Pathway to Japanese Literature

1

The distorting mirror faced the pavement, grotesquely exaggerating the street scene.

A pale-faced young man stood with his blue work-clad arm gripped by three or four people.
Beside him, a short-statured man who looked like a merchant had his nosebleed wiped.

"A fight?"

People began gathering around them.

"What happened?"

Inside the distorting mirror, countless faces started contorting.

"So there was a fight after all."

"No! He's gone mad!"

“That long-haired man?”

The pale-faced man would occasionally shake his thick hair violently.
Then he looked at the surrounding crowd with a glare.

“What’s wrong?
What’s wrong?”

The police officer parted the crowd and entered the scene.
Following that, two men appeared before the crowd while wiping sweat.

“This isn’t a fight, then?”

The police officer said while looking back at the man who had followed him.

“Yes, without saying a word, he suddenly struck him with a heavy thud.”

“Why did you resort to such violence?”

The police officer placed his hand on the pale-faced man’s shoulder and said with an angry look.
The man said nothing and stared at the police officer’s face.

“He seems to have gone mad.”
“Well…”

Someone said from beside them.

The pale-faced man merely shook his head quietly from time to time.
And then, he merely looked around at the surrounding crowd with a suspicious gaze.

“Even if he has lost his mind, there must have been some trigger, don’t you think?”

The police officer held his nose and approached the man lying on his back.

“That may be so, but he still seems to have lost his mind. I was sitting in my shop there and saw everything clearly...”

Having said this, the roasted chestnut shop owner came forward from in front of the distorting mirror to stand before the police officer.

"I noticed him when he was standing in front of that mirror over there, but at that time, there was no sign of anything unusual."
"But then…"

"This young man stops by my place every morning on his way out to buy cigarettes."

The tobacco shop owner three or four shops down interjected from the side.

“In the past, they would always go out together every morning without fail.”
“A bespectacled young man around the same age—taller than this one here—the two of them together.”
“…Then at some point he started coming alone, but he still made sure to buy cigarettes at my shop every morning.…Let me see—it must have been over a month since he began coming by himself?”
“I’m certain he must be going to that iron pipe factory up ahead.”
“However, he came to buy cigarettes this morning too, but today there didn’t seem to be anything unusual at all.”

“After all, he stood in front of that mirror there and stared fixedly at it for some time.”
“I think he must have lost his mind while standing there.”
“That mirror distorts everything in such a strange way, you see.”
“……Is the world in the mirror real?”
“Is the real world real?”
“It just feels a bit strange, you see.”
“So this man really did lose his mind after all.”
“He clattered and flung everything in the shop around haphazardly.”
“And when our young man went out to try to stop him, before they could even restrain him, he struck him right in the bridge of the nose.”

“So it’s just a nosebleed—nothing serious, right?”

“Yes, we’re fine here…”

“In any case, let’s take him to headquarters for questioning.”

The police officer said this and grabbed the arm of the man in blue work clothes.
The pale-faced man tilted his head quizzically.
There was not the slightest sign that he might resist.

"Move!
Lead the way."

The police officer grabbed his arm and tried to push him forward.
The man staggered as though he had completely lost consciousness.
The crowd around them suddenly erupted in commotion.

“Sir! Wait a moment, please!”

From within the crowd that had roared up like a tidal wave, a middle-aged man in brown work clothes came forward before the police officer as if shouting.

“What? Do you know this man?”

The police officer stopped and said.

“Yes.”
“He works at the same factory as me, you see.”
“...Sir!”
“If possible, could I ask you to entrust him to me?”
“Even if you say this man has lost his mind, it’s just that his neurasthenia has gotten worse—it’s nothing serious... Everyone at the factory knows about it. After something happened, he became terribly depressed, and well... his neurasthenia just worsened...”

“It’s not like he’s committed any crime—if you know him and can take him into your care, we’ll release him to you. But given he appears to have lost consciousness, you’ll need to be extremely careful...”

“Yoshimoto! What’s happened to you? Huh? Pull yourself together!”

The man in brown work clothes said while tapping the shoulder of the man in blue work clothes.
Yoshimoto in blue work clothes seemed unable to comprehend himself and tilted his head as if deep in thought.

“Don’t you think you really need to get a grip?”

The man in brown work clothes tapped Yoshimoto's shoulder again as he spoke.
Yet Yoshimoto remained in a half-dreaming state.

The crowd clamored all around them.

“So what exactly was the cause of this neurasthenia?”

The police officer asked the man in brown work clothes with a solemn face.

“It stems from their friendship, you see.
“It seems they had some profound pact—they were practically like brothers—but apparently this friend Nagamine went back on their agreement.”

“Do you not know what this promise entailed?”

“Both of them left university midway through their studies, and it seems they made their pact while still there. We don’t know the details ourselves, but according to others’ rumors, it involved the labor movement.”
“From what I hear, they’d been discussing forming a union together within our factory.”
“And just when things were coming together, this Nagamine fellow suddenly changed his mind and left.”
“So the union fell apart too, and he was left lonely after losing the friend he’d been like brothers with.”
“And then he suddenly sank into depression.”

“Still, it’s strange how looking at a distorting mirror could make someone lose their mind like that.”
“Anyway, take care when you bring him along.”

The police officer said this and pushed through into the crowd.

“That’s a two-person scam, isn’t it?”

Such a voice arose from within the crowd.
And then, the crowd began to disperse like a receding tide.

“Yoshimoto! You really need to get a grip!”

The man in brown work clothes said this and led Yoshimoto by the hand into the crowd.

2

The iron pipe factory workers deeply sympathized with Yoshimoto.
He continued to be struck by these episodic attacks several times afterward.

However, his episodic attacks would usually subside quickly.

His episodic attacks would stir up his acquaintances like a sudden evening shower, leaving him shaking his head and appearing unconscious for the rest of the day. Yet come morning, he would act as though nothing had happened and show up at the factory just as usual.

“Yoshimoto! Why don’t you just forget about someone like that?”

The factory workers spoke in this way.

"If it were about a woman, maybe you'd never be able to forget her—that happens. But this is different from other things. If you can't bring yourself to cut ties with that betrayer for good, how're you supposed to keep up the movement?"

The comrades in the iron pipe factory also spoke in that manner.

Yoshimoto, upon hearing this, flushed slightly and smirked while speaking as though recalling events from a dream he had the previous night.

"I think so myself, but..."
"But I just can't do anything about it."
"So it's not that fixating on Nagamine brings on the attacks—it's that bastard Nagamine who restructured my mind that way."
"I've already forgotten about Nagamine and all."

"That bastard Nagamine—what a goddamn lost cause."
"They didn’t bother restructurin’ the damn factory organization, but that bastard went and messed up Yoshimoto’s head instead."
The workers would say things like that.

“But it’s nothing serious anymore. I’ll get better soon.”

Yoshimoto would say this, and while normally there was nothing unusual about him, at times he would be struck by seizures midway through speaking.

When seized by an attack, Yoshimoto would show no unusual signs until the very moment before, only to suddenly strike the other person’s head—this had become routine.

“What the hell?”
“And what about you?”
“Cut the jokes!”

When they thought he was joking and looked at Yoshimoto’s face, his expression had already grown strangely tense, and he was quietly shaking his head while staring at them with a puzzled look.

“What the hell?”
“Yoshimoto!”
“This isn’t a joke?!”

However, by that point, Yoshimoto seemed unable to discern anything and did not appear to grow any more violent either—merely staring fixedly at the other man’s face.
He occasionally shook his head quietly.

3

For the management of the iron pipe factory, the most opportune moment had arrived. For there was now a man they had been unable to expel simply because there had been no incident that could serve as grounds—a man who had begun having violent seizures.

Yoshimoto was summoned before the personnel manager.

"I hear you haven't been feeling well lately?"
"What exactly has been going on, hmm?"

The personnel manager spoke in this way.

"It’s really nothing serious."

“Even if it’s nothing serious to you, those working alongside you seem to find it quite troublesome, don’t they?”

The personnel manager said with a smile.

“How about taking a break from the factory and resting for a while? Once things reach an irreparable state, there’ll be no use in regretting it later...”

"That may be true, but if I were to take a break from the factory right now, I wouldn’t be able to make a living."

“If you need to recuperate, the factory will put up some funds. Just take your time and rest properly.”
“Then once you’ve recovered, you can come back—how does that sound?”

“But it’s truly nothing serious.”
“It’s just that... talking like this somehow...”

As he spoke these words, Yoshimoto snatched the inkstand from the personnel manager’s desk and flung it at his head.

“Hey! What are you doing? Stop joking around!”

His white linen suit now drenched in ink, the personnel manager cried out in panic.

But for Yoshimoto, this was no joke at all. He kept quietly shaking his head while staring fixedly at the man’s face with a perplexed expression.

And so Yoshimoto was expelled from that iron pipe factory after receiving some compensation money.

4

It was about a week after Yoshimoto had been expelled from the factory that he went to visit Nagamine’s house on a certain hill in the suburbs.

Nagamine’s establishment of a home there with a certain woman had been terribly abrupt.

To such an extent that none of his friends had known—even Yoshimoto, who was closest to Nagamine, only learned of it through some chance occurrence after over a month had passed.
In that sense, rather than being sudden, it should be said to have been kept secret.
At the very least, Yoshimoto perceived it as a secretive program.

Yoshimoto’s melancholy—observed by the people of the iron pipe factory—did not stem from Nagamine having betrayed them and disappeared without a trace. To be precise, Yoshimoto began feeling melancholy toward Nagamine’s betrayal on the very day he discovered Nagamine had been concealing his whereabouts.
For in truth, at the very moment Yoshimoto lost track of Nagamine’s whereabouts, he had simultaneously lost track of a certain woman’s whereabouts as well.

Yoshimoto began his search for these two friends—who had simultaneously vanished—starting first with tracking down the whereabouts of the woman named Masako Akikawa.

The first time Yoshimoto met Masako—the sister of Akikawa, a friend from middle school—was shortly after he entered high school.
And before long, Yoshimoto came to love Masako, Akikawa’s sister, deeply.
But upon discovering at the same time that Nagamine had also begun to love her around that period, he stopped pursuing his own feelings toward marriage.
This was partly because he found the idea of vying with a close friend over her distasteful, but also because her own demeanor never made clear whom she favored more.

And from their own side too, they strove to forget her as much as possible.
Their plunging into factory work and labor movement activities might in one sense be seen as an active manifestation of that effort.

Yet still, they found themselves unable to easily forget her.

"Hey!
Let's go to Akikawa's place.
He's of a different class from us, holds different ideological stances - we can't collaborate on work matters. But as friends, that bond of friendship alone persists..."

They would say such things and often visit Akikawa's imposing mansion.
Their shared friendship was thus maintained with Akikawa while simultaneously being extended in the same manner to his sister Masako.

While they were carrying on in this manner, Nagamine suddenly vanished without a trace.
Yoshimoto had begun visiting Akikawa nearly every night out of a loneliness akin to losing an arm when he suddenly realized that Akikawa’s sister Masako was nowhere to be seen.

“What’s become of Ms. Masako?
I haven’t seen her at all...”

Yoshimoto finally asked in this manner.

“Masako fell in love, left this house, and hasn’t come back since.
I have a general idea where she might be, but I’m deliberately not going to look for her.
My father and mother have all sorts of things to say, but in my view, I can’t very well restrict her freedom.”

Akikawa spoke in that manner and said no more.

It was there that Yoshimoto began his search for her whereabouts.
Since Nagamine had betrayed him and gone away, he thought there would be no issue in advancing his own affections toward Masako—
However, when he finally managed to locate the house where she lived, Nagamine's nameplate was hanging there.

Yoshimoto had simply confirmed that fact and refrained from disturbing their peace and happiness, but once expelled from the iron pipe factory, he found himself with nowhere else to turn but to Akikawa and Nagamine.

5

On the balcony jutting out from Bluegrass Hill, Masako was knitting woolen yarn while letting the green of the wisteria trellis tinge her cheeks.

“Ms. Masako!”

Yoshimoto called out from the garden.
She was greatly startled and looked at him with a puzzled expression.

“It’s me. It’s Yoshimoto.”

“Oh!”
“Mr. Yoshimoto.”
“How kind of you to come.”

However, she smiled while blushing.

“I had to search all over before I finally figured it out.”
“First of all—not even giving me a moving notice? That’s just terrible!”

“Really… I’m sorry.”
“Since I didn’t give one to anyone else… Truly, how kind of you to come.”
“Please do come in.”

“And Nagamine?”

“Since today is Saturday, he’ll be back soon.”
“Oh my, please do come in and stay awhile.”
“Give me a glass of water.”

Yoshimoto said in a panting voice as he climbed the concrete stairs there.

“I’ll have tea brought now.”
“Oh my—please have a seat here…”

“Actually—I had come searching for this house some forty or fifty days prior.”
“To tell you truly—I came looking for you—Ms.—Masako—but through happenstance discovered Nagamine’s whereabouts too—which so shocked me I left at once.”

Yoshimoto said such things as he sat down in the offered chair.

“If only you had come to visit back then…”

She said while blushing again.

“But you seemed so happy. Back then, I thought my showing up would be like a hawk peering into a happy little bird’s nest, so I just left quietly without a word. But thanks to that, I ended up completely neurasthenic, you know.”

“I heard from my brother. When I heard that, I felt at a complete loss about what to do. Because everything has stemmed from me.”

She then lowered her eyes to her lap to avoid looking directly at his face.

“Ms. Masako! Are you happy?”

Yoshimoto suddenly asked that, as if he had just remembered.

“Well, how should I put it? I suppose I was happy—until I heard about that from my brother. But ever since I heard about Mr. Yoshimoto, I’ve somehow ceased to be happy. When I think that everything has stemmed from me, I simply cannot feel happy.”

“I wonder what Nagamine really thinks of me?”

“Nagamine also feels deeply sympathetic toward you, Mr. Yoshimoto.”
“And he too believes it all stemmed from himself, you see.”
“If he hadn’t betrayed you, he thinks none of this would have happened…”

“So did Nagamine not know I loved you?”

“He must have known.
But my side was even more than Mr. Yoshimoto’s...”

“That’s what anyone would think… But did you think that too, Ms. Masako?”

“Until recently... But I’ve come to not understand anymore, I suppose. If Nagamine and Mr. Yoshimoto had swapped positions, perhaps Nagamine would have ended up with neurasthenia like you—I’ve come to not understand such things anymore, I suppose.”

She fell silent just like that.
A deep silence fell between them.

6

Nagamine returned soon after that.
He had apparently recently started working at a company in the Marunouchi area.
While tearing off his white linen suit, he hurriedly emerged onto the balcony.

“Yoshimoto! Hey!”

“Hey!”

“I couldn’t face you.”
“You actually came.”

Nagamine gripped Yoshimoto's hand with terrible agitation.

“You really came. I thought you were angry…”

“I’m not angry… But you’ve gone and become completely petit-bourgeois again, haven’t you?”

Without any particularly accusatory demeanor, Yoshimoto spoke with a faint smile, but Nagamine felt something like being scraped by a file coursing through his body.

“At least forgive me for that. I truly feel from the bottom of my heart that I’ve done something inexcusable to you.”

Nagamine said while blushing somewhat and scratching his head.

“I’m not blaming you for anything. I’m just saying that the ideology you held ultimately wasn’t genuine.”

“It’s painful for me to hear that from you. Because my vague ideology and attitude are what made you ill.”

Nagamine said while dropping tobacco ash into a cast iron ashtray as sturdy as a lump of magnetite, avoiding looking at Yoshimoto’s face.

“Well you—it’s not just you.”
“If we’re talking about vagueness—I’m vague too.”
“In short, humans are nothing but a single distorting mirror.”
“There are various types.”
“But they’re distorting mirrors.”
“We’ve been forged into these distorting mirrors called ‘us’ within our own environment.”
“And we as distorting mirrors graduate university, go overseas, become doctors, then die.”
“We’ve been reflecting this as the natural world.”

“By the book.”

“By the book.”
“However, in this world, there are also distorting mirrors that do not reflect this as natural.”
“Depending on the environment.”
“For example, even when we went to the factory, it could be said that at least the glass substance of the distorting mirrors called ‘us’ was remade into different distorting mirrors in a furnace unlike any before.”
“So even I—if I remain all alone like this—there’s no telling what kind of distorting mirror I might be remade into.”
“In that sense, I would never blame you.”
“No matter how you choose to view the world, the Nagamine distorting mirror reflects it in its own Nagamine-like way.”
“And I, as the distorting mirror that is me, am reflecting the world in my own way.”

“But...”

Yoshimoto said only that and let out a deep sigh.
Each of Yoshimoto’s words came across to Nagamine as dripping with sarcasm.

“...But I do know my position is mistaken.
“But there’s nothing I can do about it.
“I feel like I’m not reflecting the world through my own mirror anymore... To put it in your terms—I’m merely catching the reflections from the distorting mirrors around me and reflecting them back, without letting a single thing I’ve captured within myself show on the surface.
“At least for now...”

“So these ‘distorting mirrors’ around you—who exactly are you referring to? …Ms. Masako?”
“Or are you referring to Ms. Masako’s family?”

Yoshimoto sank so deeply into the rattan chair that he was nearly lying on his back and said with a faint smile.

“If you press me to name them so specifically，I can’t say anything.”
“You’re the one who brought up distorting mirrors—I just used it as a metaphor，that’s all…”

Nagamine also said likewise and, this time looking squarely at Yoshimoto’s face, laughed refreshingly.

At that moment, Masako came out, having the maid carry fruits and cider.
She wore refined light makeup and had become even more beautiful.

“Please help yourself, Mr. Yoshimoto.”

She said this and poured cider into their glasses.
Compared to when she was Akikawa’s sister, she displayed the modest grace befitting a young wife.

“Please don’t trouble yourself.”
“Instead of that, how about Ms. Masako joins our group?”

“Oh my, I would be honored to join.”

She sat down in a nearby chair with a bright smile.

“Nagamine! So what on earth are you doing now?”
“Now I’m part of the exploiting class.”
“You’re employed, aren’t you? What on earth are you doing there?”

“This thing.”
“It’s the office of a company that makes things like this.”

Nagamine flicked the magnetite ashtray with his fingernail.
The ashtray rang with a metallic resonance.

“It’s surprisingly sturdy, isn’t it?
Will it sell?”

“It does sell, but I find their methods rather uninspiring.
It’s what you call a distorting mirror.
Even when there’s a clear ten thousand yen profit, they never reflect it truthfully.
From our perspective, those distorting mirrors are truly egregious.”

“Let’s drop this talk about distorting mirrors.”
“We shouldn’t discuss distorting mirrors before Ms. Masako.”

“Oh my, is this a conversation I’m not permitted to hear?”

“Ms. Masako, do you know about distorting mirrors?”

Yoshimoto said with a smile and kept fiddling with the magnetite ashtray.

“I know. That’s the mirror that reflects things in a strangely distorted way, isn’t it?”

“Yoshimoto! Aren’t you the one possessed by distorting mirrors? Haven’t you been talking about nothing but distorting mirrors this whole time? And wasn’t it also true that when you first had that seizure, you stood before a distorting mirror and stared intently at it?”

“Through those distorting mirrors, I can contemplate things in fascinating ways.”
“Just imagine the world inside that mirror.”
“Suppose I were to do this...”

Yoshimoto said this and, holding the heavy magnetite ashtray, rose from the rattan chair.

“...This ashtray’s damn heavy.”
“...You following?”
“I’m holding this ashtray like this...”

Yoshimoto said while lifting the ashtray high.

“Like this, I’m doing it—you following?”

“Hey!
You!”

He shouted as he swung the ashtray down toward Nagamine’s forehead.

“This is how I’ll do it!”

“Ah!”

Nagamine collapsed heavily in that spot.
He had his forehead completely shattered by that sturdy magnetite ashtray.

“Mr. Yoshimoto!
“You… you…”

Masako screamed, trembling in fear.

“Ms. Masako!”
“You—you killed the person you loved most, didn’t you?”
“You’ve killed Nagamine yourself now!”

“How dare you! You killed him yourself, yet you say such things!”

“No matter how the world’s distorting mirrors may reflect things, it remains undeniable that Ms. Masako killed the man she loved most.”

“Oh! This man!”

“Ms. Masako was the woman I loved most. Nagamine was the man I loved most. That Nagamine was killed—to think I’m watching the person I loved most be murdered by another person right before my eyes, utterly powerless to intervene... Truly, there’s no feeling more unbearable than this!”

Yoshimoto fell silent after saying that and began slowly shaking his head while staring at Masako’s face with a puzzled look.

“Mr. Yoshimoto! Did you resent Nagamine? Why didn’t you hate me? Why didn’t you kill me—the one who betrayed you? Kill me! Please kill me.”

She screamed as she pressed closer to Yoshimoto. She did not even shed a single tear. The incident had been too sudden—she remained in a state of extreme agitation, unable to channel her emotions into proper grief.

7

When Nagamine's corpse—his forehead having been shattered in death—was cleared away, Yoshimoto was immediately placed in the hospital.

This was because his impulsive actions made it impossible to predict what he might do going forward.
And so Nagamine and Yoshimoto—one died, and the other wasted away in a hospital room.

The dead have it easy.
For Nagamine’s anguish, resentment, and all his emotions certainly did not remain upon his corpse.—It was Masako who had received the emotions he left behind most vividly and intensely.
In that sense, Masako was immersed in the most sorrowful resentment.
And Masako often found herself recalling those final words Yoshimoto had spoken at that time.

“To think you’re watching the person you loved most get killed right before your eyes—and being utterly powerless to help—truly, there’s no feeling more unbearable than this!”

At the time, Masako had trampled those words into meaninglessness—dismissing them as offhand remarks laced with rhetorical irony—but now, in retrospect, she felt a gut-wrenching truth embedded within them.
And Masako came to feel she could perceive those words not as ironic sarcasm Yoshimoto had hurled at her, but as words pulsating with vitality from the depths of Yoshimoto’s heart.
For she could fully nod in understanding to the fact that the woman Yoshimoto had loved most was Masako, and the man he had loved most was Nagamine.

At the moment of his death, Nagamine had left upon her various emotions, which Masako would occasionally stir up in her own heart to hate and resent Yoshimoto, even going so far as to plot revenge.
The target of her revenge was wasting away in the hospital—whenever this thought suddenly struck her, she would be plunged into the abyss of wretched sorrow.
And what plunged her into the abyss of wretched emotion was not limited to that alone.
It was the family status of the house she was born into and the traditions of the class she belonged to.

Masako’s family’s social standing still clung to the lingering vestiges of an edict: that those who married without their parents’ consent—no matter how wretched an environment they might descend into through such unions—were no longer deserving of forgiveness.
She found herself positioned within the lingering vestiges of that traditional old system, required to sustain her own livelihood by herself.
Moreover, the class to which she belonged lay within customs where it could almost be said that there was virtually no instance of a woman who had once married regaining happiness through remarriage after losing her husband.—Masako had lost her happiness.
Before her stretched a future where, as far as she could see, a heavy black curtain hung ominously.
She would often gaze at it and sigh, utterly exhausted by her own suffering.

The dead have it easy!—Within this phrase she often muttered lay a heavy dose of the sentiment that she too should have been killed alongside them back then.

However, Masako did not simply hate and resent Yoshimoto—the man rotting at heart within the hospital walls.

Her recent recollections of Yoshimoto had largely transformed into feelings of pity.
There she discovered the maggot-breeding heart of one with a future pitch-black—someone surviving by hoarding misfortune as their sole possession, much like herself—a heart denied fresh air.

Masako felt Yoshimoto's emotions and consciousness upon awakening from his seizure symptoms to be utterly unbearable.

While seized by an attack, he lost all consciousness—existing as an emotionless being requiring no more sympathy than one would give the dead—yet when she contemplated the suffocating constraints of his lucid moments, tears would well in her eyes.
And when she realized it originated from herself, she was overwhelmed by an especially unbearable emotion.

To love me to the point of madness—there was no one in the world who had loved me as much as that person!
Such thoughts made her intensely sentimental.
There were times when it even surpassed the affection she had received from Nagamine during their over three months of cohabitation.

At times, she would also recall the distorting mirror they had spoken of back then.

In that instance, what the term "distorting mirror" had meant remained both a question and an object of singular fascination for her.

And she was often swayed by the desire to visit Yoshimoto in the hospital.

An emotion too dark to be called love!
Instead of friendship—with an affection that held a curious coldness.

8

The sky was clear and vividly blue.

Yoshimoto welcomed Masako with a smile nestled within his long-grown beard.

“How are you holding up?”
“And since then…?”

Masako said while staring into Yoshimoto’s eyes.
His eyes were tired deep within his emaciated eye sockets, like those of a skull.

“I think I’ll be recovering soon—it seems there’s no longer any need for me to put on such a foolish act as having seizures anymore.”

“Oh! Then you mean you were putting on such an act out of necessity?” Masako exclaimed in a low voice, surprised.

“How do you suppose the world’s distorting mirrors have been reflecting me?”

“What exactly does ‘distorting mirror’ mean? You and Nagamine were discussing such things back then too—but I couldn’t understand it—what does it mean?”

“I never thought Ms. Masako would come visit me.”
“Ms. Masako!”
“Why don’t you hate me?”
“Why don’t you resent me?”
“Or is this sarcasm?”

“Mr. Yoshimoto!”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“You’re perfectly fine now, aren’t you?”
“The seizures have mostly stopped, haven’t they?”

“It’s no longer necessary.”
“My aim wasn’t to shatter the distorting mirror called Nagamine—it was to reforge the distorting mirror called Ms. Masako.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“The person I loved most was you, Ms. Masako.”
“You know that, don’t you?”
“At the same time, you were also the person I hated most.”
“But that distorting mirror is a strange thing."
"It distorts and reflects everything in the world."
“That damn distorting mirror!”
"And then it finally had the gall to teach me to become a patient."
“No—”
“It had the gall to teach me to pretend to be a patient.”
“That damn distorting mirror!”

Yoshimoto said only that, shouting, then hung his head.

“Mr. Yoshimoto! Did you kill Nagamine intending to make me sad?”

“Do you love me? Do you hate me?”

“I only feel sorry for you. If I hated you, there wouldn’t be any reason for me to come visit you.”

While speaking in that manner, she took out sweets and other items from her furoshiki-wrapped bundle.

“It’s not just that distorting mirror teaching me to become a patient, you see.
“That damned distorting mirror—it knows all manner of things.
“Ms. Masako—have you never considered likening the world to a distorting mirror?
“Try contemplating it once.
“It’s fascinating.”
“...Who would dare call me a patient...?”

Yoshimoto smiled coldly and forlornly within his long-grown beard.