Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Kyusuke had come down with mumps and was absent from school for five days.

On the sixth morning, as he headed to school feeling embarrassed about everyone seeing his face, classes had already begun. In the classroom, just as expected, everyone swiftly turned to look at Kyusuke, which flustered him so much that when submitting his absence note to the teacher and returning to his seat, he knocked down about three hats hanging by the desks. Having taken his seat, he opened his reader.

The boy next to him, Kaichi, pointed with his finger to show they were now on Lesson Ten. Had they already reached Lesson Ten? When Kyusuke had been studying Lesson Eight, "Rain at Yoro," he had become vaguely aware of a heaviness in his left cheek and had taken leave from that day onward. As he realized that while he had been resting at home, everyone else had finished Lesson Eight and moved on to Lesson Nine, Kyusuke—even now sitting there with his reader open alongside everyone else, listening to the teacher’s lecture—felt something out of step with the class’s shared mood.

At that moment, when the teacher pointed with his finger, someone up front began reciting from the reader. "Lesson Ten: The Fire of the Rice Sheaves. 'This is no ordinary matter,' he muttered as Gohei had come from his house..." Oh, that's strange, Kyusuke thought. It was an unfamiliar voice. Who in the world was reading in such a voice? Thereupon Kyusuke looked up from his book to see, at a seat by the southern window, a fair-skinned boy in handsome Western-style serge clothes reciting with his profile turned toward him. It was a boy Kyusuke didn't know.

As Kyusuke kept looking at the boy’s profile, he began to be seized by a peculiar illusion. He wondered if he had mistakenly come to the wrong school. No, this was certainly not the fifth-grade classroom of Iwaname School that Kyusuke had been attending. The boy who was now reading was someone Kyusuke did not know. Now that he thought of it, the teacher did resemble Mr. Yamaguchi, who had been Kyusuke’s homeroom teacher, but he seemed to be a different person. While each of his friends bore some resemblance to those he knew well from Iwaname, they all seemed like unfamiliar students from some unfamiliar school. After being absent for five days, he had forgotten his own school and wandered into someone else’s. He had managed to pull off such an outrageous thing. Kyusuke had thought such thoughts. And in the very next moment, when he realized that this was indeed his original school after all, Kyusuke felt relieved.

When break time came, Kyusuke asked Tokuichi from Mori Clinic. “Huh? Who’s that?”

The fair-skinned boy by the southern window—perhaps because he still hadn’t made any friends—was sharpening a pencil by himself. “That one?”

Tokuichi replied. "That’s the name Tarozaemon." "He just came from Yokohama." "Tarozaemon?" Kyusuke started laughing. "Sounds like an old man." According to Tokuichi’s account, while the transfer student’s true name was Tarozaemon, since that seemed too reminiscent of an elderly person and they pitied him for it—his family calling him Taro at home while he was still a child—his mother had apparently requested the teacher two days prior, when she first brought Tarozaemon to school, to have his classmates call him by that name as well. Upon hearing this, Kyusuke thought, "Indeed, adults do come up with clever things."

In this manner, Tarozaemon entered Kyusuke’s world.

II

Iwaname School was a rural school after all，so the city-like boy naturally caught everyone’s eye．Kyusuke had felt drawn to Tarozaemon from the very beginning，but couldn’t approach him without a good opportunity．Whether it was Tokuichi，Kaichi，or Otokichiro—all the capable ones shared feelings similar to Kyusuke’s．Yet precisely because they all understood this about each other too well，none made a move．During class，Kyusuke would sometimes realize he had been staring intently at Tarozaemon．

Tarozaemon was seated ahead of Kyusuke by the southern window, so from Kyusuke’s position he could see precisely the right large eye and the well-formed crown of his head encircled by lustrous hair. Tarozaemon would stare at the textbook’s characters with those large eyes for extended periods, then gradually shift his gaze toward the teacher and listen with rapt attention. Occasionally overwhelmed by the lesson, he would release a faint sigh and let his posture sag slightly, only to immediately straighten up again and fix his earnest gaze upon the teacher once more. Through these observations alone, Kyusuke came to understand that Tarozaemon had not been raised amid the dust and weeds of country roads like themselves—a realization that brought both growing fondness and an indefinable melancholy.

One day, Kyusuke was gazing at the handsome boy from his seat as usual. He was a beautiful boy. What in the world was this beautiful boy's name? Kyusuke wondered. Then immediately, he muttered under his breath, "Oh, it's Tarozaemon." Suddenly, Kyusuke remembered having once read in some magazine the biography of a great man named Egawa Tarozaemon. Though he didn't recall the details well, this was an artillery expert of the Edo period who had built something called a reverberatory furnace in Nirayama, Izu, where he cast cannons considered remarkable for that era. Into Kyusuke's mind floated an illustration of a reverberatory furnace seemingly constructed from stacked bricks and a portrait of Egawa Tarozaemon—his topknot hairstyle framing large, wide-eyed features that gave him a perpetually startled expression.

This boy Tarozaemon shared the same name as that Tarozaemon—the Edo-period artillery expert. If they shared the same name, then could they not be one and the same?

But that couldn't be possible. First of all, there was no way that Tarozaemon—who had been an adult during the Edo period—could now be a child. That would reverse the natural order of things. Kyusuke dismissed his own absurd notion. Nevertheless, to Kyusuke, the artillery expert Tarozaemon and this boy Tarozaemon seemed like one and the same person. A human who had been an adult in the Edo period was gradually growing younger and had now become a boy—perhaps among the vast variety of humans, there might be one or two who lived such special existences. As for those goggle-eyed features—weren't this Tarozaemon and that Tarozaemon exactly the same in that regard? Kyusuke knew that if he were to voice such thoughts aloud, people would dismiss them with a laugh, so he simply lost himself in solitary daydreams.

That day, on his way home from school, Kyusuke walked about three meters behind Tarozaemon. Of course, Kyusuke had no intention of following Tarozaemon home; it was simply that their paths and walking pace happened to coincide by chance, resulting in this situation—or so he kept explaining to himself as he trailed along.

When they were passing by the vacant lot, Tarozaemon suddenly turned to look back at Kyusuke.

“You, do you know what that flower is?” he asked in a slightly hoarse yet fluent voice. When he looked where indicated - at what had once been a house but now appeared part of an overgrown flower bed - there stood two or three small reddish-black blooms with an air of melancholy about them.

Kyusuke didn’t know, so he stayed quiet. “It’s salvia.”

With that, the beautiful boy Tarozaemon started walking. Since he had initiated the conversation, Kyusuke thought it permissible to speak too, his heart fluttering slightly as he asked, "Did you come from Yokohama?" He already knew from Tokuichi that Tarozaemon had come from Yokohama—there was no need to ask—but he had nothing else to say. Yet having asked, Kyusuke felt such embarrassment that cold sweat broke out. Phrases like "Did you come?" didn't belong to Iwaname's dialect. Had he used Iwaname's speech properly, it would have been "Did'ya come?" or "D'ya come?" But to Kyusuke, these familiar phrases seemed too crude to address this refined boy. Yet he knew no language beyond Iwaname's. Thus emerged that awkward hybrid phrase—"Did you come?"—belonging to no discernible dialect. Had Tokuichi, Kaichi or Hyotaro heard it, they might have teased him mercilessly afterward with backslaps and jeers—but mercifully, only Tarozaemon had heard. Being unacquainted with Iwaname's ways yet, Tarozaemon likely assumed this phrasing was local and thought nothing of it.

“Ah,” he answered. Then again, while looking at the red flowers, “My older brother liked that, you know. He was a painter, you know.”

While Kyusuke could roughly grasp that painters were people who painted pictures, having never actually seen a real painter, he found himself at a loss for how to respond to such talk. "Two autumns ago, you know—he committed suicide with Veronal."

Kyusuke understood well enough that suicide meant taking one's own life, but since none of his companions up to now had ever used such language, he found himself completely flustered. Tarozaemon, who had started to turn toward his house's gate, suddenly seemed to think of something and returned to Kyusuke.

“I’ll give you something good. Hold out your hand.” he said. When Kyusuke hesitantly extended his hand, Tarozaemon shook a small fountain pen-like object over it. Then a single small pellet spilled out onto Kyusuke’s palm. Tarozaemon shook some onto his own palm, tossed it into his mouth, and headed toward the gate. Kyusuke initially thought it might be a pellet used in an air gun, but since it lacked that satisfying heft one would expect from a pellet—the kind that feels pleasant in one’s palm—he concluded it must be something else. And so, imitating Tarozaemon nonetheless, he tried putting it into his mouth.

As he rolled it around on the tip of his tongue, a bitter, unpleasant liquid began dissolving out. What the—this thing’s just like those Tonpuku pills they make me take when I have a cold, he thought, and tried to spit it out. The moment he did, the bitter substance transformed into a cool sweetness that left his mouth utterly refreshed, making Kyusuke chuckle softly to himself. What, this is all? So it's something like mint essence. But almost immediately, the tip of his tongue began registering bitterness again, forcing Kyusuke to grimace. Still, thinking it would soon turn cool and sweet once more, he kept enduring. Sure enough, it did exactly that. Now Kyusuke understood the pellet’s trick—bitter then sweet, alternating back and forth. When it turned bitter for the third time though, he’d had enough and spat it out. It had melted into brownish saliva. After spitting, he opened his mouth and inhaled deeply—ah, how incredibly refreshing! It felt like a whole cool autumn morning had crammed itself into his small mouth. To savor that refreshment fully, Kyusuke arrived home breathing loudly through his wide-open mouth.

“What’s this, Ku? You smell like Jintan!” said Mother.

It was only then that Kyusuke solved the mystery and felt utterly foolish. As for Jintan, Kyusuke knew all about it. Though to be fair, this was his first time actually tasting one.

Why had Kyusuke become so thoroughly convinced that something as commonplace as Jintan pills was some grand, mysterious marvel? The more he pondered it, the more Tarozaemon struck him as an utterly peculiar boy.

III

About ten meters from the road stood the gate to Tarozaemon's mansion. It was an old-fashioned gate, slightly smaller than Kōrenji Temple's main gate, adorned with rusty metal fittings. Beside it was a small side entrance that Tarozaemon used for coming and going, while the main gate remained perpetually shut. When Kyusuke accompanied Tarozaemon there and Tarozaemon would say things like "Excuse me" or "Goodbye, see you tomorrow," slipping through the side entrance only to have its door firmly closed behind him, Kyusuke would briefly wonder what exactly Tarozaemon did beyond that gate—or in adult terms, what sort of life he lived. However, he didn't particularly want to go inside.

After all, it was eerily silent. Old-fashioned and eerily silent—it was precisely such places that Kyusuke disliked.

One day, Kyusuke followed Tarozaemon through that gate and entered inside. The garden was surprisingly small. But there was something there that caught Kyusuke’s eye. It was a perfectly square, deep pool with green murky water stagnating at the bottom. The stone retaining walls on all four sides were completely covered in moss, leaving no trace of the stone’s original color visible. In other words, this pool shaped like a one-shō measure was green through and through. And in the water, there seemed to be carp. Here and there within the water’s greenish hue, dim patches of red and white could be made out—they were indeed there. As Kyusuke peered into it for a while, a fishy, unpleasant smell began clinging to his nose. Not only that, but he realized the entire pond had an unwelcoming air about it toward children, so he quickly stepped away from its edge.

Kyusuke, having been invited, went toward the engawa where wisteria flowers were blooming. The engawa and formal room were separated by light-papered shoji doors, but when Tarozaemon emerged from within through the part left wide open, Kyusuke was able to peer inside. Kyusuke saw a girl wearing a yellow sash there. That must be Tarozaemon’s sister. Her complexion was white as a teacup, and she was gaunt. She emerged from a dark room further back in the formal parlor, holding in one hand a lamp with a goldfish bowl-sized chimney, while running her other hand along the sliding door with her other hand. She located the desk placed in the corner of the room and set the lamp upon it. Though her eyes were wide open, seeing her groping her way like that made it clear she must be blind. In any case, it was an uncanny sight. Kyusuke was holding his breath and staring.

Next, the girl struck a match and lit the lamp. And when she sat down at the desk, though no one was there, she began addressing someone on the other side as if they existed, “Father found this lamp in a little hardware store in the back alleys of Marseille’s port during his first voyage to France, apparently.” “He said it was supposedly from Louis XVI’s time.”

she said. Kyusuke grew uneasy and couldn’t move a muscle. This girl wasn't just blind—she must have been out of her mind. Tarozaemon laughed and said, "Sis, you dummy," as a preface before explaining the situation, so Kyusuke thought, Oh, so that's how it was. Tarozaemon’s sister had been practicing for the girls’ school festival performance. Apparently, it was about two sisters studying during a stormy night when the power suddenly goes out, so they bring out an old lamp to light. Then, things like their dead younger brother, a handball they’d lost long ago, and even their pet dog that disappeared one rainy night would come back to the two sisters—a preposterous play so convoluted you couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Kyusuke now understood that the pale girl there was neither blind nor insane, yet he still felt somehow ill at ease, and naturally, his eyes and ears remained drawn toward her. She kept talking to someone who was neither visible nor responsive on the other side of the desk. “You know, Aki-bōchan has died.” “It was five or six years ago, on a snowy evening.” The other person seemed to be responding with something. Kyusuke couldn’t hear it, but she apparently could, her ears pricked up as she listened. And then she spoke again.

“This child doesn’t understand what dying means.” “Dying is like hiding somewhere during hide-and-seek and never coming out no matter how long you wait.” The invisible figure seemed to say something. Then she—perhaps having heard some ridiculous reply—suddenly burst into suppressed laughter. Yet since this laughter didn’t seem to satisfy her own standards, she tried repeatedly to perfect it. Practicing variations like stifled titters and artificial-sounding chuckles.

Kyusuke could no longer endure it. He went straight home. For some time afterward, whenever Kyusuke passed by the gate of Tarozaemon's estate—even though it was bright daytime with wisteria flowers blooming—he would inevitably recall the pale, eerie girl practicing her school festival play with a lamp lit.

IV

Gradually, Tarozaemon grew closer to everyone. At first, everyone respected Tarozaemon and found it somewhat awkward to call him, but they addressed him as "Taro-kun."

Eventually, Tarozaemon grew even closer to everyone and would sometimes be surrounded by them, engaging in vulgar chatter like a drunkard. Then everyone realized it was no longer appropriate to respect Tarozaemon and began calling him unreservedly by his full name, "Tarozaemon." Before long, everyone had stopped calling him either "Taro-kun" or "Tarozaemon" altogether. This was because everyone had come to realize that Tarozaemon was a dull person—completely uninteresting to spend time with.

From the very beginning until now, there had been only one person who continued using the properly respectful form of address: "Taro-kun." That was their homeroom teacher, Mr. Yamaguchi.

It was around that time that rumors began to circulate about Tarozaemon telling lies. “You can’t trust a word that guy says.” There were those who said such things. Kyusuke thought that was unlikely. However, he also thought it might indeed be so.

One day, Hyotaro was vehemently denouncing something to five or six companions. When Kyusuke went over to investigate what was happening, this is what he found. Hyotaro claimed that Tarozaemon had made him drink a mouthful.

In the mountains south of Gogame Pond lay a valley deeply gouged into the earth. The cliffs on either side stood facing each other like two folding screens placed opposite one another. Tarozaemon had told Hyotaro that such a place offered remarkable possibilities. If you called out “Hey!” from one cliff toward the other, he explained, your voice would become an echo and return to this side. The moment it struck this cliff, it would transform into an echo again and journey back to the opposite cliff. It would hit that side and come back once more. Strike this side and depart again. Thus, he claimed that single “Hey!” would never fade away. Since a science magazine had written about it—and therefore it must be true—Tarozaemon had staked his credibility on this. Convinced by this logic, Hyotaro visited the spot yesterday while fishing at Gogame Pond to put it to the test. And so it came to light that Tarozaemon’s words were nothing but a “lie.”

With this, it was certain—Tarozaemon was a liar, Kyusuke thought. Then, for some reason, he recalled Tarozaemon’s sister rehearsing for the school festival—that pale girl who, despite having no one to talk to, had spoken so convincingly as though someone were truly there.

There was another incident that supposedly happened. After a fierce thunderstorm accompanied by rain had passed overhead, Tarozaemon said to Shinichiro,

“Just now, a lark was struck by lightning and fell over there from within the clouds—let’s go see. “It’s surely fallen around the cattle market.” he said cheerfully. Shinichiro-kun, never suspecting it could be a lie, followed along and tramped through the still-damp grass of the cattle market, searching every nook and cranny—only to find nothing but cow dung, or so it was said. This too had been another of Tarozaemon’s lies.

V

Tarozaemon brought to school a strange round object about the size of a teapot lid. "This is really fascinating!" he said. Everyone knew Tarozaemon was a liar, but they couldn't stay vigilant against him at all times. Especially when he brought unusual objects like this, they'd inevitably lower their guard out of curiosity.

According to Tarozaemon's explanation, the round object was made of ivory and had been sold by Chinese people in Yokohama. If you positioned it cleverly against your ear, it was said to be constructed so that you could hear music.

First, starting with Tokuichi from Mori Clinic, everyone took turns pressing it to their ears and listened. As everyone listened with the solemn expressions of doctors pressing stethoscopes to their ears, Tarozaemon—

“Hey, you can hear it, can’t you? A sound like a mandolin. Oh, they say it’s a Chinese harp,” he said. Then some gave half-hearted responses like “Uh, yeah.” “Yeah, such a delicate sound,” others said with bright smiles. “Hear that? It’s real!” a few exclaimed, tapping it two or three times before pressing it to their ears again.

“Another one of Tarozaemon’s lies!” Even with Tarozaemon present, there came such a declaration. The speaker was Hyotaro-kun. Yet in this instance, rather than trusting Hyotaro-kun, the classmates distrusted him. This stemmed from his ear condition—for ten days prior, green pus with a foul odor had been dripping from one ear—which made everyone refuse to lend him the musical device, leaving him festering with resentment.

Kyusuke's turn came. When he took it and looked, it was a beautiful smooth yellow ivory. Like a teapot lid, one side was hollowed. And in the center of that hollowed part protruded a small navel-like bump. Apparently you were supposed to listen by cleverly fitting that navel part into your ear.

A low "Uuun" sound, like a motor groaning, was what he first heard. As he listened intently, straining to detect any mandolin tones within that drone, he began to sense it—yes, there was indeed something faint. A twanging and plinking sort of sound. "Yeah, I can hear it! I can hear it!"

With that, Kyusuke said and handed it to the next person. Not long after that, on the eve of their spring excursion, Kyusuke pulled out every drawer of the tea cabinet in search of a magnet and rummaged through all sorts of junk. Then from within emerged a round ivory tool identical to the one Tarozaemon had possessed.

“We had one of these too, huh.”

When he asked his father about it, he was told it was called a tobacco brazier—something people who smoked used to carry in the old days. On its tray, you’d place a still-lit tobacco remnant to light your next one, his father explained. "But even so, why’s there this navel-like thing here?" Kyusuke retorted, his frustration mounting at the sheer absurdity. His father clarified that the protrusion merely had a small hole for threading a string, leaving Kyusuke speechless. He’d been thoroughly duped by Tarozaemon.

Still, why did Tarozaemon tell such lies? What an utterly incomprehensible person he was. One clear day, Kyusuke found himself staring intently from his shadowy vantage point at the face of Tarozaemon—the liar leaning against the classroom window in a daze—careful not to be noticed. And he had discovered something even more peculiar. The revelation was this: Tarozaemon's eyes differed in size between left and right. The right eye was large; the left was small. Stranger still, while the large eye revealed a beautiful, gentle, and artlessly innocent spirit, the small one glimmered with slyness, perversity, and cunning calculation.

As Kyusuke stared intently at how strange this was, he discovered that the ears too differed in both size and shape between left and right, and even the nose—with mismatched left and right nostrils—appeared slightly crooked.

Kyusuke thought. Could it be that Tarozaemon wasn't a single person but two people joined together at their halves? Once he had seen someone making clay dolls. First they would craft each half using separate molds, then skillfully fit the two halves together to form one complete doll. When a god creates us humans, he must use that same method. And perhaps Tarozaemon had been formed through some error - mismatched halves of different sizes forced together. That meant two people resided within Tarozaemon.

If that were true, then it was only natural that Tarozaemon could lie so effortlessly and remain utterly inscrutable, Kyusuke concluded.

VI

Finally, the time had come when everyone would suffer terribly because of Tarozaemon’s lies.

It was a bright, clear Sunday afternoon in late May.

The circumstances were downright unfavorable.

The group—that is, Tokuichi-kun, Kaichi-kun, Hyotaro-kun, and Kyusuke-kun, the four of them—were bored and troubled.

The wheat fields were turning yellow, and the croaking of frogs carried from afar into the village. The road reflected the light as white as paper, and people rarely passed by. The group was utterly weary of how ordinary the world was. Why didn't anything ever happen here like in storybooks?

Kyusuke and the others wanted to do something like an adventure. Or perhaps they wanted to perform heroic deeds and give people intense emotional experiences.

Just as they were thinking this, Tarozaemon suddenly appeared from around the corner of the road. Then he came straight to where they stood, his eyes shining bright.

“Hey everyone, did you know? They’ve got a huge whale on exhibit at Shinmaiko now.” “They say it’s about ten meters long.”

Because they were right in the middle of wishing something would happen, even though it was Tarozaemon saying it, they immediately believed him. Moreover, this didn’t seem to be a complete lie—for even if that particular whale wasn’t at Shinmaiko’s coast, anyone who had gone to the beach there in summer knew such exhibitions often came through. The decision to go see it was settled in an instant. As for Shinmaiko, being on the other side of the Chita Peninsula meant the road leading there over a mountain pass was quite far—it must have been twelve or thirteen kilometers. Yet inside everyone’s bodies, energy surged restlessly. The farther the road stretched, the better it was.

The group, now including Tarozaemon, set out immediately from that spot. Not a single one of them thought to go home and inform their families about it. After all, their bodies were as light as swallows. They believed they could fly there like swallows and return like swallows. They leaped and ran, or else wisely cautioned each other with remarks like “We’ll be exhausted on the way back!”, alternating between these bursts and periods of normal walking as they pressed onward.

In the fields, white wild roses bloomed atop the vivid green. As they passed through there, the buzzing of honeybees could be heard. They also saw pale pine buds growing uniformly upward, so fragrant they seemed to emit scent. After passing Handa Pond and climbing the long mountain pass, they grew increasingly silent. And if anyone spoke, it became annoyingly grating. Without realizing it, fatigue crept into all their bodies.

Gradually, everyone’s minds grew sluggish from exhaustion. They felt as though the surrounding light had dimmed. True enough, the sun had already sunk far westward—yet still, not one of them proposed turning back. They pressed onward as if bound by some unspoken command. Passing through Ono Town at last, they reached the Shinmaiko coast they’d been striving toward just as dusk settled—the sun hovering at the western sea’s edge like a breath held before drowning.

The five boys, exhausted and disheveled, stretched their legs across the beach. They stared vacantly out to sea.

There was no whale. It was another of Tarozaemon’s lies!

But by now, whether it was a lie or not—such things no longer mattered to them. Even if a whale had been there, they probably wouldn't have tried to look. In their minds, dulled by exhaustion, there was only one thought. Things had become a terrible predicament. How on earth would they get back?

To become utterly exhausted, to reach the point of being unable to move a single step, and only then realize this—such was the way of those lacking in judgment. They keenly realized they were still children lacking in such judgment.

Suddenly, someone burst out crying with a “Waa!” It was Tokuichi from Mori Clinic. The mischievous and tough Tokuichi was the first to start crying. Then, as if imitating him, Hyotaro let out a “Waa!” in the same rhythm. Kyusuke, too, upon hearing those cries, found himself wanting to join in and began with a strange “Hff hff” sort of sob. Next, Kaichi drew in a sharp breath and let out a skillful “Hwaaahn” as he burst into tears.

Everyone cried in unison. Then, startled by the sheer volume of their own wailing, they were struck anew by the painful realization that they had done something irreparable. The four had been crying for a while, but Tarozaemon merely drew lines in the sand at his feet with a seashell he had picked up and did not begin to cry. Crying near someone who isn't crying is an uncomfortable thing. Kyusuke kept glancing toward Tarozaemon as he cried, thinking how much better it would be if Tarozaemon would just cry along with them. He thought what a strange, incomprehensible guy this was, feeling more strongly than ever his usual impression of him.

The sun had completely sunk, and the world turned blue. First, Kyusuke's tears dried up, so he stopped crying. Then Kaichi, Hyotaro, and Tokuichi—in the reverse order of when they had started crying—ceased their wailing like cicadas ending their song.

At that moment, Tarozaemon said.

"I have relatives in Ono Town. Let’s go there." “and have them send us back by train.” It was a time when they would have clung to even the faintest hope, so everyone immediately stood up. However, when they realized it was none other than Tarozaemon who had said this, everyone felt their strength drain away once more. If someone else had said this, how courageously everyone would have rallied themselves.

When they finally entered Ono Town, everyone became unbearably anxious,

“Is it true, Tarozaemon?” they asked again and again. Each time, Tarozaemon would answer, “It’s true,” but no matter how many such answers they received, everyone remained unable to believe him. Kyusuke no longer believed Tarozaemon either—as he moved among the group, he kept staring sharply at Tarozaemon’s profile while thinking: This guy was an incomprehensible creature, someone whose way of thinking differed completely from theirs, a separate breed of human altogether. Then Tarozaemon’s face looked exactly like a fox’s.

When they reached the central part of town, Tarozaemon— “Hmm, was it here?”

Muttering such things to himself, he peered into that narrow alley over there and ducked into this lane here. When they saw this, the other four began to feel increasingly helpless. It was another of Tarozaemon's lies. This was true despair now.

However, before long, Tarozaemon came running out from one of the alleyways and—

“I found it! Come on, come on!” he beckoned them over.

Even through the darkness that obscured clear vision, he realized vitality had suddenly flowed back into everyone's faces. Forgetting their legs were stiff as logs from exhaustion, everyone ran in that direction. Bringing up the rear as he followed along, Kyusuke nevertheless cautioned himself internally: Wait. He felt that if they became too carried away, happiness might slip through their fingers. After all, when dealing with Tarozaemon, there was no taking anything at face value.

When he thought this, it once again seemed to Kyusuke like a lie. And Kyusuke continued doubting Tarozaemon until they reached the small bright shop displaying clocks. Yet that place turned out to truly be Tarozaemon’s relative’s home. The aunt—shocked after hearing Tarozaemon’s explanation— “My goodness… You children…!” —looked around at everyone in disbelief. At that moment, Kyusuke felt saved. Then all strength suddenly left his legs, and he collapsed limply onto the threshold.

Afterward, the five of them were led back to Iwaname by the clock shop uncle via train, but inside the train car, they merely pressed their bodies against one another without exchanging a single word. Tranquility and exhaustion had claimed both body and mind, leaving them wanting neither to think nor to speak.

That liar Tarozaemon hadn't told a lie this time—it was only when Kyusuke climbed into bed that he first thought this. In that life-or-death crisis, even that guy hadn't told a lie. When viewed that way, Tarozaemon was by no means an incomprehensible guy after all.

When it came to human beings, even those whose ways of thinking were usually so different as to be incomprehensible, at the final critical juncture, everyone came to share the same way of thinking. In other words, Kyusuke had come to understand that at their core, all human beings truly comprehend one another. Then Kyusuke, feeling profoundly at peace, listened to the residual sound of waves in his ears and slipped into sleep.