The Actor (Part 3)

As if she had finally made up her mind, she suddenly stood up and grabbed Karuizawa Kei's hand.

"We're not waiting anymore. Let's go!"

"Huh? What?"

The girl in front of her pulled her along at a breakneck run out of the temple and onto the mountain path leading to the summit. Only then did Karuizawa Kei come to her senses and hurriedly ask:

"W-what's wrong?"

Ichinose Maki was exhausted from running, too. She took the opportunity to stop, panting as she explained:

"Actually, actually, my brother and sister are coming over soon."

"Huh? Kitagawa-senpai and the others are coming?"

"I don't know what my sister is planning, but I think it'd be best if you didn't meet them."

Ichinose Maki casually switched off her phone and spoke to Karuizawa Kei with a serious look on her small face:

"Do you like my brother?"

The question was so direct that Karuizawa Kei was at a loss for words. Her pretty face turned bright red, and she stammered without managing to give a proper answer—even though the girl in front of her was two years younger.

"You do like him. I know, because we're the same."

Ichinose Maki put her index finger to her lips and whispered:

"I'll tell you a secret..."

"My brother's a liar. He's such a big liar, he'd be wasted if he didn't become an actor."

"Kitagawa-senpai doesn't seem like the kind of person who would lie."

A little bewildered by Ichinose Maki's sudden change of topic, Karuizawa Kei instinctively protested.

"There are several lies I know about."

"For example..."

"I've never confessed to him."

That was what Ichinose Maki said.

Chapter Thirteen: Actor (Part Two)

"I feel like they're treating me like a rabbit."

"Rabbits don't eat this much soy, do they... probably?"

"I can't believe I thought all that tofu skin, tofu strips, and fried tofu tasted way better than all those leafy greens."

"I heard that half an hour ago, some people made a huge fuss here because the food wasn't to their liking, and the staff had to escort them out. They were apparently a bunch of delinquents, but they behaved themselves as soon as they saw the security guards."

"It wasn't that bad, was it? Though I guess it's a bit disappointing for tourists."

After leaving the visitor dining hall, Kitagawa Ryo and Ichinose Honami smiled and exchanged greetings with a monk passing by. Then they turned to each other and started complaining about the vegetarian meal they'd just eaten.

"I think I need something else to eat."

Kitagawa Ryo rubbed his stomach. The complimentary vegetarian meal had been the very embodiment of "vegetarian," and there had been pitifully little of it. For a boy his age, it was about as filling as an appetizer.

"There are still sandwiches in my bag."

Ichinose Honami checked her backpack and took out two ham-and-egg sandwiches she'd made at home.

The temple, built halfway up the mountain, was quite large. The two of them had wandered from the front courtyard to the main hall, drawn a fortune there, then continued from the hall to the back courtyard. It had taken them nearly an hour to see the whole attraction. By the time they reached the part of the back courtyard near the exit, Kitagawa Ryo had finally finished his third sandwich and was contentedly drinking lemon blossom tea.

A platform had been set up in the middle of the back courtyard. Three elderly monks with white hair and beards sat there, interpreting the fortunes visitors had drawn in the main hall. What surprised Kitagawa Ryo a little was that the temple didn't interpret love fortunes. His curiosity piqued, he quietly edged closer to a tour group nearby. Sure enough, their guide was explaining the origins of the custom.

Kitagawa Ryo had never been interested in listening to these kinds of legends. In his view, most of the stories—true or invented—that circulated at tourist attractions had been created when the tourism board selected a place for development. A writer would wave his pen, and every mountain, shrine, and river would suddenly acquire its own legend. That was the only way local guides could have something to boast about to the visitors who came and went.

It was all business, really. Kitagawa Ryo didn't want a guide leading him around and pointing out that one rock looked like a monkey, another like an elephant, before everyone rushed over to take pictures. To him, that kind of sightseeing was no different from torture.

But this was the first temple he'd seen that didn't interpret love fortunes, so when someone in the nearby tour group raised the same question, he went over to listen.

The story was simple enough.

Several hundred years ago—or, well, a very long time ago—two brothers in the mountains fell in love with the same girl. They each went to ask about their romantic prospects, and both were told they would find a good match. Because of the girl, the brothers fell out and fought bitterly, but neither could get the better of the other. In the end, they asked the girl to choose between them, swearing that whoever she didn't choose would accept her decision and never seek revenge. What they hadn't expected was that the girl was just as conflicted. She enjoyed the fact that both brothers loved her wholeheartedly, yet she couldn't bring herself to choose.

As far as she was concerned, as long as she didn't choose, two people would love her. If she did choose, their love would be cut in half. To keep having both of their love, the girl jumped off a cliff in front of them. She thought that way the two brothers would remember her forever.

"What happened next?"

Ichinose Honami listened to Kitagawa Ryo's retelling of the story and asked curiously.

"Afterward, the two brothers settled down and started families. They had lots of descendants, and lived happy, prosperous lives."

Kitagawa Ryo's mouth twitched as he tried to recover from the story he'd just heard.

"What does that have to do with the temple not interpreting love fortunes?"

"Because the two brothers donated money to build this temple in their old age. They left behind the rule, too. As they neared the end of their lives, they somehow came to an agreement."

"Love fortunes can't predict a thing!"

Ichinose Honami, looking as speechless as Kitagawa Ryo, whispered to him:

"At first, I thought the brothers would see through worldly attachments, become monks, and sever their ties to love."

Kitagawa Ryo glanced at the love fortune Ichinose Honami had held all the way there and asked tentatively:

"So, what are you going to do with that?"

"Give it back."

Now that they knew the temple didn't interpret love fortunes, they'd lost interest. They found a monk who collected the fortunes and returned the wooden slip.

"You can keep it as a souvenir."

The monk collecting the slips looked to be in his twenties. When he saw that Ichinose Honami had handed him a love fortune, he explained:

"Although our temple doesn't interpret love fortunes, visitors are welcome to take them home."

"Ryo, do you want to keep it as a souvenir?"

"It's your fortune, Honami. You can decide."

Kitagawa Ryo folded his arms and waited while Ichinose Honami made up her mind, acting as though he didn't care either way.

Ichinose Honami looked again at the wooden slip in her hand. It really was an extremely cheap piece of wood. The smooth section at the top was wrapped in red cloth bearing the words "love fortune." Usually, love fortunes had a few ambiguous lines of poetry carved there, which the fortune-teller would then interpret. But given this temple's unusual custom, they were probably just for show.

"Don't you want to take a look?"

Ichinose Honami seemed to hear Kitagawa Ryo say something, but just then her phone vibrated with a new message. She paid him no mind, and handed the slip back to the monk with a slightly apologetic expression.

"We'll pass. We might end up throwing it away if we take it with us, so please take it back."

"Of course."

The monk didn't try to persuade her again. He nodded and carefully placed the wooden slip in a box beside him.

[Have they gone to the summit...?]

Kitagawa Ryo heard Ichinose Honami muttering something and looked at her in confusion.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Let's go to the summit, too. If we leave it any later, we won't have time to get back down."

Unable to get in touch with Ichinose Maki, Honami casually put her phone back in her bag. But thanks to the location-sharing app she'd installed on her younger sister's phone, she could still see exactly where Maki was.

"I was just wondering if Maki and the others had already reached the summit."

"Yeah. We haven't seen them at all. But there are two paths up the mountain, so maybe they didn't come this way through the temple."

Kitagawa Ryo took Ichinose Honami's shoulder bag and carried it for her. It was around two in the afternoon. The blazing sun shone at its highest point, releasing all its heat.

"Let's go. To the summit."

Five minutes after the two of them left, another man finished getting his fortune interpreted and asked the elderly monk in the middle with interest:

"Master, is it really like the tour guide said? Your temple doesn't interpret love fortunes?"

The elderly monk's eyelids fluttered, and he spoke slowly:

"The story is more or less as you heard it."

Just as the man began to look disappointed, the monk suddenly smiled. The wrinkles on his face, as old and dry as tree bark, bunched together until his eyes were almost invisible.

"But there's another version of the story told at this temple."

"The two benefactors who paid to build this temple actually left us these words:"

"Love won't suddenly make two people who have nothing to do with each other fall in love just because the fortune says it's auspicious. Nor will it make two people who like each other immediately part ways just because the fortune says it's inauspicious. If you fixate on the result of a love fortune, you may lose sight of your true feelings."

"That's why our temple never interprets love fortunes. If a couple comes here asking for an interpretation, we simply tell them that when it comes to love, they have to figure it out for themselves."

"Master, I understand now."

The man bowed deeply, looking as though he'd grasped everything.

"You truly have a gift for understanding. It seems you've had many insights into matters of the heart."

The old monk regarded him with an indulgent, "You're a bright young man" look and stroked his long beard.

"Master, actually, I'm thirty-nine and single."

The old monk nearly choked. He coughed hard twice, then beckoned a young monk over and continued speaking to the man with a kindly smile.

"If you're single, you can also choose our temple's custom love fortune service."

"Imagine this: you bring someone you're interested in to our temple to draw a love fortune. You're both anxiously waiting for the result, but then the temple tells you that you have to interpret it yourselves. So, right in front of your companion, you tear open the fortune slip, and there are the words you chose in advance. What a romantic scene!"

The old monk stroked his beard with a smug smile, as though this were a trade secret he wasn't supposed to reveal.

"I've been interpreting fortunes here for twenty years. This method has brought together at least eight hundred couples, if not a thousand. I've seen every kind of sweet talk, too. For an extra fee, the temple can even write it for you."

The old monk raised a hand, and the young monk beside him brought over a sturdy book wrapped in kraft paper and handed it to the man.

"These are the phrases we've used for custom love fortunes over the past year. Feel free to take a look."

"If two hearts are destined to stay together, what does it matter if they can't be together every morning and night?"

"That's a poem by Qin Guan from the Song dynasty."

The man seemed genuinely interested. He flipped through the book, murmuring to himself as he read.

"Side by side, the ducks swim on the water. But floating duckweed is easily scattered by frost and dew."

"That's a line from the Man'yoshu."

"I'll take care of you for the rest of my life."

"This one is surprisingly down-to-earth."

The man seemed well-read and commented on the verses with ease. But when he reached the last few pages, his confident expression suddenly froze.

"One—more—round."

"What does this mean?"

He scratched his head, puzzled. He couldn't find anything like it in the poems of the Tang or Song dynasties, or in the works of Matsuo or Furukawa.

"Love really is too hard to understand."

The man shook his head and sighed.

Karuizawa Kei stopped walking.

Whenever Karuizawa Kei saw this woman, Emi Koura, feelings of hatred and loathing welled up from the bottom of her heart. But she knew all too well that buried beneath those feelings was deep fear and avoidance. Just as she always asked to skip swimming lessons and closed her eyes every time she showered, she wanted nothing to do with this woman she hadn't seen in two years. Even though the wound on her waist had stopped bleeding long ago, Karuizawa Kei still couldn't bring herself to touch it.

She'd locked this woman and the scar she'd given her in a cage, sealed it shut, and sunk it to the bottom of the deepest well. But now that they'd met again, the memory hadn't fermented, rotted, or disappeared. Looking at the girl her own age in front of her, Karuizawa Kei felt a strange sense of incongruity.

The face that had flashed through her memories countless times hadn't changed much in two years. It was as if all her features had simply been enlarged in proportion. Her heavy makeup made her look like an apple that had been soaked in preservatives, with an unnatural red-and-white sheen.

"Hey, Karuizawa. It's been two years since we last saw each other, hasn't it?"

Her lips, painted with bright lipstick, opened and closed. The words that came out hit Karuizawa Kei like something rushing straight at her, nearly knocking her off her feet.

Even so, Karuizawa Kei stepped in front of Ichinose Maki to shield her. The phone hidden in her right hand, tucked behind her back, glowed.