The Book of Heroes Read Online Free Page A

Hiroki.
    Gradually, the news stopped talking about him. Yuriko’s grandmother called and said that the reporters weren’t around their apartment building anymore, so she and her mother decided to go home.
    When she saw her father again he looked like he had lost several pounds, and his hair was whiter than it had been only a week before.
    “Sorry about all this, Yuriko. It must have been tough for you in the hotel. We’ll just live here like normal from now on, until Hiroki comes home. Don’t worry, Yuriko,” he added, “he’ll come home. I’m sure of it.”
    Yuriko knew her father was trying to cheer her up. Her mother sat nearby on the couch, nodding. Let’s all be as cheerful as we can be.
    That’s impossible, Yuriko thought, but she swallowed her words. There was no point telling her parents something they already knew. And she knew they were only trying to make her feel better.
    One small relief was that the grandparents had all gone back to their homes. If they were there, there would be more crying and shouting and siding with her mother and annoying her father. That was how it had always been, before any of this had even happened.
    I wish our relatives wouldn’t shout all the time.
    Hiroki had said that once.
    And Mom’s and Dad’s parents don’t get along with each other at all.
    Yuriko was probably still too young to understand, he had told her.
    But Hiroki understood. So why did he do something that was sure to bring them around to grumble and whine?
    Just living here “like normal” meant that Yuriko would have to go back to school. She should have expected it, but still it was a shock when her mother asked if she was ready to return the next week. No, maybe not a shock per se ; school was just a totally foreign concept. It was as if her mother had told her she was going to the moon. She couldn’t imagine herself sitting at a desk in a classroom, taking notes.
    How would her friends act?
    How should she act?
    Back in reality, time marched on, and on Friday afternoon, Mr. Katayama paid a visit to their home. He flashed an exaggeratedly large smile when he saw Yuriko. “Everyone’s worried about you. I had some of the other girls in class take notes for you, so don’t worry about that. You won’t fall behind.”
    Then Mr. Katayama started talking to her mother. Yuriko was asked to go to her room.
    “I’ll just be talking to your teacher for a bit.”
    They closed the door to the living room.
    Yuriko was walking toward her door, when she changed her mind.
    Hiroki’s room.
    She hadn’t been in there once since they had returned to the apartment. Her mother was always there, and when Yuriko was watching television or reading a book, her mother would slip off into his room and cry. She tried to hide it, but Yuriko still knew. So she had stayed away. She didn’t want to see her mother like that, and she knew it would be worse for her if she knew Yuriko had been listening.
    Hiroki’s room looked exactly the way it had when Yuriko peeked in on the day of his disappearance, with one difference. Someone had taken the jacket off his chair and folded it on the bed. It was like trying to spot the difference between two seemingly identical pictures. Hiroki’s room before, and Hiroki’s room now. The biggest difference, but also the easiest one to miss, was that Hiroki wasn’t there.
    Yuriko sat lightly on the coverlet next to the folded jacket. The bed sank only a little bit beneath her.
    A car drove by outside the window, loud music belting from it. It was a sunny day. Just like the day when Hiroki had disappeared.
    Yuriko sat by herself, listening to the music.
    It was then that it suddenly occurred to her—the way you suddenly realize that you’ve left something important behind—that she hadn’t cried once. She had almost cried any number of times, but never like her mother cried. Not even when she had seen tears in her father’s eyes.
    Why? I’m sad. So why can’t I cry?
    Maybe, she