate to fit into one of the closets, but only barely, and not without spilling clothes out onto the floor. And then there was the question: why? Besides, Mai could feel the emptiness of the room.
Wakana was gone.
Brow furrowing, Mai glanced at the door she had just come through. Wakana must have gone out, locking the door behind her, knowing Mai had a key. It was the only thing that made any sense.
She went to the window and leaned on the sill, looking out, head cocked and all of her senses wide open. Something wasn’t right. No, more than that. Many things were not right. Her heart began to beat a little faster and the skin prickled at the back of her neck. The sound she’d heard, that tiny yelp-she had not imagined it. Mai might persuade herself otherwise if she let herself, so she fixed it firmly in her memory, pinned it there, confirming for herself that it had been real. And now that she considered it, her nostrils flared as she detected the strangest aroma in the room and just outside the window. The smell was neither pleasant nor unpleasant-or, rather, it was a bit of both, like dying flowers or fruit just beginning to turn.
Mai peered out into the darkness behind the dorm, where a narrow lawn separated the building from the woods that marked the property boundary at the rear of the school grounds. The wind continued to gust, rustling leaves, but that scent remained unchanged, lingering like the spray from a skunk, though not nearly so offensive.
Somewhere far off, a bell began to ring, or perhaps had been ringing. She tried to keep count of its tolling but lost track while wondering where the sound originated. Had one of the local churches or temples gotten a new bell? She’d never heard it before.
She flinched, stepping back from the window. Down in the trees, had she seen something moving? A pale face, darting behind a tree? Her heart began to sprint, now, and Mai tried to calm down.
The clock read 10:48. Late. Too late for Wakana to have gone out. Maybe she only went to someone else’s room. That had to be it. Relief washed over Mai as she grasped at this simple solution. Chuckling at herself, she let her towel and robe drop and quickly stepped into underwear and pajama bottoms and a yellow T-shirt with a cute monkey on it. She went to the door, thinking she would take a stroll down the hall, and surely she would find Wakana.
As she opened the door, a hot, humid breeze caressed her, and she remembered the open window, and the humming air-conditioner. She ought to shut the window. When she turned back to do precisely that, however, her gaze fell on something she hadn’t seen before.
Wakana’s keys, on the little tea table next to her bed.