omatsu phoned after the press conference to say that everything had gone well.

“A brilliant job,” he said with unusual excitement. “I never imagined she’d carry it off so flawlessly. The repartee was downright witty. She made a great impression on everybody.”

Tengo was not at all surprised to hear Komatsu’s report. Without any strong basis for it, he had not been especially worried about the press conference. He had assumed she would at least handle herself well. But “made a great impression”? Somehow, that didn’t fit with the Fuka-Eri he knew.

“So none of our dirty laundry came out, I suppose?” Tengo asked to make sure.

“No, we kept it short and deflected any awkward questions. Though in fact, there weren’t any tough questions to speak of. I mean, not even newspaper reporters want to look like bad guys grilling a sweet, lovely, seventeen-year-old girl. Of course, I should add ‘for the time being.’ No telling how it’ll go in the future. In this world, the wind can change direction before you know it.”

Tengo pictured Komatsu standing on a high cliff with a grim look on his face, licking his finger to test the wind direction.

“In any case, your practice session did the trick, Tengo. Thanks for doing such a good job. Tomorrow’s evening papers will report on the award and the press conference.”

“What was Fuka-Eri wearing?”

“What was she wearing? Just ordinary clothes. A tight sweater and jeans.”

“A sweater that showed off her boobs?”

“Yes, now that you mention it. Nice shape. They looked brand new, fresh from the oven,” Komatsu said. “You know, Tengo, she’s going to be a huge hit: girl genius writer. Good looks, maybe talks a little funny, but smart. She’s got that air about her: you know she’s not an ordinary person. I’ve been present at a lot of writers’ debuts, but she’s special. And when I say somebody’s special, they’re really special. The magazine carrying Air Chrysalis is going to be in the bookstores in another week, and I’ll bet you anything—my left hand and right leg—it’ll be sold out in three days.”

Tengo thanked Komatsu for the news and ended the call with some sense of relief. They had cleared the first hurdle, at least. How many more hurdles were waiting for them, though, he had no idea.

The next evening’s newspapers carried reports of the press conference. Tengo bought four of them at the station after work at the cram school and read them at home. They all said pretty much the same thing. None of the articles was especially long, but compared with the usual perfunctory five-line report, the treatment given to the event was unprecedented. As Komatsu had predicted, the media leapt on the news that a seventeen-year-old girl had won the prize. All reported that the four-person screening committee had chosen the work unanimously after only fifteen minutes of deliberation. That in itself was unusual. For four egotistical writers to gather in a room and be in perfect agreement was simply unheard of. The work was already causing a stir in the industry. A small press conference was held in the same room of the hotel where the award ceremony had taken place, the newspapers reported, and the prizewinner had responded to reporters’ questions “clearly and cheerfully.”

In answer to the question “Do you plan to keep writing fiction?” she had replied, “Fiction is simply one form for expressing one’s thoughts. It just so happens that the form I employed this time was fiction, but I can’t say what form I will use next time.” Tengo found it impossible to believe that Fuka-Eri had actually spoken in such long continuous sentences. The reporters might have strung her fragments together, filled in the gaps, and made whole sentences out of them. But then again, she might well have spoken in complete sentences like this. He couldn’t say anything about Fuka-Eri with absolute certainty.

When asked to name her favorite work of fiction, Fuka-Eri of course mentioned The Tale of the Heike. One reporter then asked which part of The Tale of the Heike she liked best, in response to which she recited her favorite passage from memory, which took a full five minutes. Everyone was so amazed, the recitation was followed by a stunned silence. Fortunately (in Tengo’s opinion), no one asked for her favorite song.

In response to the question “Who was the happiest for you about winning the new writers’ prize?” she took a long time to think (a scene that came easily to mind for Tengo), finally answering, “That’s a secret.”

As far as he could tell from the news reports, Fuka-Eri said nothing in the question-and-answer session that was untrue. Her picture was in all the papers, looking even more beautiful than the Fuka-Eri of Tengo’s memory. When he spoke with her in person, his attention was diverted from her face to her physical movements to her changes of expression to the words she formed, but seeing her in a still photograph, he was able to realize anew what a truly beautiful girl she was. A certain glow was perceptible even in the small shots taken at the press conference (in which he was able to confirm that she was wearing the same summer sweater). This glow was probably what Komatsu had called “that air about her: you know she’s not an ordinary person.”

Tengo folded the evening papers, put them away, and went to the kitchen. There he made himself a simple dinner while drinking a can of beer. The work that he himself had rewritten had won the new writers’ prize by unanimous consent, had already attracted much attention, and was on the verge of becoming a bestseller. The thought made him feel very strange. He wanted simply to celebrate the fact, but it also made him feel anxious and unsettled. He had been expecting this to happen, but he wondered if it was really all right for things to move ahead so smoothly.

While fixing dinner, he noticed that his appetite had disappeared. He had been quite hungry, but now he didn’t want to eat a thing. He covered the half-made food in plastic wrap and put it away in the refrigerator. Then he sat in a kitchen chair and drank his beer in silence while staring at the calendar on the wall. It was a free calendar from the bank containing photos of Mount Fuji. Tengo had never climbed Mount Fuji. He had never gone to the top of Tokyo Tower, either, or to the roof of a skyscraper. He had never been interested in high places. He wondered why not. Maybe it was because he had lived his whole life looking at the ground.

Komatsu’s prediction came true. The magazine containing Fuka-Eri’s Air Chrysalis nearly sold out the first day and soon disappeared from the bookstores. Literary magazines never sold out. Publishers continued to absorb the losses each month, knowing that the real purpose of these magazines was to find and publish fiction that would later be collected and sold in a hardcover edition—and to discover new young writers through the prize competitions. No one expected the magazines themselves to sell or be profitable. Which is why the news that a literary magazine had sold out in a single day drew as much attention as if snow had fallen in Okinawa (though its having sold out made no difference to its running in the red). Komatsu called to tell him the news.

“This is just great,” Komatsu said. “When a magazine sells out, people can’t wait to read the piece to find out what it’s like. So now the printers are going crazy trying to rush the book version of Air Chrysalis out—top priority! At this rate, it doesn’t matter whether the piece wins the Akutagawa Prize or not. Gotta sell ’em while they’re hot! And make no mistake about it, this is going to be a bestseller, I guarantee you. So, Tengo, you’d better start planning how you’re going to spend all your money.”

One Saturday-evening newspaper’s literary column discussed Air Chrysalis under a headline exclaiming that the magazine had sold out in one day. Several literary critics gave their opinions, which were generally favorable. The work, they claimed, displayed such stylistic power, keen sensitivity, and imaginative richness that it was hard to believe a seventeen-year-old girl had written it. It might even hint at new possibilities in literary style. One critic said, “The work is not entirely without a regrettable tendency for its more fantastical elements to sometimes lose touch with reality,” which was the only negative remark Tengo noticed. But even that critic softened his tone at the end, concluding, “I will be very interested to see what kind of works this young girl goes on to write.” No, there was nothing wrong with the wind direction for now.

Fuka-Eri called Tengo four days before the hardcover version of Air Chrysalis was due out. It was nine in the morning.

“Are you up,” she asked in her usual uninflected way, without a question mark.

“Of course I’m up,” Tengo said.

“Are you free this afternoon.”

“After four, any time.”

“Can you meet me.”

“I can,” Tengo said.

“Is that last place okay,” Fuka-Eri asked.

“Fine,” Tengo said. “I’ll go to the same café in Shinjuku at four o’clock. Oh, and your photos in the paper looked good. The ones from the press conference.”

“I wore the same sweater,” she said.

“It looked good on you,” Tengo said.

“Because you like my chest shape.”

“Maybe so. But more important in this case was making a good impression on people.”

Fuka-Eri kept silent at her end, as if she had just set something on a nearby shelf and was looking at it. Maybe she was thinking about the connection between the shape of her chest and making a good impression. The more he thought about it, the less Tengo himself could see the connection.

“Four o’clock,” Fuka-Eri said, and hung up.

...

Fuka-Eri was already waiting for Tengo when he walked into the usual café just before four. Next to her sat Professor Ebisuno. He was dressed in a pale gray long-sleeved shirt and dark gray pants. As before, his back was perfectly straight. He could have been a sculpture. Tengo was somewhat surprised to find the Professor with her. Komatsu had said that the Professor almost never “came down from the mountains.”

Tengo took a seat opposite them and ordered a cup of coffee. The rainy season hadn’t even started, but the weather felt like midsummer. Even so, Fuka-Eri sat there sipping a hot cup of cocoa. Professor Ebisuno had ordered iced coffee but hadn’t touched it yet. The ice had begun to melt, forming a clear layer on top.

“Thanks for coming,” the Professor said.

Tengo’s coffee arrived. He took a sip.

Professor Ebisuno spoke slowly, as if performing a test of his speaking voice: “Everything seems to be going as planned for now,” he said. “You made major contributions to the project. Truly major. The first thing I must do is thank you.”

“I’m grateful to hear you say that, but as you know, where this matter is concerned, officially I don’t exist,” Tengo said. “And officially nonexistent people can’t make contributions.”

Professor Ebisuno rubbed his hands over the table as if warming them.

“You needn’t be so modest,” the Professor said. “Whatever the public face of the matter may be, you do exist. If it hadn’t been for you, things would not have come this far or gone this smoothly. Thanks to you, Air Chrysalis became a much better work, deeper and richer than I ever imagined it could be. That Komatsu fellow really does have an eye for talent.”

Beside him, Fuka-Eri went on drinking her cocoa in silence, like a kitten licking milk. She wore a simple white short-sleeved blouse and a rather short navy-blue skirt. As always, she wore no jewelry. Her long, straight hair hid her face when she leaned forward to drink.

“I wanted to be sure to tell you this in person, which is why I troubled you to come here today,” Professor Ebisuno said.

“You really don’t have to worry about me, Professor. Rewriting Air Chrysalis was a very meaningful project for me.”

“I still think I need to thank you for it properly.”

“It really isn’t necessary,” Tengo said. “If you don’t mind, though, there’s something personal I want to ask you about Eri.”

“No, I don’t mind, if it’s a question I can answer.”

“I was just wondering if you are Eri’s legal guardian.”

The Professor shook his head. “No, I am not. I would like to become her legal guardian if possible, but as I told you before, I haven’t been able to make the slightest contact with her parents. I have no legal rights as far as she is concerned. But I took her in when she came to my house seven years ago, and I have been raising her ever since.”

“If that’s the case, then, wouldn’t the most normal thing be for you to want to keep her existence quiet? If she steps into the spotlight like this, it could stir up trouble. She’s a minor, after all …”

“Trouble? You mean if her parents sued to regain custody, or if she were forced to return to the commune?”

“Yes, I don’t quite get what’s involved here.”

“Your doubts are entirely justified. But the other side is not in any position to take conspicuous action, either. The more publicity Eri receives, the more attention they are going to attract if they attempt anything involving her. And attention is the one thing they most want to avoid.”

“By ‘they,’ I suppose you mean the Sakigake people?”

“Exactly,” the Professor said. “The Religious Juridical Person Sakigake. Don’t forget, I’ve devoted seven years of my life to raising Eri, and she herself clearly wants to go on living with us. Whatever situation her parents are in, the fact is they’ve ignored her for seven long years. There’s no way I can hand her over just like that.”

Tengo took a moment to organize his thoughts. Then he said, “So Air Chrysalis becomes the bestseller it’s supposed to be. And Eri attracts everyone’s attention. And that makes it harder for Sakigake to do anything. That much I understand. But how are things supposed to go from there in your view, Professor Ebisuno?”

“I don’t know any better than you do,” the Professor said matter-of-factly. “What happens from here on out is unknown territory for anybody. There’s no map. We don’t find out what’s waiting for us around the next corner until we turn it. I have no idea.”

“You have no idea,” Tengo said.

“Yes, it may sound irresponsible of me, but ‘I have no idea’ is the gist of this story. You throw a stone into a deep pond. Splash. The sound is big, and it reverberates throughout the surrounding area. What comes out of the pond after that? All we can do is stare at the pond, holding our breath.”

This brought conversation at the table to a momentary halt. Each of the three pictured ripples spreading on a pond. Tengo waited patiently for his imaginary ripples to settle down before speaking again.

“As I said the first time we met, what we are engaged in is a kind of fraud, possibly an offense to our whole society. A not inconsiderable amount of money may enter the picture as well before long, and the lies are going to snowball until finally the situation is beyond anyone’s control. And when the truth comes out, everyone involved—including Eri here—will be hurt in some way, perhaps even ruined, at least socially. Can you go along with that?”

Professor Ebisuno touched the frame of his glasses. “I have no choice but to go along with it.”

“But I understand from Mr. Komatsu that you are planning to become a representative of the phony company that he is putting together in connection with Air Chrysalis, which means you will be fully participating in Komatsu’s plan. In other words, you are taking steps to have yourself smeared in the mud.”

“That might well be the end result.”

“As far as I understand it, Professor, you are a man of superior intellect, with broad practical wisdom and a unique worldview. In spite of that, you don’t know where this plan is headed. You say you can’t predict what will come up around the next corner. How a man like you can put himself into such a tenuous, risky position is beyond me.”

“Aside from all the embarrassing overestimation of ‘a man like me,’” the Professor said, taking a breath, “I understand what you’re trying to say.”

A moment of silence followed.

“Nobody knows what is going to happen,” Fuka-Eri interjected, without warning. Then she went back into her silence. Her cup of cocoa was empty.

“True,” the Professor said. “Nobody knows what is going to happen. Eri is right.”

“But you must have some sort of plan in mind, I would think,” Tengo said.

“I do have some sort of plan in mind,” Professor Ebisuno said.

“May I guess what it is?”

“Of course you may.”

“The publication of Air Chrysalis might lead to revelations about what happened to Eri’s parents. Is that what you mean about throwing a stone in a pond?”

“That’s pretty close,” Professor Ebisuno said. “If Air Chrysalis becomes a bestseller, the media are going to swarm like carp in a pond. In fact, the commotion has already started. After the press conference, requests for interviews started pouring in from magazines and TV. I’m turning them all down, of course, but things are likely to get increasingly overheated as publication of the book draws near. If we don’t do interviews, they’ll use every tool at their disposal to look into Eri’s background. Sooner or later it will come out—who her parents are, where and how she was raised, who’s looking after her now. All of that should make for interesting news.

“I’m not doing this for fun or profit. I enjoy my nice, quiet life in the mountains, and I don’t want to get mixed up with anything that is going to draw the attention of the public. What I am hoping is that I can spread bait to guide the attention of the media toward Eri’s parents. Where are they now, and what are they doing? In other words, I want the media to do for me what the police can’t or won’t do. I’m also thinking that, if it works well, we might even be able to exploit the flow of events to rescue the two of them. In any case, Fukada and his wife are both very important to me—and of course to Eri. I can’t just leave them unaccounted for like this.”

“Yes, but assuming the Fukadas are in there, what possible reason could there have been for them to have been kept under restraint for seven years? That’s a very long time!”

“I don’t know any better than you do. I can only guess,” Professor Ebisuno said. “As I told you last time, the police did a search of Sakigake in connection with the Akebono shootout, but all they found was that Sakigake had absolutely nothing to do with the case. Ever since then, Sakigake has continued steadily to strengthen its position as a religious organization. No, what am I saying? Not steadily: they did it quite rapidly. But even so, people on the outside had almost no idea what they were actually doing in there. I’m sure you don’t know anything about them.”

“Not a thing,” Tengo said. “I don’t watch TV, and I hardly read the newspaper. You can’t tell by me what people in general know.”

“No, it’s not just you who don’t know anything about them. They purposely keep as low a profile as possible. Other new religions do showy things to get as many converts as they can, but not Sakigake. Their goal is not to increase the number of their believers. They want healthy, young believers who are highly motivated and skilled in a wide variety of professional fields. So they don’t go out of their way to attract converts. And they don’t admit just anybody. When people show up asking to join, they interview them and admit them selectively. Sometimes they go out of their way to recruit people who have particular skills they are looking for. The end result is a militant, elite religious organization.”

“Based on what kind of doctrine?”

“They probably don’t have any set scriptures. Or if they do, they’re very eclectic. Roughly, the group follows a kind of esoteric Buddhism, but their everyday lives are centered not so much on particular doctrines as on labor and ascetic practice—quite stern austerities. Young people in search of that kind of spiritual life hear about them and come from all over the country. The group is highly cohesive and obsessed with secrecy.”

“Do they have a guru?”

“Ostensibly, no. They reject the idea of a personality cult, and they practice collective leadership, but what actually goes on in there is unclear. I’m doing my best to gather what intelligence I can, but very little seeps out. The one thing I can say is that the organization is developing steadily and seems to be very well funded. The land owned by Sakigake keeps expanding, and its facilities are constantly improving. Also, the wall around the property has been greatly reinforced.”

“And at some point, the name of Fukada, the original leader of Sakigake, stopped appearing.”

“Exactly. It’s all very strange. I’m just not convinced by what I hear,” Professor Ebisuno said. He glanced at Fuka-Eri and turned back to Tengo. “Some kind of major secret is hidden inside there. I’m sure that, at some point, a kind of realignment occurred in Sakigake’s organization. What it consisted of, I don’t know. But because of it, Sakigake underwent a major change of direction from agricultural commune to religion. I imagine that something like a coup d’état occurred at that point, and Fukada was swept up in it. As I said before, Fukada was a man without the slightest religious inclinations. He must have poured every ounce of his strength into trying to put a stop to such a development. And probably he lost the battle for supremacy in Sakigake at that time.”

Tengo considered this for a moment and said, “I understand what you are saying, but even if you are right, isn’t this something that could have been solved just by expelling Fukada from Sakigake, like the peaceful splitting off of Akebono from Sakigake? They wouldn’t have had to lock him up, would they?”

“You’re quite right about that. Under ordinary circumstances, there would have been no need to take the trouble of locking him up. But Fukada would almost certainly have had his hands on some of Sakigake’s secrets by then, things that Sakigake would have found very awkward if they were exposed to the public. So just throwing him out was not the answer.

“As the original founder of the community, Fukada had acted as its virtual leader for years and must have witnessed everything that had been done on the inside. He must have known too much. In addition to which, he himself was quite well known to the public at large. So even if Fukada and his wife wanted to renounce their ties with the group, Sakigake could not simply let them go.”

“And so you are trying to shake up the stalemate indirectly? You want to stir up public interest by letting Eri have a sensational debut as a writer, with Air Chrysalis a bestseller?”

“Seven years is a very long time, and nothing I have tried over the years has done any good. If I don’t take this drastic measure now, the riddle may never be solved.”

“So you are using Eri as bait to try to lure a big tiger out of the underbrush.”

“No one knows what is going to come out of the underbrush. It won’t necessarily be a tiger.”

“But you do seem to be expecting something violent to happen, I gather.”

“True, there is that possibility,” the Professor said with a thoughtful air. “You yourself should know that anything can happen inside homogeneous, insular groups.”

A heavy silence followed, in the midst of which Fuka-Eri spoke up.

“It’s because the Little People came,” she said softly.

Tengo looked at her seated beside the Professor. As always, her face lacked anything that might be called an expression.

“Are you saying that something changed in Sakigake because the Little People came?” Tengo asked her.

She said nothing in reply. Her fingers toyed with the top button of her blouse.

Professor Ebisuno then spoke as if taking up where Eri’s silence left off. “I don’t know what the Little People are supposed to mean, and Eri either can’t or won’t explain in words what the Little People are. It does seem certain, however, that the Little People played some role in the sudden drastic change of Sakigake from an agricultural commune to a religious organization.”

“Or something Little People-ish did,” Tengo said.

“That’s true,” the Professor said. “I don’t know, either, whether it was the Little People themselves or something Little People-ish. But it does appear to me, at least, that Eri is trying to say something important by introducing the Little People in her Air Chrysalis.”

The Professor stared at his hands for a time, then looked up and said, “George Orwell introduced the dictator Big Brother in his novel 1984, as I’m sure you know. The book was an allegorical treatment of Stalinism, of course. And ever since then, the term ‘Big Brother’ has functioned as a social icon. That was Orwell’s great accomplishment. But now, in the real year 1984, Big Brother is all too famous, and all too obvious. If Big Brother were to appear before us now, we’d point to him and say, ‘Watch out! He’s Big Brother!’ There’s no longer any place for a Big Brother in this real world of ours. Instead, these so-called Little People have come on the scene. Interesting verbal contrast, don’t you think?”

Looking straight at Tengo, the Professor had something like a smile on his face.

“The Little People are an invisible presence. We can’t even tell whether they are good or evil, or whether they have any substance or not. But they seem to be steadily undermining us.” The Professor paused, then continued on. “It may be that if we are ever to learn what happened to Fukada and his wife or what happened to Eri, we will first have to find out what the Little People are.”

“So, then, is it the Little People that you are trying to lure out into the open?” Tengo asked.

“I wonder, ultimately, whether it is possible for us to lure something out when we can’t even tell whether it has substance or not,” the Professor said, the smile still playing about his lips. “The ‘big tiger’ you mentioned could be more realistic, don’t you think?”

“Either way, that doesn’t change the fact that Eri is being used for bait.”

“No, ‘bait’ is not the right word. She is creating a whirlpool: that is a closer image. Eventually, those at the edge of the whirlpool will start spinning along with it. That is what I am waiting to see.”

The Professor slowly twirled his finger in space. Then he continued, “The one in the center of the whirlpool is Eri. There is no need for the one in the center of a whirlpool to move. That is what those around the edge must do.”

Tengo listened in silence.

“If I may borrow your unsettling figure of speech, all of us may be functioning as bait, not just Eri.” The Professor looked at Tengo with narrowed eyes. “You included.”

“All I had to do, supposedly, was rewrite Air Chrysalis. I was just going to be a hired hand, a technician. That was how Mr. Komatsu put it to me to begin with.”

“I see.”

“But things seem to have changed a bit along the way,” Tengo said. “Does this mean that you revised his original plan, Professor?”

“No, that is not how I see it. Mr. Komatsu has his intentions and I have my intentions. At the moment, they share the same direction.”

“So the plan is proceeding as if the two of you just happened to be riding together.”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Two men with different destinations are riding the same horse down the road. Their routes are identical to a certain point, but neither knows what is going to happen after that.”

“Well put, like a true writer.”

Tengo sighed. “Our prospects are not very bright, I would say. But there’s no turning back now, is there?”

“Even if we could turn back, we’d probably never end up where we started,” the Professor said.

This brought the conversation to a close. Tengo could think of nothing further to say.

Professor Ebisuno left the café first. He had to see someone in the neighborhood, he said. Fuka-Eri stayed behind. Sitting on opposite sides of the table, Tengo and Fuka-Eri remained silent for a while.

“Are you hungry?” Tengo asked.

“Not really,” Fuka-Eri said.

The café was filling up. The two of them left, though neither had been the first to suggest it. For a while they walked the streets of Shinjuku aimlessly. Six o’clock was drawing near, and many people were hurrying toward the station, but the sky was still bright. Early-summer sunlight enveloped the city, its brightness feeling strangely artificial after the underground café.

“Where are you going now?” Tengo asked.

“No place special,” Fuka-Eri replied.

“Shall I see you home?” Tengo asked. “To your Shinano-machi condo, I mean. I suppose you’ll be staying there today?”

“I’m not going there,” Fuka-Eri said.

“Why not?”

She did not reply.

“Are you saying you feel you’d better not go there?”

Fuka-Eri nodded, saying nothing.

Tengo thought about asking her why she felt she had better not go there, but he sensed that it wouldn’t get him a straight answer.

“So, will you be going back to the Professor’s?”

“Futamatao is too far away.”

“Do you have somewhere else in mind?”

“I will stay at your place,” Fuka-Eri said.

“That … might … not … be a … good idea,” Tengo said. “My place is small, I live alone, and I’m sure Professor Ebisuno wouldn’t permit it.”

“The Professor won’t mind,” Fuka-Eri said with a kind of shrug of the shoulders. “And I won’t mind.”

“But I might mind,” Tengo said.

“Why.”

“Well …,” Tengo started to say, but no further words came out. He was not even sure what he had intended to say. This often happened when he was talking with Fuka-Eri. He would momentarily lose track of what he was going to say. It was like sheet music being scattered by a gust of wind.

Fuka-Eri reached out and gently grasped Tengo’s left hand in her right hand as if to comfort him.

“You don’t get it,” she said.

“Don’t get what?”

“We are one.”

“We are one?” Tengo asked with a shock.

“We wrote the book together.”

Tengo felt the pressure of Fuka-Eri’s fingers against his palm. It was not strong, but it was even and steady.

“That’s true. We wrote Air Chrysalis together. And when we are eaten by the tiger, we’ll be eaten together.”

“No tiger will come out,” Fuka-Eri said, her voice unusually grave.

“That’s good,” Tengo said, though it didn’t make him especially happy. A tiger might not come out, but there was no telling what might come out instead.

They stood in front of Shinjuku Station’s ticket machines. Fuka-Eri looked up at him, still gripping his hand. People streamed past them on both sides.

“Okay, if you want to stay at my place, you can,” Tengo said, resigning himself. “I can sleep on the sofa.”

“Thank you,” Fuka-Eri said.

Tengo realized this was the first time he had ever heard anything resembling polite language from Fuka-Eri’s mouth. No, it might not have been the first time, but he could not recall when he might have heard it before.