Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

About two rows ahead of Momoko’s seat was the staircase leading to the entrance of the second-floor seating area.
Now that the start time was approaching, a congestion filled with subdued liveliness—overflowing with concert-like colors as people continued crowding in from behind—swirled about that area.
With the program and document case stacked on her lap and her arms crossed over them in a relaxed posture, Momoko gazed at the lively scene below her eyes—enjoying it all as an accompaniment to the music she was about to hear.
From Momoko’s position, directly ahead she could see the handrail surrounding the entrance.
The people streaming in ceaselessly from the grand corridor below climbed step by step, first their heads appearing at that handrail, followed by shoulders and obis until their full forms emerged; sometimes dodging each other only to collide instead as they moved along the aisle toward their respective seats.
Various kimonos.
Various obis.
Various hairstyles.
Enveloping the colors and movements imbued with each spectator’s distinctive taste, the resonance of bass strings earnestly matching their pitch, flute trills, and intermingled violin sounds coalesced into an anticipatory atmosphere that drifted throughout the hall from beyond the drawn stage curtain.

To the empty seat on Momoko’s right came a young man carrying scores along with his program.
Momoko gathered her skirt and shifted her body slightly away from the armrest, then in a continuation of natural movements while softly tilting her chin, smelled the muted-hued violet tucked into her collar.
Momoko, having come straight from work, had pinned a small but living flower to her collar, adorning the night with her sense of contentment.

Suddenly, the figure of a man who had appeared at the wooden handrail below her eyes caught Momoko’s gaze.
When she realized from his profile that it was indeed Junzaburo, Momoko expressed her feeling of So you did come with a frank expression and waited for Junzaburo to turn toward her.
Junzaburo, being a music enthusiast himself, had long known his cousin’s seat well—the same seat she had occupied at this symphony’s concerts ever since her school days.
Even now, Junzaburo removed his hat with his characteristically casual yet generous bearing, turned his head, effortlessly found Momoko’s face watching him from above, and nodded with a refreshing smile.
The young man in the adjacent seat, with youth’s sensitivity, shifted his gaze from Momoko—who was responding with unreserved affection—to Junzaburo.
There was something about Junzaburo’s entirely unadorned demeanor that lingered in the air—something holding an allure capable of catching men’s eyes.

Looking closer, Junzaburo approached Momoko, who was standing in the aisle, and a woman of about her age, adopting a slightly stooped posture as he said something. The woman obediently turned around and, guided by Junzaburo, gradually traced her gaze to Momoko’s face before sending a meek nod across from where she stood. Slightly flustered, Momoko returned a polite schoolgirl-like bow. Showing the back of her Chinese-style jade satin obi adorned with delicate embroidery, the woman walked ahead and quietly descended toward seats much further forward than Junzaburo’s usual spot.

At that moment, the bell announcing the start of the performance rang out.

Momoko listened with particularly deep receptiveness that night to the concerto performed by Inoue Sonoko. Not only was this her first time hearing the pianist perform in years, but from the very manner of Sonoko's bow as she emerged on stage, there emanated an unadorned sincerity devoid of excess. A spirit seemed to resonate within even a single powerful, rounded chord—as though she had confronted music directly, freshly resolved to devote her entire existence to it and live through that commitment. This emotion akin to astonished wonder increasingly seized Momoko's heart as the piece advanced. The surrounding audience too appeared enchanted by music played through this pianist's remarkable inner growth; when the final melody dissolved into the breath-held stillness of the packed hall, an impassioned storm of applause erupted. Even after the encore, the clapping showed no sign of subsiding, and when she reappeared, that bow too was executed with refreshing forthrightness. Clapping fervently, Momoko longed—were it possible—to take this artist's hand with fellow feminine understanding and whisper heartfelt words of joy and encouragement: "How truly splendid this was." She had been one of Sonoko's quiet supporters since the days when this woman was still a slender young lady newly returned from abroad, wearing white soirée dresses. There later came a resplendent marriage to a wealthy Kansai industrialist; though her subsequent performances seemed to reflect a woman's physically abundant maturation moment by moment, they carried an unease as if she had voluntarily immersed herself in an excess of personal affectation. What transformation had occurred within this woman endowed with wealth and talent that tonight's performance could be so unadulterated yet brimming with artistic resolve? It could not simply be attributed to satiated happiness—something more complex, awakened from womanhood's profound depths—now appeared to imbue her music with greater profundity and ardor. And might this stem from those subtle shadows of human existence persisting even within what passes for contented living—or was this merely her own misguided conjecture?

Awareness of the reason for her own heart’s sensitivity tonight—so deeply struck by the advancing form of women’s art—was not entirely lost on her, and Momoko absentmindedly fanned her flushed cheeks with the program.

To Junzaburo, who had come at some point without her noticing,

“Alone?”

When asked，Momoko inadvertently—

“Oh，”

Her face flushed.

“If you’d like, shall we step out for a bit?”

While walking alongside her, Junzaburo
“Did you know about Morisaki?”
he said.
“That’s his younger sister.”

At the thick pillar of the terrace overflowing with people on break, Junzaburo reintroduced the two.

“This is my cousin, Kawada Momoko.”
“Ms. Morisaki Sayoko—pleased to make your acquaintance.”

And, while lighting a cigarette, he—

“Madam Sonoko has made remarkable progress, hasn’t she?”

Momoko poured her solitary emotions into her voice,

“Really!”

She nodded in agreement but immediately turned her attention to Sayoko,

“Do you come here often?”
she invited her counterpart into the conversation’s flow.
“Sometimes—oh, him! He only gives me tickets when he doesn’t want to come himself.”
“Then today must be special treatment, since he treated you to two tickets.”

“Tomonii-san, isn’t this because you’re feeling happy right now?”

Junzaburo,

“Ah, I see,” he laughed and,
“Tomonii-san has managed to obtain his degree, I hear.”

he explained to Momoko.

Junzaburo was of a character completely opposite to that of young men who enjoy bringing girls to concerts.
Junzaburo clearly perceived that Momoko—who knew his temperament well—was, out of consideration for him, attempting to present herself as intimately as possible within their inner circle to Sayoko, who had unexpectedly appeared with him tonight.

Even when walking between dark buildings as they considered going out to Ginza after the concert ended, Momoko adjusted her pace to match that of Sayoko, who wore a kimono and sandals.
Sayoko remained completely unaware of this.
Junzaburo could also perceive that naturalness in Sayoko.

The three of them took cold drinks at the famous fruit shop upstairs that also sold flowers downstairs, then strolled from there to Yurakucho Station.
At the ticket window, a line had formed of people buying tickets, and Junzaburo took his place at the very end, but when he casually readjusted his hat, Momoko caught sight of faint perplexity coloring his profile.
Ah—their return directions must be different.
Junzaburo was concerned about Momoko being left alone.

“Where is your home—located?”

“All the way in Omori.”

Momoko,

“Junzaburo-san—I wonder if he intends to buy my ticket too,”

she muttered as if to herself.

“Excuse me for a moment? I’ll be right back.—I have a pass.”

Taking out her pass from her document case, Momoko walked toward Junzaburo and waved it demonstratively.
When she drew near, she lowered her voice slightly:

“I’ll be fine—really, there’s no need to worry.”

“Ah.”

When they emerged onto the bustling platform where people lined up in queues, Junzaburo said half-jokingly,

“I wonder which one will come first?”

as he looked back and forth between the tracks on either side. Eventually, in a voice that held not the slightest hint of jest but was filled with warmth, Junzaburo declared,

“I’ll wait until Momo-chan gets on.”

Ⅱ

After losing his father in his second year of junior high school, Junzaburo had effectively grown up half within his uncle Kawada's household among Momoko and her siblings. Hirotaro, three years his senior, had always served as Junzaburo's surrogate elder brother. That likely contributed to it. Yet Momoko sometimes found it strange how vividly preserved in her memories remained the various scenes of playing with Junzaburo.

For instance, when she gazed at ants swarming across garden soil scorched by summer's intensity, what would always revive in Momoko's youthful recollections was inevitably the scenery of the garden before their detached house.

In the garden before the tea-ceremony-style detached house, pines and shrubs were quietly planted, and during the hot daytime, lizards darted about. The rough edge of a straw hat brushed against little Momoko’s forehead. That was Junzaburo wearing it. Momoko gazed in surprise at the soft soil that had emerged from beneath the overturned square stepping tile and the ant eggs there.

“Look—you’re surprised.”
“They’re scrambling, see? Trying to move their eggs somewhere else.”

However, Junzaburo did not disturb the ant nest any further.
He then replaced the square stepping tile exactly as it had been.
And then, whistling or something of the sort, he started walking.

Both of them had older brothers—so why was it only Junzaburo who had shown her the ant nest in such a way?

After all, that too had happened one summer—turning off the lights in room after room with lowered bamboo blinds, they played hide-and-seek. Momoko crawled under her father’s large table and held her breath, but as the demon still did not come even after so much time had passed, she gradually grew unable to wait any longer. While bracing herself with one hand against the floor, she crawled out from under the table and was just about to spring up when Junzaburo—who had become the demon—suddenly appeared from behind the hallway blinds, himself getting on all fours with the bulk of a calf as if driven by some impulse. Momoko was so startled and frightened that she truly burst into tears.

“Jun-chan, you’re crawling around even though you’re wearing something so yellow!”

She said that and cried.
Junzaburo had been wearing a traditional yellow hemp yukata.

“What a scaredy-cat.”

While saying this, Junzaburo waited beside Momoko as she cried.
And when Momoko stopped crying,

“Are you ready now?”

he asked.

That “Are you ready now?”
The tone of Junzaburo’s voice when he had asked her younger self—how vividly—must have remained not in the depths of her ears but in the depths of her heart as a twenty-three-year-old woman now, resonating with its lingering cadence.
When she recalled Junzaburo and herself from that time, she found herself smiling at the inexpressible blend of nostalgia and absurdity—yet within that laughter lay emotions that welled up in her throat.

After the two older brothers finished school and began working, and Junzaburo started attending the physics department at Imperial University, their former way of life changed—but it was Momoko who played piano to accompany Junzaburo’s guitar.

“Momo-chan—read this; it’s good.”

So saying, it was also Junzaburo who lent her books such as History of Books and History of Clocks written by someone named Irene, and looking at the textbooks Momoko used in the English literature department at her school,

“Teachers really do stick to the same books they studied from themselves, don’t they? If you’re not some special scholar, there’s no need to keep delving into the past just because of language skills. Language is a living thing,” he would say while giving her foreign magazines.

An air had consistently lingered wherein her mother Tayoko watched the two—chattering about such things or at times fervently debating—with a calm, trusting gaze; yet within Momoko’s increasingly layered private emotions during her solitary moments, there were sudden surges—something akin to shock or perhaps joy.
Momoko had gradually come to realize that Junzaburo evoked in her a certain feeling entirely different from her brothers or any other man.

That feeling resembled listening to a symphony performed in perfect harmony—her heart gradually opening to merge with the sound, expanding broadly from high to low, from note to note, then tightening once more with that very pleasure. In Junzaburo’s eyes, voice, and slightest movements existed something that pleasantly caught at Momoko’s senses—something that instilled in her, when with him, an inexpressible sense of security, vivacity, and simultaneously a cheerful joy of living. When with Junzaburo, Momoko felt herself become her simplest self; sitting with her smooth bare knees pressed together, she would grow genuinely cheerful—able to speak of anything in that earnest mood.

Last year, during the summer when Momoko graduated from school and joined the trade company where she now worked, there was an air defense drill.

“I must decline. This simply won’t do.”

After Tayoko hung the mosquito net and lay down, to Junzaburo who had come over,

“Shall we go upstairs?”

Momoko took the lead and went up to the second floor.
In the southern sky, across the dark roofs, two thick blue searchlight beams swept through the air, while the roar of airplane engines resounded from some high, distant place.

In the darkened room, there lingered a hazy brightness from the summer night sky.

“Is this okay as it is?”

“Okay.”

Junzaburo spread a zabuton under his back and flopped down.
Momoko sat down by the handrail and was being buffeted by the wind when，before long，

“Ah, I just remembered—there’s something nice today!”

She went downstairs and brought up the bancha set and Echigo’s famous silk mochi from a certain town.

“They just arrived today.”
“But you mustn’t go eating them all up!”

“I wonder if Hirotaro-san is still the same as ever?”

The younger of her elder brothers had been stationed there.

“That’s right—they all seem well. But they say children there aren’t getting enough ultraviolet rays these days, so they’ve started advocating going shirtless.”

Momoko had once again taken her seat by the handrail, and Junzaburo lay sprawled a short distance away, but sensing a sudden shift in his posture, she turned toward him to find his white dress shirt glowing faintly in the dimness as he sat cross-legged.
And then, hugging the folded cushion over his crossed legs,

“Hey, Momo-chan,”
he said.
It was Junzaburo’s usual comforting voice.
Yet within that voice lingered a faintly unfamiliar resonance, and Momoko found her reply catching in her throat.

Unconcerned, Junzaburo—

“Hey—if I were to propose to you…would that be terribly abrupt?”

Ah—the way he phrased it!
A hot, gleaming wave pierced through her body—Momoko felt she might be swept away entirely.
So she hadn’t been alone in contemplating this after all.

“Did you never think about it at all?”

“That’s not true.”

On the contrary, how many times had Momoko thought about it over and over? Especially as she began working and encountered various types of men, it had become increasingly clear to Momoko that Junzaburo was by no means a youth who could be found anywhere.

“What do you think?—Is it impossible?”

Before she knew it, Momoko slid down from the handrail and sat with her back against the window.

“Do you think there’s a possibility?”

“Hey… Junzaburo-san.”

Tears surged up, and Momoko finally spoke in a crushed voice,

"Why was I born as your cousin of all things?!"

Momoko roughly wiped the tears streaming down both cheeks with the back of her hand, then rubbed them childishly against her skirt.

“Fathers are such blockheads, making us cousins like this.”

Momoko said through her tears and laughed painfully.

“I feel the same way.”

“—Have you thought about it?”

“But Momoko, since we’re talking like this, I must have considered it from my perspective!”

How persuasive Junzaburo’s tone was.
Momoko’s heart and body could only bend beneath the gentle weight of Junzaburo’s voice.
But how could one explain that the more lushly she yielded, the more a scream rose within Momoko’s very flesh?

Momoko, with the intensity of one driven to desperation, scanned the dark surroundings as if entrusting herself to strength,

“Can you keep this up forever?”

she said.

“I’m like this, don’t you see?
“I might end up thinking I’m like a child—do you understand?”
“Do you understand what I mean?”
“Our feelings.”
“I believe they have that much worth.”
“That’s why I’m saying our fathers are such blockheads.”
“……But would men ever understand such feelings——”

That was something Junzaburo himself could clearly understand as his own emotion.
The full measure of their humanity.
The abundant mutual fondness between them—this very thing yearned for the overflowing of natural life.
Momoko’s youthful, natural resistance—her terror at bearing a disabled child from their accidental blood relation—struck Junzaburo to his very core as an outpouring of the straightforward feminine virtue that had drawn him so profoundly to her.

Eventually, Junzaburo spoke with mild humor:

“I suppose that’s just how the world works.”

And quietly letting the smoke from his cigarette drift,

“Then I’ll withdraw this talk, okay?”
“That would be better, don’t you think?”

Momoko, who had been silent for some time, moved toward Junzaburo on her knees.

“Hey, let’s make a pinky promise.”

Extending her pinky to Junzaburo’s silently offered finger, Momoko entwined her little finger with his and shook them up and down with earnest effort—one, two, three—just like children sealing a promise with their sh-sh-sh shake.

“Okay?
“Junzaburo-san, promise me.”
“Even if someday in the future I’m truly in trouble, you’ll definitely help me?”

It was a peculiar, unforgettable evening.
Momoko’s unadorned, wholehearted spirit—shining as if backed by the faint glow of a summer night sky without lamps—and her body, moving in supple curves that seemed half-asleep yet vibrant with that same resilient spirit, exerted an almost irresistible pull on Junzaburo.
With a heartfelt urge to press an affectionate kiss to the temple where Momoko’s soft curls tumbled free, Junzaburo—

“Ah, okay.”

he answered.

III

Though never articulated in direct words, through their unadulterated affection and the human strength born of that affection—and through their mutual recognition of a resolve not to yield to the darkness concealed by natural happenstance—Momoko’s heart now felt a joy and courage when facing Junzaburo that was clearer than ever before.

Someday, Junzaburo would marry someone.
That was, for Momoko, a discretion born of the same reasoning that could be applied to herself as well.
At the concert where she had unexpectedly encountered Junzaburo with Sayoko, her associations had naturally led her there; yet even when meeting Junzaburo afterward, Momoko did not broach the subject herself.
Momoko’s youthful purity, upon seeing even a single couple of their age group being viewed through conventional lenses by those around them, refused to include such gazes within her own perspective.

As the season was approaching early summer, there came two straight days off.
Tayoko, her mother who had aggravated her cold, had gone to a small seaside house about an hour from Tokyo.
On a sudden impulse, Momoko went out too.
Originally part of gentle sand dunes along a coast where young pines and miscanthus reeds once grew thickly, a tourist drive had been built there in recent years.
The house stood on elevated ground facing the sea across this road, so that for a time on Saturdays and Sundays—amid waves of cars speeding from Tokyo toward Hakone until late at night and vehicles rushing back along the return route—the sea’s shimmer would always reflect off the bodies of automobiles running along that road, such was the scene that met the eye.

Lately, with gasoline being scarce, that road too had grown quiet.

With charred cedar sandals carelessly slipped onto her bare toes and her figure clad in a faded pale blue thin garment with a small apron nonchalantly reclining, Momoko was sprawled on the gentle slope of the garden lawn.
The scent of pine resin warmed by the midday sun, the invisible heat rising from the lawn like a shimmering haze—these dissolved into the thick, pure air near the sea, and Momoko, lying there with her eyes closed, felt not just sunlight pouring down but abundant light and air particles tingling pleasantly like grains that seeped into her skin and hair roots.

Somewhere deep in the sky came the quivering sound of a propeller.
Even with her eyes closed, her eyelids appeared faintly red and translucent beneath their veil, lashes trembling.
Momoko recalled that time last spring when she had lain on this same lawn with Junzaburo.
There she lay now just as she had then.
Beside her, Junzaburo too lay supine - their outstretched hands nearly touching at the fingertips yet separated by a hair's breadth.
Both had bent one arm across their foreheads to shield against the blinding sunlight.
A roar akin to what they now heard resounded as they glimpsed an aircraft traversing westward through the brilliantly clear azure sky.
Above the pine treetops it flew - had their angle shifted slightly, they might have spied the pilot's form.
In a voice brimming with quiet longing and fulfillment, Momoko spoke.

“Hey, do you think they can see us like this?”

“Well—with that, there might actually be something to it.”

The two of them remained in that same position for a while longer, watching the aircraft recede into the distance.

When both the actual roar of engines and the remembered roar from Momoko’s recollection had gradually faded into the faintly bright distant sky, Momoko suddenly opened her eyes with a jolted expression and, still lying there, cast a look as though doubting her own ears.
A fleeting snippet of a voice she caught sounded exactly like Junzaburo’s.
Could such an auditory illusion really exist?
Momoko, who had been concentrating her attention on the surrounding air in case she heard it once more, this time truly couldn’t help—

“Oh!”

At that very moment, she sat upright on the lawn.
Junzaburo was there.
Behind Junzaburo, radiating a vivid burst of purple, stood Sayoko smiling.

“Oh…”

Momoko formed a feeble, bewildered smile as if roused from a light doze, and rubbed her forehead vigorously with her clenched fist.

“I’m sorry—it was just so unexpected.”

Momoko finally stood up and moved toward them,

“What a pleasant surprise to see you here.”

welcoming Sayoko.

“When I had called the Old Pine Town residence last night, they said you were here.”

“I’m glad. Has Mother already greeted you?”

“She’s stepped out for a bit.”

While preparing drinks and making hot wrung towels, Momoko found herself looking down, moved not just by simple surprise but by her own stirred emotions. What could these two coming all this way together be trying to convey?

Eventually, Tayoko also returned, and everyone brought out the sushi they had brought from Tokyo as a gift and ate it in the shade of the trees on the lawn.
Tayoko, blending her innate kindness and an observation devoid of malice in equal measure, graciously hosted the young female guest.
Sayoko would occasionally,

"My, how pleasant."

,and

“Here, even in sandy soil, flowers are blooming—how wonderful.”

While making such remarks, she accepted the hospitality without any airs.

“If you would rest a while, perhaps take a little stroll along the shore,” said Tayoko.

“It’s not much of a view, but Enoshima can be seen right over there, and it really lifts one’s spirits.”

“Today seems like we could already go in.”

“You must be joking, Junzaburo-san. That won’t do at all—Momo-chan should join us too, right?”

“…………”

Junzaburo stood up and said to no one in particular, “Let’s take a short walk.”

“Let’s go for a short walk.”

Junzaburo stood up.
Sayoko also stood up, smoothing her sleeves in unison.

“Won’t you join us?”

They glanced back at Momoko.

“I’ll come later—I’ve got to go show off my considerable talents elsewhere first, you see.”

“Well, we’ll generally be around the area straight out from that bridge.”

The two of them made their way from the garden through the gate.
Tayoko had been intently seeing them off, but when she turned to say something, Momoko was already gone from the area.

The black-and-white piebald dog, completely untrained and unrestrained, would chase after the withered branches Momoko threw in that direction but never learned to retrieve them, just kicking up sand everywhere as it played.
Throwing branches further and further ahead while running down the last sand dune with the dog, then brushing aside the hair that fell over her face and looking up, Momoko saw Sayoko’s purple figure and Junzaburo appear at the promised windbreak reed screen across the way.
Momoko was glad she had come.
Sayoko spotted her and raised her hand.
Momoko waved back in response, and as they gradually drew nearer, Junzaburo let out a single high-pitched whistle.
The piebald dog dashed off with undulations rippling along its back.

“You took your time.”

Sayoko sat down there and immediately said to Momoko.

“I waited.”

“I’m sorry.
But there’s a delicious snack waiting.”

Junzaburo was grabbing the piebald dog’s front paws in one hand and engaging in something like sumo wrestling.

“Is this your dog?”

“It’s from the neighborhood.”

While avoiding the cigarette smoke getting into his eyes, Junzaburo continued playing with the dog in a posture turned sideways away from the women, not saying a word.
From his demeanor, there was something painful that came across to Momoko’s intuition.
The current Sayoko had become more inclined to speak to herself than when she had first arrived.
That, too, was somehow painful for Momoko.

When the two appeared together at the edge of the lawn, a premonition coursed through Momoko’s entire body and unsettled her; yet seeing Sayoko’s expression now turned toward her, Momoko couldn’t help feeling this loneliness was ultimately for Junzaburo’s sake.

Tayoko remained entirely oblivious to such delicate shadows in the young hearts of the trio who had returned, taking out an album to show Sayoko photographs of her own sons in middle school uniforms holding bicycles alongside Junzaburo.
Sayoko looked at these things with the same quiet charm she had shown during the day and responded to Tayoko’s words.
Though Momoko understood this was Sayoko’s only possible course of action, within that composure she sensed something like a lucidly pure heartlessness—one that left Sayoko herself completely unscathed.

The next morning, Momoko went straight from that coast to her workplace in Marunouchi.
After the two-day holiday, things were quite hectic, and there were several English shorthand documents to handle.
When she had free time, Junzaburo was on her mind.
The profile of Junzaburo, who had been playing by grabbing the dog’s front legs on the coast, came to mind.
The fact that he didn’t immediately call also struck Momoko as being very much like him.

About four days later, after Junzaburo invited her out for dinner, the two walked for a while through Hibiya—where arc lamps illuminated the soft layers of fresh greenery in varied hues: sawtooth oak young leaves, oak young leaves, maple young leaves.

“—Momo-chan, I thought you’d be commuting from over there for a while.”

“I wouldn’t do that—the trains are terribly crowded, you know.”

“That does make sense.
“I hear wooden clogs get scattered all over bridges like Ōi in the mornings.”

Throughout this time, without touching on family matters, Junzaburo had been making idle small talk all along, but suddenly—

“What does it all mean?”

Junzaburo said.

“It’s natural for men and women to feel things differently in various ways—but don’t you think there are times when, depending on the era, those differences become especially severe? What do you think?”

Without waiting for Momoko’s answer, Junzaburo said,

“Take marriage, for instance—or rather, not so much marriage itself as the concept of a wife. I think young men these days are approaching it with a somewhat different life perspective than before.”

“Those so-called decent young men who once considered marriage and family through ideals of lasting improvement are now, I think, feeling a far greater sense of urgency—contemplating life that might be interrupted at any time, and thereby contemplating what a wife means.”

“I can’t quite put it into words…”

While walking along the path laid with fine sand, Junzaburo absentmindedly plucked one of the Himalayan cedar's green buds that his hand had accidentally brushed against.

“Don’t you get it? You see, the feeling that life’s next moment is uncertain has a strong effect on reality. They say people are becoming hedonistic or losing their ideals, but that’s only part of it. In any era, there are those who become like that. Though they don’t talk like that, there are surprisingly good guys among men who feel things more deeply. I don’t think such men feel about their wives in shallow terms like household stability these days. I think they see the rawness of our era’s fate more starkly and consider their wives as a maternal refuge from humanity’s harsh destiny.”

On Junzaburo’s face spread an expression—a mingling of desolation and ardor resembling that time he had played with the dog on the coast, only now intensified.

“Women seem to differ somehow… Women these days have been clinging increasingly to stability in their daily lives, so to speak.”
“Men’s hearts are moving in the opposite direction…”

All the circumstances between Sayoko and Junzaburo from this period were gradually coming to make sense within Momoko’s heart.

“The misfortunes of an era lie in such peculiar places.”

Momoko recalled the words her mother Tayoko had broached that evening at the coastal house, in a manner suggesting this was a rare opportune moment for such a topic. That was when, during her aunt’s previous visit, she had said things like “Momo-chan, you really should start settling down soon—the way you’ve been carrying yourself these days inevitably makes potential matches drift further away,” and Momoko herself had voiced agreement with this opinion. Parents and daughters these days were acting with such peculiar urgency. In that, there seemed to be both women’s eternal misery and the calculated facades born from that misery, and Momoko felt sorrowful.

“Don’t you think so, Junzaburo-san? All of this happens because women haven’t yet reached the point where they can feel history’s full cross-section as their own with the same sensibility as men. They only comprehend their personal happiness and unhappiness—it’s like they haven’t even developed a sense of the era’s misfortunes—don’t you think…?”

“Hmm...”

After walking in silence for a long time, Junzaburo abruptly—

“How do women think about love?”

Junzaburo said.

It was spoken in a somber tone, almost as if questioning himself.
Something resembling a deep, sharp pain shot through Momoko’s chest.
So very close were they as man and woman—and yet so very distant were they as man and woman.
Why couldn’t this—just as it was—be called one perfect love?
Momoko thought this and listened to the crunch of fine sand beneath their shoes.