Pathway to Japanese Literature

Not so much bright as simply red in hue—that was the dawn.
Even as stars still twinkled in the midheaven, across the cloud surfaces of the eastern sky flowed layer upon layer of crimson, vermilion, and orange.
Not light rays but color; there was no reflection.
Therefore here, on the building’s rooftop too, dimness still lingered in the air.
When I stretched out my hand, the wooden bench was damp with morning dew.
It was a pure coldness.

I now felt this coldness and gazed upon this dawn.
I didn't even know when I had woken up.
This unconscious awakening was strange.
Perhaps I was still drunk.
I felt as though I were in a dream.
But before coming outside, in the middle of the night, I had clearly awakened.

That night, I drank sake, drank beer, then moved on to whiskey.
This last one—the cheap whiskey—like the kasutori shochu flooding drink stalls and such, was a melancholic fixture of postwar days.
The intense alcohol rapidly clouded consciousness, but even during sleep—whether deep or not—it continued acting on the central nervous system, its stimulation jolting me abruptly awake in the dead of night.
And once awake, sleep simply wouldn't return.
I learned this through repeated experiences.

So when I woke up, I simply resigned myself and lay wide awake in the futon.
The two candle flames inside the paper lantern were unnervingly bright.
The problem was that the woman had been sleeping beside me.
To think I could call her "the woman"... My heart had already detached from Kikuko.
Or rather—had I ever truly loved Kikuko from the beginning? That itself seems doubtful now.

Her breasts were larger than average.
She was already around thirty-five years old, had never borne a child, and had likely known the bodies of several men.
Such a woman’s large, ample breasts spoiled a certain type of man.
Alas, I was one of those very men.
I indulged in her large breasts.
In other words, for me, those breasts were female body temperature itself.
A bottomless lukewarm abyss—an abyss devoid of wonder or vitality, merely tepid—a blind abyss luring all things with its whispered "sleep, sleep." Into this I had submerged myself.
It was comfortable, yet suffocating.
Gradually, the latter grew stronger, until I even began to feel the danger of suffocation.

I poked her with my elbow.
If she were a woman I loved, I would have probed gently with my fingertips, but for her, an elbow sufficed.
She was sound asleep.
Her skin, washed clean of powder, glowed with luster; though her face was large, her nose tapered delicately, forming an underbite that made her chin jut out slightly.
She was breathing peacefully, and in that breath lingered a certain fragrance.
Generally speaking, a drunkard’s breath stinks.
I myself could sense the stench of post-drinking breath.
But no matter how much Kikuko drank—though perhaps she didn’t actually drink that much—to my knowledge, her breath never turned foul; if anything, it took on a certain fragrance.
I thought perhaps it was the purifying effect of female body temperature.
It must have been a foolish illusion within the blind abyss.
Because my own breath was so terribly foul, I must have perceived the moderate foulness of hers as fragrance.
Compared to the air amidst the morning dew and dawn, her breath was indeed somewhat foul.

Poked by an elbow, she turned over from lying on her back to facing away.
The large breasts swayed gently… I felt.
What made me sense this lay in her physique—particularly that rounded back of hers.
Though wearing a nightgown, its threadbare fabric was gauze-thin, clinging to a body both thickly ponderous and exuding soft warmth.
I wanted to sink into that warmth.
But then her ear was right before my nose.

Her ear floated up unnaturally pale from within the disheveled hair.
The misshapen oval spiraled further elongated, its earlobe's lower end melting tautly into her neck.
As for earlobes—in my opinion—what makes them elegant is being sharply demarcated from the flesh spanning cheek to neck and plumply rounded.
Yet how vulgar are women's ears!
Kikuko's was one such case, lacking any clear boundary at the lower edge, stretched taut into her skin and dissolving into it.
That ear—Nakano had licked it.

Since she herself had confessed to it, that couldn’t be a lie.
Even if I had coerced her, she wasn’t clever enough to fabricate such a story on the spot.

Ever since Kikuko and I became acquainted with each other’s bodies, I was often tormented by Nakano’s phantom.
I had made indirect digs, but on one occasion, when something displeased me, I pressed her about her relationship with Nakano.
She laughed and brushed it off.
She stubbornly yet calmly denied that Nakano was anything more than a customer who came to drink.

“I just had my ear licked, that’s all.”

I didn't understand what she meant by that.

“Come on, say it more clearly.”

“So I just had my ear licked, that’s all.”

One night, after the other drunk patrons had left, only Nakano remained.
As we exchanged jokes, Nakano eventually fell silent, then whispered that there was in fact a deeply troubling secret weighing on his mind.

“When he said ‘Lend me your ear,’ I turned my ear toward Mr. Nakano, who was leaning over the counter.”
“Then there was only hot breath—no voice at all.”
“And then something seemed to touch my earlobe—then suddenly it tickled so much I jumped up in surprise…”
“That’s all.”

“And then…?”

“Since Mr. Nakano was laughing, I called him an idiot, and when I glared at him, he looked so dejected.”
“He’s such a child, isn’t he?”

That retelling—though it was just a retelling—had her use of “idiot” ring out with an odd tenderness, which I noted.

“Was the ear licked or bitten—which is it?”

“It was licked.”
“If it had been a bite, you’d know right away. Once before, when I wasn’t paying attention, it was licked.”
“But that was the end of it.”
“I’m already being careful on my part.”

If it had happened twice, it might have happened three times.
Anyway, under normal circumstances, one would either kiss the neck or bite the ear hard—but instead, gently licking the lower part of the earlobe was just the sort of thing Nakano would do.
And what earlobes they were—lowly, vulgar things drawn taut into the skin.
In the very act of daring to lick and be licked, there might have existed between the two of them an intensity of emotion beyond anything I could fathom.

Originally, it was Nakano Usaburou’s doing that I became so deeply entangled with Kikuko.

What Kikuko—Maeda Kikuko—had been doing in Manchuria for two and a half years, even I didn't truly know.
She had supposedly been helping with the accounts and serving in the dining room at her aunt's restaurant catering to Japanese clientele—but let's leave it at that.

When the war ended and some time had passed, she returned to Tokyo.
The aunt fell ill and moved to the countryside.
Kikuko started a bar on her own.
It was a time of building scarcity.
A certain half-burned building near the city center was rapidly repaired and crammed full of numerous offices.
A small restaurant was built on the rooftop and was further expanded.
In one corner stood a modest coffee shop.
In such a location, it never managed to attract customers.
Through the arrangements of the aunt and an acquaintance, Kikuko had it transferred to her and converted it into a bar.
In a stand-style bar lined with wooden stools, a single commuting girl served standard alcoholic beverages and simple snacks; upon request, readily available dishes could be ordered from the restaurant in the same building.
In the back of the counter, she had one bedroom.
Right next door, a middle-aged couple lived and slept.
Two families also lived in the basement.
Given that it was a building, the nighttime security was thorough, so there was nothing to worry about.
But Kikuko wanted to come down from that rooftop and live on ground level.

“I want to own a house, though…”

She often said this to regular customers.

However, in reality, she did have a house there.

“But this place is like a little bird’s nest, you see.”

It wasn’t that the house was small, but because it was located high up on the rooftop.

She couldn’t be called a beauty, but her features were ordinary enough, and depending on one’s perspective, she wasn’t entirely incapable of captivating a man’s heart.
Even if calling her a small bird was absurd given her large build, had she been simply a bird, there might well have been someone to set up her cage on solid ground.
But she possessed a sluggishness that could be seen as either laziness or resignation.
It was a physical heaviness.
In the past, even establishments that merely bore the name “bar” had Madams who possessed some measure of refinement and wit, but after the war, most became mere “barmaids.”
In other words, their flesh had been laid completely bare.
Kikuko too was leisurely stationed behind the counter—her large double-layered bangs piled atop her forehead, her sizable breasts dangling without a brassiere—letting a young man suck on her vulgar earlobes.
However, performing such a feat as licking her ear not in some boudoir but right at the counter would be rather difficult for anyone other than Nakano.

That evening, I was particularly struck by Nakano’s manner of speech and gestures—before I knew it, we were alone, and with Kikuko joining in, the three of us drank beer and whiskey.
She rarely accepted drinks from customers, but once the hour grew late and only regulars remained, she drank quite heavily.
Because it was located in a slightly inconvenient spot on the rooftop of a building, the bar opened early, but by just past nine o’clock, customer traffic would already cease.

“It seems late... Oh, my watch has stopped,” said a male voice.

“It’s always stopped, isn’t it?”

“But isn’t it better for watches to stop when one’s drinking? I think so, you know.”

It was Nakano who said that.
I grew weary of the inane banter, my drunkenness deepening as I sat there dazed, but that male voice’s feminine lilt tickled my emotions.

Even though he should have left it alone, Kikuko pressed further.

“Only when drinking.”

“Let’s see… When I’m drinking, when listening to music, when watching movies…”

“When meeting that person.”

“Oh my, how wicked.”
“And when meeting Madam here…”

“The Madam here is all about the alcohol, isn’t she? Go on, drink up.”

She poured beer and was about to add whiskey when he writhed his hand in refusal.

“I can’t handle anything that strong anymore.”
“I’ve gotten quite drunk.”
“Imagine me tumbling down the stairs and being found dead tomorrow morning—how utterly pathetic that would be.”
“At least walk me that far.”

He had thrown both arms over the counter and was supplely undulating his shoulders; even so, that figure of his wasn’t unattractive. With his hair neatly slicked with pomade, immaculately clad in a checked brown suit, and a snow-white handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket, he was a handsome man around thirty.

I smoked my second cigarette in quick succession and stepped outside for a bit.
The air was stagnant.
The sky was dark, the starlight faint.
The streetlights were sparse, and here and there half-burned buildings stood pitch-black.
It was a gloomy night and view—compared to this morning’s clear, cold dawn, the difference was like heaven and earth.

I wondered if Sonobe, who had dragged me there, had ever seen dawn break from that rooftop.
No—he likely hadn’t.
He being a poet had apparently taken fancy to it solely for being a rooftop bar.
He’d said both basement bars and rooftop bars stirred wanderlust in people.
That seemed to nurture poetic delusions.
But I wasn’t a poet.
Gloomy night vistas were detestable things.
I returned inside.
Nakano Usaburou remained.

Why had I ended up drinking so intimately with that effeminate creature? This carelessness was mine alone. Ordinarily he comported himself with all the courteous restraint of a model young gentleman, escaping notice entirely. Yet when drunk—though perhaps this transformation occurred solely in Kikuko's presence—he exuded a cloying femininity. Precisely because it lacked any trace of affectation did this mannerism grate upon my nerves. As heir to that moderately renowned instrument shop and self-proclaimed disciple of Sonobe, he dabbled in verse, toyed with musical instruments, affected dance movements, and even displayed some diplomatic aptitude in managing the family business—a jack-of-all-trades who ultimately mastered none. Like those who shed both masculinity and femininity in drunken excess. That such cultural specimens—for I suppose we must count him among their number—persisted in this postwar world of harsh realities, nay multiplied within it, stood as tragic testament to our times. What connection bound me to him? I was Sonobe's friend; he styled himself Sonobe's disciple—this tenuous thread alone linked us.

But between him—this spiritless scarecrow—and me lay Kikuko’s flesh.
Nakano drank beer while wriggling against the counter he leaned on, appearing troubled by something.
Kikuko wore a smile that kept flickering glances his way.
With every movement she made, through the thin fabric of her brassiere and chemise, the sway of ample breasts became visible.
This was no imagination—it lay plainly before my eyes.
Nakano’s posturing, Kikuko’s breasts, and those smiling eyes bridging them both—they grated on my nerves yet stoked my passions.
I should have walked away then, but clinging with pathetic reluctance twisted things strange… no—rather, I twisted them myself.

Kikuko, due to her habit when drunk, offered us cigarettes.
That cigarette was also a signal that the bar was closing and an urging for us to leave.
The hired maid had already gone home earlier.

Nakano lit a cigarette, then spoke.

“Lend me the cards.”

“What are you going to do?” Kikuko asked.

“Let’s do that one.”

“Well then, go ahead and try.”

It seemed to be some private ritual between just the two of them.

Nakano arranged the playing cards in a circle like a clock face—four cards each at twelve positions, with one at the center—and began flipping from the center, moving to whichever number appeared.
It was clock divination.
He flipped through the cards with deft fingertips.
When the four Kings in the center had aligned and been revealed, he checked to find only the seven o’clock position remained blocked by a single card.

“There, see?” said Kikuko. “Just one glass. Which will you have?”

“No, I’ve had enough alcohol already... Rather than that, it’s truly strange.”

The strange thing was that only one card remained at seven o’clock. He said that lately, he had been having dreams every day at seven o’clock in the morning. He had strange dreams. Just as he was growing concerned about it, the cards had shown it again.

“Madam, you must have dreams at seven o’clock too.”

“I don’t have dreams around seven o’clock.”

“But you will surely start having them soon.”

“Why?”

“It showed up in the cards.”
“If you have a dream at seven o’clock, tell me what it’s about, okay?”
“There’s something I’m rather curious about.”

He kept holding the seven of spades in his hand and stared intently at her face with his long-lashed, darkened eyes.
She received his gaze with a smile and poured whiskey into his glass.

“Now, the divination drink!”

He downed it in one gulp and stood up.
He bowed to me.

“Please take your time.”
“I’ll take my leave now.”

After being left alone, I suddenly felt a surge of irritation and paced around. To resume drinking, I ordered hot sake. The hot water had gone completely cold. If I kept dawdling, not only the front entrance downstairs but also the back entrance would be locked shut, and things might get troublesome.

“It’s fine.”
“Let’s drink through till dawn.”

“Well then, I’ll join you too.”

We were both drunk, but things turned out that way partly because Nakano’s phantom still lingered.
I couldn’t just abandon that phantom there.

The back of the bar was a six-tatami Japanese-style room. There was a tokonoma alcove and closet, with storm shutters, glass-paned doors, and curtains—it was rather well-appointed. A small desk, clothes chest, vanity mirror, dining table, hibachi brazier, and other ordinary furnishings sat jumbled together haphazardly. She and I pulled a one-shō sake bottle near the electric heater and drank while waiting for dawn. As we waited, we drank ourselves senseless. Everything was already a mess. And I sank into her body temperature. The only things I faintly recall are that I grew somewhat violent while she remained somewhat calm. She kept hygiene supplies prepared. Moreover, even afterward, there remained something about her that suggested a cold-natured disposition. Yet her breasts and thighs were abnormally plump. Had I been a painter, I would have rendered her portrait by grotesquely exaggerating nothing but those breasts and thighs.

Those enormous breasts and thighs paralyzed my reason, paralyzed my emotions, and forced my eyes shut.
There, opening my eyes brought anxiety, while closing them brought pleasure.
Even so, I would sometimes thrash about.
Driven by a frantic desperation born of not knowing whether I truly loved or hated her, I struck her chest and bit her neck.
Perhaps to hide the traces of purple bruises, she began wearing kimonos more often.
She was calm.

Once, when I asked her if she truly loved me, she answered calmly.

“I do love you. I love your roughness.”
“I can’t stand men who are all smooth and bland.”

The roughness—emotional roughness, physical roughness—must have been a kind of comfortable stimulus for her voluptuous body.
But what exactly was Nakano to her?
Since becoming involved with her that way, I knew the tenderness in her eyes when she looked at Nakano had only grown.
Hadn’t she let Nakano suck her ear and then leap up ticklishly?
It seemed there was no physical interaction beyond that between them, yet that very fact filled me with unease.
I had unconsciously come to avoid Nakano.
But his phantom clung even into our embrace.
Even so, when alone, a peculiar thin layer of loneliness seeped into my skin, and I longed for her ample body heat.
And often I went for all-night drinking—which meant staying over.

I tried to avoid meeting other customers as much as possible.
It wasn’t the conduct of “Madam’s lover,” but rather that of a man in between.
At the center of the other customers was, needless to say, Nakano Usaburou.
And before long, he would press toward me.

Even so, I would still put up a front and sometimes start drinking early at the bar.
Kikuko feigned innocence, yet through subtle inflections and gestures betrayed our intimacy.
Paradoxically, this made me feel redeemed.
When I think about it now, it feels utterly shameful.

Wanting to get drunk quickly, I’d gulp down drinks in rapid succession—then wander the rooftop to kill time when sobriety returned. It happened again just the other night.
A chill night breeze whispered past as the first-quarter moon hung low in the western sky.
On that high-rise rooftop, the pale moonlight seeped deeper into one’s bones than it ever did belowground, evoking what Sonobe called wanderlust.
Leaning against the parapet, I lit a cigarette.
That’s when Nakano approached.
Had this transient poetic mood made me indifferent to his presence?

He seemed quite drunk already, taking a few deep breaths.
And then he spoke slowly, as if holding something back.
True to form, he didn’t use feminine speech when addressing me.

“Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not that drunk.”
“Why?”

“Because when you get drunk, you go completely wild.”
He gave a fleeting laugh.
“There’s something I need to discuss…”

He hesitated to broach it.
He took his time smoking one cigarette.
His long-lashed eyes appeared fragile and sorrowful—not just from the pale moonlight.

“It’s about Madam.”

I frowned.

“You don’t think Madam is angry with me, do you?”

I immediately thought it was about the ears, but that wasn’t actually the case.

“If she’s angry, it’s a misunderstanding—could you please explain that properly to her too?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

When I heard the story, it turned out to be utterly trivial—there was a young woman musician among his acquaintances. Her specialty was the violin, but her piano had been destroyed in the war, and she was now going to buy a new one from Nakano’s shop. Since the woman musician liked beer, he had brought her to Kikuko’s bar for drinks. That was all there was to it, and apparently nothing more.

“Why would Madam be angry about that?”

“She’s misunderstood.”
“She must have thought I was in some strange relationship with that musician.”

“What’s wrong with being in a strange relationship?”

“But I like Madam, and Madam likes me.”

“Well, well—a mutual love affair?”

“No, that’s not it.”
“I just like her. … I know all about you and Madam.”
“But that is a separate issue.”
“I don’t think anything of it.”
“It’s not that kind of issue—I simply like Madam, and Madam likes me.”
“That I, of all people, should be misunderstood as having another lover is painful.”
“Madam has the wrong idea.”
“Since it would be awkward for me to explain too much myself, could you also put in a word for me?”

“So, as long as it’s settled that the musician isn’t your lover, that’s all that matters?”

“That’s right.”

“And is that really true?”

“It’s true.”

“Then that’s fine as it is, isn’t it?”

“It’s just that I hate being misunderstood and scolded by Madam.”

“That’s impossible. I’ll make sure to tell her properly too.”

“Please.”

The conversation ended there.

However, when I eventually entered the bar and saw Kikuko’s face, I suddenly felt the absurdity of my own position—he had said he knew all about my relationship with Kikuko.
That was probably true.
And yet, right in front of me—treating it as a separate matter—he and she openly declared their mutual affection.
They were completely ignoring me.
And then he brought up that business with the female musician.
Could there have been some other secret behind that audacity?

I relayed Nakano’s story to Kikuko.

She laughed.

“That person has his endearing side.”
“When I show even a hint of sulkiness, he takes it seriously.”

“Nakano said he likes you.”
“So you admit you like Nakano too.”

“Well… I suppose so.”

“You’d say that in front of me?”

“What’s wrong with saying it?”
“It’s just a game.”

She fixed her glittering eyes steadfastly on mine.

“Yours isn’t a game—you’re serious.”

And she embraced my neck, but I averted my lips.

She said I was serious.
But that was a seriousness of the flesh alone.
This seriousness might shift elsewhere at any moment, leaving only playfulness behind with me.
Nakano might have seen through that.
Or perhaps he instinctively senses it.
To tell the truth, I can’t claim to love Kikuko either.
Isn’t it just purely carnal indulgence?
But if that’s the case—what on earth is love?
What is this temptation and impulse to drown in her body temperature?

I resolved.
Now that I think about it, it was a drunkard’s resolution.

I procured a considerable sum of money.
I repaid all my debts to Kikuko and entrusted her with an additional sum.
And drank as much as I could.
Through a message from her, Nakano also came.

“It’s auspicious business, but let’s save that for last.”

I said that, urged him to drink, urged Kikuko to drink too, and made the female musician affair into drinking talk.
The young woman had already left, and there were no other customers.
And finally, I had intended to declare as follows.

“Well now, all three of us are drunk.”
“So let’s dispense with pointless reservations.”
“Tonight we’ll sleep together—all three of us.”
“Kikuko and I are already physically intimate.”
“Then there’s Nakano and Madam—mutually infatuated, licking each other’s ears back and forth.”
“Nakano and I are brothers—kindred spirits bound by love.”
“Let’s sleep.”
“We’ll lay Kikuko in the middle.”
“You suck on her ears.”
“I’ll bite down on the neck.”
“What Kikuko does…we’ll leave to Kikuko’s own discretion…”

Such madness was what I had contemplated with self-destructive recklessness yet in earnestness. That had been my resolution. Yet drunk as I was, when the moment came, I understood the impossibility of execution—as daunting as leaping from this rooftop. Even with closed eyes, I couldn’t shake the certainty of falling. Were Kikuko and Nakano to consent, my soul would still revolt. Worse yet, they might have found perverse amusement in agreeing. Her sightless flesh and his languid spirit might have welcomed it. But my soul resisted fiercely—until I found myself plunged into profound rumination.

“What’s the matter?”
“You’re acting rather strange,” Nakano said.

“You drank too much,” Kikuko said.

“What could this ‘business’ be about?”

“Well, I don’t know either.”

Hearing those words as if from a distance, the moment I moved, I apparently knocked two glasses off the stand.
At the clear sound of shattering glass, I came to my senses and stood up.

“The business at hand is drinking.
“Come on, let’s drink more.”

I tried to raise a toast but collapsed onto the stool again.

“I should get going now.”

“Yes, that’s for the best.”

Only voices reached me.
Nakano must have left.
Kikuko likely did some tidying.
Then I found myself led to bed.

Due to alcohol's excessive stimulation, I awoke at midnight. Then I spent time gazing at Kikuko's vulgar ear—the one that had been jabbed by an elbow, making her turn over—until a desolate loneliness overwhelmed me and I quietly rose. I drank cup after cup of water from beside the pillow. An unnatural yellow tinge colored the glass. Depending on how I held it, the yellow would surface or fade. I realized it was the reflection of iris flowers in the alcove.

In a ceramic vase—three stems carelessly arranged—were yellow iris flowers.
Why would someone make such disagreeable yellow flowers when ordinary white or purple ones were far more beautiful?—Especially under the two-candle glow of the paper lantern, that yellow appeared almost lifeless, artificial.—As I dwelled on this, Kikuko’s ear materialized before my eyes.
That ear too seemed tinged with yellow.
Perhaps it was my imagination, but even the white paper of the paper lantern held a yellowish cast.
The entire room’s brightness carried a yellow hue.
I rubbed my eyes, stood up, swung both arms wildly about, then sat back down and rapped my forehead.

“Oh, what’s wrong?”

Kikuko turned toward me, her eyes wide open.
Those eyes were tinged yellow and appeared to see nothing.
I began burrowing headfirst under the futon but, drawn by her warmth, buried my face in those large breasts.
She wrapped one soft arm around my neck.
Tears welled up in my eyes.
It wasn’t sadness—the tears simply flowed of their own accord.
Then my breathing grew labored.
I pressed my face harder into her breasts as if smothering myself, clinging to them with both hands.
When I choked on her stifling warmth, I turned over and faced away from her.

I was not drunk.
Yet everything felt dreamlike.
I drifted in and out of sleep before waking fully.
She lay deep in slumber.
I rose quietly, shed my nightclothes, and straightened my attire.
Slipping into zori sandals, I stepped onto the rooftop and lowered myself onto the wooden bench.
Warm air laced with faint coolness drifted languidly.
Stars glimmered sporadically in the dark sky.
Ceasing all thought, I fixed my gaze on their light...and must have slipped back into sleep.

When I opened my eyes—a magnificent dawn, cold dew—it was an entirely different world.
Strangely, I felt no lingering effects of a hangover.
I thought now was the time to leave Kikuko.
It wasn’t that I wouldn’t come to this bar here.
I just wanted to detach from her body temperature.
My soul could no longer bear this blind love.
And yet—how much love had there been?
She had said she was serious about me.
At a certain moment of embrace, she had moaned and said she liked me most of all.
Had she never spoken such words to anyone before? Would she never speak them to anyone again?
“No,” answered the dawn.

The colors of dawn were already gradually fading, smoked into silver-white, while beyond the horizon, the sun’s rays must have begun to rise.

I searched for parting words to Kikuko’s body warmth.
But none came to me.
To say I never truly loved you would be a lie.
To say I’d grown tired of you would also be a lie.
To say I was suffocating in your breasts would be true, but she likely wouldn’t grasp my meaning.
I might as well say nothing at all.
As for Nakano—from now on, I’d simply brave through ignoring him.

I stood up and stretched.
My back felt pleasantly supple, but my neck ached slightly.
It felt like after carrying a heavy load.
Truly, what a burden it had been!
Those who shoulder burdens like Kikuko and Nakano are nothing but a calamity.

But it was still too early in the morning to leave this rooftop.
The door must be securely shut.
I mustn't do anything as foolish as jumping off.
I will take a deep breath, do full-body exercises, and wait for sunrise.