Pathway to Japanese Literature

When he glanced at the schoolyard, that student was running again.

“But I just saw that idiot collapse in a heap moments ago...”

To say he held his breath and stared might be an exaggeration, but he thought he was seeing an illusion.

Just moments ago—though it probably hadn’t even been ten minutes—the student had summoned every ounce of strength for a last spurt, sprinting about a hundred and fifty meters.
In the end, no sooner had he staggered one step past the goal line than he had collapsed with tremendous force, plunging headfirst into the earth as if burrowing into the ground.
It was the very sensation of having exhausted every last ounce of strength, leaving not a drop to spare.

“Immortal or something, that idiot?”

When Ogata muttered to the student beside him, the student cast a fleeting glance at the schoolyard with an obligatory nod,

“You mean Cow?”

“You mean Cow?” he said.
And without so much as a sideways glance, he kept reading his book.

Oh.
Ogata recalled that the nickname wasn’t “Idiot” but “Cow.”
These two nicknames tended to be confused specifically in this situation—for some reason “Idiot” came to mind—but “Cow” remained undeniably more fitting.
The student who continued reading without so much as a sideways glance, merely muttering “Cow?”, seemed so fitting—so quintessentially human in its nobility and dignity.

Cow had a physique measuring five shaku seven sun five bu (approximately 174 cm) and weighing twenty-three kan five hundred monme (about 88 kg). In the eight hundred meters he ranked second in the prefecture with a record of two minutes one point eight seconds and was also a third dan in judo. Generally considered incompatible pursuits like running and judo were things Cow alone managed without feeling constrained whatsoever. And when it came to lack of intelligence he stood among this university's most prominent examples. He was extremely diligent and hardworking. Though he devoted himself wholeheartedly without ever neglecting exam studies over three years his academic achievements scarcely differed from those of new students who had yet to take any exams.

When he became a topic of discussion at the faculty meeting, someone remarked.

"But here's the thing. He knows no alcohol, knows no tobacco, knows no movies, knows no dancing, knows no pachinko, knows no women—and yet he endlessly passes through the school gate and does attend class. It’s the same thing year after year. Therefore, I think we should quietly send him out through the school gate in his fourth year."

"A model apure."

Someone said something unclear—whether agreement or retort. Then another person voiced an unexpected question that silenced the faculty meeting: "Does he even have a purpose for passing through that school gate?"

“Does he truly step through the school gate with a purpose?”

and once posed an unexpected question that left the faculty meeting in a hush.

Ogata gazed at Cow in the schoolyard and thought restlessly.

"Does he truly have any purpose in living?"

It wasn't hatred exactly, but that indomitable vitality of his felt somehow preposterous beyond endurance.

It was a frigid winter dusk.
Being mountainous terrain where the cold bit harshly even under normal circumstances, the dry wind now raged at its peak intensity, making the school building creak. However much coal they fed into the stove, each gust through the cracks brought pain like a keen blade slicing to the marrow of one's bones.

The dry wind was a regional phenomenon that blew nearly every day, but when reaching its peak intensity, it would exceed twenty meters per second and rage with the ferocity of a small typhoon, snapping arm-thick branches and hurling them through the air.
Now was its peak.

“Since Cow is running in just a single shirt, people should be able to walk if they wear coats.”

Ogata muttered this and began his walk home.
By cutting diagonally across the schoolyard, he could reach his home in less than half the usual distance.

When he approached the schoolyard, Cow had just reached the goal with another last spurt. As if his bones had been removed, his massive frame twisted, staggered, and plunged into the earth with a thud. Cow was writhing, sucking in dirt.

However, by the time Ogata reached that vicinity, Cow had already gotten up. Apparently practice had ended; he was clutching his clothes in one hand and dangling his bag from the other.

Ogata wondered at what point he intended to put on the clothes.
Even immediately after practice, not feeling this bitter wind seemed beyond ordinary human endurance.
Cow’s skin had a luster like the diluted color of an apple.

Ogata felt a slight urge to tease him.

“I hear you’re strong at judo too.”

Cow’s gentle eyes brimmed with a childlike smile.

“With those strong arms and nimble legs of yours, if you became a policeman, thieves would weep.”
“Why don’t you drop out of university and go make thieves weep?”

Of course, Ogata had not anticipated that unexpected outcome. There could be no emotional response whatsoever—because he lacked sensitivity. Ogata had been thinking that this Cow probably didn't even properly comprehend human language. However, when Cow finished hearing Ogata's words, the clothes he had been clutching under one arm scattered to the ground. Then he dropped the bag from his other hand. It made a heavy thud—the sound of something densely packed, unlike his brain.

Cow was completely startled and froze up.
He seemed unaware even that he had dropped the things from both hands.
On his soul-stricken face, a shadow of despair—its origin unknown—welled up faintly.

Ogata returned home with a cold-hearted demeanor as though he had seen nothing unusual.
And then, in that day's diary,

"The abnormally heavy ground-shaking rumble of the bag he had dropped.
The sheer weight of Cow's books!"

he wrote such words.

★

It was a day during that year’s spring break.

Mitsuya (the name Cow) put a harmonica in his pocket and left home.

One of his classmates played the harmonica, and Mitsuya found himself utterly enthralled by that indescribably pleasant sound.
There, he asked for guidance.
Though two months had passed since his obsession began, even the strange sounds he produced were music to his ears, and he found supreme satisfaction in the happiness of mastering them himself.
To savor his own music in the quiet mountain forest, he left home.

As he advanced deeper into the mountain forest, a noise reached his ears nearby.
When he casually glanced back, his eyes met those of a male student in a school uniform who was looking his way.
Had the woman's scream not erupted, he would have passed by without paying heed.

“Nooo—”

There came an oddly timed woman’s scream, followed by the sound of a struggle.

The male student in the school uniform stood rigid as a crane, merely watching him and doing nothing.
However, right at his feet, a woman was indeed struggling with someone.
Thus, there could only be one thing to consider in that situation.
Even in this remote mountain village, there had been no end to assault incidents lately.

Mitsuya involuntarily flared up and stomped toward the sound.
The crane had been observing him without any expression until Mitsuya came within about ten meters of them, but suddenly gave a signal and fled.
His cow-like frame—five foot eight and a half inches, 194 pounds—must have made all the difference.
The number of men who had fled was five.
They were all wearing school uniforms.

Mitsuya ran up to the spot where they had been but suddenly came to a halt.
Though he had indeed seen the half-naked girl there, what he registered in that moment was less the girl herself than the very embodiment of the crime.
He visibly froze in place.
This must be what they call immovable paralysis.
He turned bright red with shame.
It was not because he had seen the half-naked girl, but because he had remembered Ogata’s words.
Cold sweat was pouring from his entire body.

Ever since Ogata had said that to him, Mitsuya became semi-ill whenever he thought of Ogata. He involuntarily shut his eyes, and the blood drained from his face in an instant.

Not only could he no longer attend Ogata’s lectures, but he also became unable to practice running in the schoolyard. It was because there was anxiety about clashing with Ogata.

However, he ventured out to practice at the municipal stadium in the suburbs.
If he neglected his sports training, he would be plagued that day by insomnia, loss of appetite, fatigue, and mental disarray.
In exchange, he discontinued judo practice.
He could no longer practice running and judo together.

After taking about a week’s break from practice, he felt responsible and formally submitted his withdrawal from the club.
This was because he had been slated to become vice-captain starting the next term.

The club president called him.

“Why are you withdrawing from the club?”

Mitsuya could not reveal his true intentions.

“It’s a personal matter.”

“What sort of personal matter?”

“I can’t do judo anymore.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“I also have ideological struggles.”

“Tell me about your troubles.”

“One shouldn’t do judo.”

“Why shouldn’t you do judo? In other words, are you against war?”

“It’s a personal matter. It’s bad for the body.”

“Are you sick?”

“No. However, I’ve been thinking that I mustn’t get sick.”

“Of course.”
“Because everyone thinks that way, they exercise to build up body.”
“Did you quit running too?”

When pressed like this, an enormous teardrop plopped down helplessly from his eye.
He was cornered.

Even when recalling both running and judo simultaneously, he had come to be tormented by shame.
Therefore, it was absolutely impossible for him to lay bare his true feelings—that choosing running necessitated abandoning judo.
If he had to abandon one of them, how could he possibly reveal such convoluted reasoning—that judo would likely bring him closer to being a thief-catcher than running ever could?
However, the club president could not relent in his pursuit.

“So you haven’t quit running after all.”

“…………”

“Can’t they coexist?”

“…………”

“Haven’t you managed to do both until now?”

This was the most excruciating part. He recalled the words his uncle had said when declining the village headmanship and borrowed them for his defense.

“I’m not getting any younger either…”

“You’re the one who’s old?!”

“Huh?”

“How old are you?”

“It’s that I get out of breath.”

“You’d get out of breath from running too.”

He bit his lip and shed large teardrops again.
As a result of such meetings, the withdrawal issue remained unresolved.

For these reasons, not only could he no longer pursue the five students any further, but he also felt ashamed of having unconsciously run up to that spot and became endlessly confused.
He felt Ogata’s eyes upon him like those of an infernal judge.

Yosaku, a farmer who happened to be passing along a mountain forest path, grew suspicious of the situation and approached.
The girl had finally adjusted her clothes and stood up.

When she saw Yosaku, the girl glared at Mitsuya and shouted.

“This man and his friend did this to me…”

Yosaku looked curiously between the woman and the man.
And then, as there seemed to be no other appropriate words,

“I felt kinda strange too.”

He muttered this and walked back.
At that, Mitsuya also began to walk.
He wandered through the mountain forest, spending an unsettled stretch of time.

When he returned home, the girl’s mother was in the midst of dragging her daughter by the hand and confronting his mother.
His father was absent.

The girl and her mother were not strangers.
They knew both family names and given names.
In a small village, there live no strangers.
The girl still remained disheveled.

“Return my daughter to how she was.”
“I don’t want your damn money or anything!”
“Either restore my daughter to how she was, or submit a written apology and take her as your bride to cherish for life—so which’ll it be?”

The girl’s mother spotted Mitsuya and shouted again.

“Look, he’s here!”
“You villain!”
“Sit down on the dirt there.”
“I’ll beat you a hundred times with this carrying pole!”

Mitsuya was the type who could take considerable time to explain his thoughts with relative clarity once he regained his composure. However, his way of explaining was not skillful.

He explained that it had been five students who assaulted the girl and that he had recognized this and rushed over. As evidence, he noted that the five students had scattered and fled. He added that this could only have happened because they had recognized his presence—otherwise their fleeing would have been impossible.

However, the girl suddenly shouted.

“That’s a lie! They ran away because Yosaku came! And you’re the only one who couldn’t get away!”

“There, you see?”

The girl’s mother grabbed him by the collar.

“You just won’t admit when you’re beat. Come on, confess! Who was there?”

At that, Mitsuya stalled. Once he stalled, it became exceedingly difficult for him to regain his composure.

He didn’t know about the remaining four, but he recognized the face of Tsuru the lookout. He was a high school student from the neighboring village.

But the anxiety that saying this would mean he had acted like a police officer overcame him. Cold sweat poured from his entire body again.

“Please search for the five who fled. Then everyone will understand.”

He desperately repeated this.

“Fine! We’ll tie up every last one of you scoundrels—you’ll be doing hard labor for a good while.”

Leaving behind words of curse, the mother and daughter departed.

This story spread instantly throughout the entire village.
As a result, those who had seen the five fleeing students came forward, and through details of who each was and where they came from, the five true culprits were caught.
However, since this resolution took nearly half a month to reach, Mitsuya had to endure a life of hardship throughout that period.

★

In these mountains there had long stood a shrine deeply revered by villagers. Though at that time classified as a prefectural shrine, it was said to have once been designated as a grand shrine in ancient Registers of Deities and was believed to enshrine Kunitsu-gami—local deities worshipped by powerful clans that once ruled this region.

Mitsuya’s family had served as its Shinto priests for generations, though it was also said they were actually descendants of the enshrined deity.
Of course, this was not based on any reliable historical documents; even the family genealogy passed down in his household seemed to be a dubious document manufactured about a century ago out of necessity.
Though called descendants of a deity, they received no particular reverence from the villagers, and his family experienced any moment of splendor solely during the annual festival.

In these mountains, offerings were not consistently collected, and they could not sustain themselves through the shrine alone.
It was not a postwar phenomenon; it had always been that way.
Therefore, his family’s true occupation was farming.
It was farming that fell somewhere between middle-class and small-scale—or rather, closer to small-scale.
Combined with the shrine’s income, they had somehow managed to send their child to university.

Therefore, what Mitsuya studied at school was not a shrine-related field of study, but agriculture. At present, there existed a mountain forest with unclear ownership—whether it belonged to his family, the shrine, or the village—and a portion of it seemed likely to be allocated as his family’s property. The plan was for Mitsuya to apply his new agricultural knowledge to that mountain forest in the future.

His father was ordinarily just a farmer, but he had a habit of displaying a dignified air befitting a distant relative of the gods whenever certain matters arose. When the assault incident involving his son occurred, he displayed a heightened dignity not even shown during the annual festival.

“You’re surely not the culprit.”

“Mm.”

“Will you swear to the gods?”

“Mm.”

“Then rid yourself of impurity and confine yourself in the shrine hall.
If you’re innocent, the gods will find the culprit.
If you’re guilty, they’ll strike you dead.
Either way, you won’t leave until then.”

After passing through the torii at the mountain's base, one had to wind through three chō of cedar forest and climb up to the summit.
Mitsuya hoisted the thin futon onto his back and climbed there.
When Mitsuya entered the shrine hall, his father closed the door, fastened a large lock, and went back.

Morning and evening, rice balls and water were delivered, and only during those times could he relieve himself.
The police officer from the local station came to discuss the incident and finished his business with Mitsuya through the locked door.
And then,

“This is the filthiest prison in the world.”

Muttering to himself, he descended the mountain while wiping away sweat.

About a week had passed since Mitsuya had been confined to the shrine hall when his father came hanging morning rice balls and water to open the lock on its door. Discovering a letter slipped into the door gap, he found it written in feminine script.

“O.T. is a bad woman.
Vanity and false indignation and shamelessness.
As an enemy of all women, she is despised.
I believe in your innocence and feel anger toward her.”

There was no signature from the author.

His father seemed to have roughly grasped the meaning of this letter.
O.T. must be the girl who was assaulted.

If the writer was indeed a woman, she must have delivered this under cover of night—a daring act that even a robust man would struggle to accomplish—and so the father found himself unexpectedly moved.

He kicked his son’s leg.
Even then, he remained stubbornly asleep.
Then Mitsuya’s face emerged from where his feet had been, unleashing a yawn so vast it seemed capable of swallowing both parent and gods.

“Read this.”

His father hurriedly thrust the letter forward, but even after Mitsuya had somewhat raised himself, it took considerable time for his vision and reason to awaken.

Mitsuya read it.
He found it utterly trivial.
Father said.

“What is this?”

“What could it be?”

“You don’t understand?”
“Someone threw it in here while you were asleep.”

Mitsuya did not answer that, threw down the letter, and said.

“I’m going to the bathroom.”

He found no inconvenience in his life within the shrine hall. In fact, it suited him rather well. Being separated from worldly clamor let him completely forget that unpleasant incident and play the harmonica to his heart’s content. He even came to think periodic confinement might be preferable—though when considering he could no longer expect anyone’s kindness in delivering meals, a dreary emptiness settled over him.

"If I were to get married and have children, by the time they entered elementary school, they might be kind enough to deliver rice balls here morning and evening."

he fantasized.

After finishing his business and returning, Mitsuya began to feel somewhat inclined to think about the letter.
Because the letter was in his father’s possession, he picked it up and read it again.
In short, it was a ridiculous letter, but he couldn't help feeling somewhat uplifted by it.

“I wonder if a woman wrote this.”

“If it’s a woman, what do you intend to do?”

“You fasten the lock and get out of here.”

“You damned fool.”

Father snatched the letter and, in a rage, clattered the lock into place on the door.

It was a few days later.

Soon after nightfall, when Mitsuya had finished playing his harmonica,

“Mr. Mitsuya.”

A timidly calling voice was heard.
It was a young woman’s voice.

“Who’s there?”

There was no reply.
Mitsuya reluctantly went out to the lattice.
He thought it must be the woman from the letter.
However, given that a young woman coming all the way here at night was considered too excessive an act under any circumstances, he found himself unable to summon any feelings of familiarity.

“Who are you?”

The woman still did not reply.
Only the wind came blowing through the lattice gaps, and there was no sign of anyone existing beyond them.
He wondered if it had been an auditory illusion.
That seemed more reasonable.

"That's right.
No one would come."

When he involuntarily muttered this, a somewhat petulant voice answered him.

"I'm right here."

It was a voice he couldn't recall.
After all, he had no close female friends.
When he remained silent, unable to comprehend, the woman said:

"Put your hand out here."

"Where?"

"Here."

The woman tapped sharply on the lattice to indicate the spot.

"As if a hand could get through."
"Only a single finger fits."

"Just press your open palm against the lattice there.
Okay?"

“Okay.”

“Here.”

Something plopped into the hand from a gap in the lattice.
Because the position was slightly misaligned, it struck the hand and fell downward.
Mitsuya searched for it and picked it up.

“What is this?”

“Caramel.”
“Do you like them?”

“I like them.”

“Then stick your hand out.”

The woman pushed caramels through with her fingers.
There Mitsuya’s palm waited aligned.
She kept her fingers pressed against his skin, making no move to withdraw them.

Her fingers were ice-cold.
Had he not known they were a woman’s fingers, the coldness would have been of such an eerie chill that he might have shuddered and lost consciousness.

However, thinking that the reason the woman had such cold fingers was due to her kindness, he felt a sense of familiarity toward her for the first time.

The woman wordlessly pushed in the caramels one by one.
Each time, she pressed her fingers against his palm for a brief moment.

Naturally, Mitsuya found himself counting.
The caramels had passed ten.
Eleven, twelve.

"That's a whole boxful."

With feelings of gratitude, he said to the woman.
Perhaps encouraged by this, the woman began pushing in caramels even more briskly and wordlessly.
When he counted to twenty and she let out a sigh, he turned against her.

"Don't you want to eat any?"

"………………"

"Should I return some?"

“Why?”
“Taking all twenty feels wrong.”

“Were you counting?”
“If you want, I’ll give half back.”

“That’s all right.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Everyone in the village knows.”

A bitter feeling welled up. Knowing worldly matters was profoundly unwise.

"You should go home now. It isn't good for a woman to walk alone through places like this at night."

"I'll go home."

The woman replied listlessly. Yet she appeared to linger restlessly.

“I’ll bring you caramels again tomorrow.”

“That’s enough.”

“Did you read the letter?”

“I read it.”

“Good night.”

The flashlight’s beam wavered as it gradually grew distant and vanished.

However, the following night, the woman did not appear.
He felt ashamed that he must have angered her through his own poor conduct.

That woman was kind.
Yet he wondered who she might be.

"When I shut myself away here from time to time, that woman brings me rice balls."

This seemed entirely plausible.
Having walked alone through dark mountain paths to deliver caramels, she must harbor some affection for me.
The notion that marrying her might prove acceptable—and the accompanying imaginings—filled him with delight.

The chill of the woman's fingers pierced him more acutely than anything else.
That memory gave him his most pleasant feeling yet.
This was because it seemed to him to keenly reflect the woman's true heart.

★

Because five students had been caught, he was permitted to return home.
From his own state of mind too, it was just about the right time to leave.

As the new semester drew near, he had to begin his intense running practice again. Since he'd naturally cut back on eating and might have slimmed down some, perhaps this year he could finally break through the two-minute mark for the eight hundred meters he'd been striving toward. This thought had always been a ray of hope during his life in the shrine.

The No.1 in this prefecture was an elementary school teacher.
His time was identical to his.
He invariably lost by the thickness of his chest.
And even after closing in that far, he simply couldn't shrink the thickness of his chest.
The reason he threw himself into maniacal last spurt practice was to overcome that thickness of chest.

He harbored not merely a rival's competitiveness toward this No.1, but outright animosity.
It was because he had learned this man had spoken thus to others.

“He comes thudding after me with that ground-shaking rumble, so I can feel his position right in my palm,”
“I can perfectly gauge his speed too.”
“That’s why there’s no need to stay wary and pull far ahead.”
“I just keep ahead by his chest’s thickness and handle him with ease.”

Since everyone tends to boast beyond necessity, Mitsuya wouldn’t have minded mere empty bragging.
What enraged him was that utterly distasteful expression – “thudding ground-shaking rumble.”

That was indeed factual.
That’s why Mitsuya felt overwhelmed.
Even to his own ears came the thudding ground-shaking rumble.
He thought it only natural that people called him Cow.
The ground-shaking rumble of his own running had come to sound bovine even to himself.

No.1 was a slender man of delicate build who moved without footfall.
He enjoyed popularity among female students.
This meant they mocked Mitsuya for his defeat.

“Why don’t you line up those footprints!”

There were female students who said such cruel things.
Perched on the fence near the finish line, dangling their legs in midair while nibbling on persimmons and bread, they chattered away—those female students.

“Thudding away and still lost, didn’t you?”

There were even some who said such things while deliberately sending mock applause his way.

The thudding ground-shaking rumble was unavoidable, so he absolutely had to win and prove himself.
But even in victory—to voice his deepest truth—he had wanted to win with a ground-shaking rumble befitting a human.
Through the unavoidable dietary restrictions of shrine life, he had even placed hope in losing weight.

When he returned home, he asked his mother.

“I’ve gotten completely thin.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.
You’ve gotten a whole size bigger!”

“That’s a lie.”

“What do you mean ‘lie’?”

He was surprised by how genuine his mother’s fierce demeanor seemed, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe her words.
There was no way he could have gained weight when he was starving every day.
However, when he stepped onto the scale, he had gained a full kan.

“If you gobble down three gō rice balls morning and night and do nothing but sleep, even a hog would get fat.”

Indeed, it seemed there was no choice but to reach that conclusion.

He was discouraged.
It had been two weeks of life filled with hope.
It had been a literally pitch-dark, lonely life abandoned by people, but precisely because of that, the hope he had clutched close and nurtured in secret had grown vast and dear.
Yet now it was crumbling away without restraint from its very foundations.

"I want to see that woman."

He felt this was his only recourse.
He even thought this alone might suffice.
The coldness of her fingers still lingered in his palm.
Remembering this made her unknowable identity seem like a heartbreaking tragedy beyond any earthly experience.

"Is it just me who’s unlucky?"
"It does feel that way—but maybe these bleak thoughts only poison life."

He thought in that manner and did not abandon his efforts to turn his life around.

On the evening before the new semester began, when he was to set off for the school dormitory, the village postmaster came to visit his father.
It was a request to have his daughter become Mitsuya’s bride.

“Well, here’s the thing. When Mr. Mitsuya was confined in the shrine hall, she apparently went to visit him with caramels and exchanged words.”

“Understood. In that case, this is the girl.”

Father took out and showed the letter he had stored away.
The Postmaster nodded upon seeing it.

“This is my daughter’s handwriting.”

“Your daughter is still young, but—”

“No. There’s one who handles clerical duties at the post office.”

“That one’s a cripple.”

“Her back’s just slightly bent.”

“That’s what you call a hunchback.”

“You could put it that way.”

“She’s a cripple!”

“Her other leg’s slightly off.”

“She’s a terrible cripple.”

“She has some difficulty walking.”

She was a hunchbacked and crippled daughter.

“I’ll be damned—she climbed all the way up that pitch-dark mountain path to the shrine at the summit with those legs?”

Mitsuya's father exclaimed in utter astonishment.
However, he quickly regained his composure and said.

“No, no. We’re farmers. A farmer’s wife can’t be working clerical duties at the post office. She’d have to start with kitchen chores at dawn, then head out to the fields.”

“However, the children have an understanding. For you to raise objections now is trampling on human rights!”

“There’s no way he’d have an understanding with a monster.”

“But given the darkness of it all.”

The Postmaster smirked.

Mitsuya's father was overcome by a sense of despair upon hearing that.
It wasn't impossible.
Moreover, to have exchanged words before the ancestors' altar—that was beyond consideration.

The villagers' loud voices pierced through to the next room.
And Mitsuya, having unavoidably heard it, was even more despairing.

Not only was the girl hunchbacked and crippled, but her face had a peculiar quality that stirred unease at first glance. Her nose, cheeks, and chin were all pointed; her entire face was small enough to fit in one’s palm and pale.

The fact was that Mitsuya had never had an understanding with that girl.
He thought he could confidently deny everything since it had transpired before the gods, but remembering the caramels he'd received and how until moments ago he'd been longing to see her again so intensely it brought him to tears, he found himself painfully considering that there might indeed be some truth to their supposed understanding.

“Mitsuya!”

“Mitsuya!”

Father got angry and called the child.
Mitsuya had no choice but to sit before the two of them.
Pressed by the two of them, he sat stone-still for ten full minutes, thinking rigidly through every angle until finally,

“I don’t believe we had an understanding, but if you say so, perhaps there’s no helping it.”

“Why is there no helping it?”

His father got angry.

“I’ll think about it tomorrow after going to school.”

“What is there to think about?”

“I’ll consider whether we had an understanding or not.”

“You should know without having to think about it.”

“But given the darkness of it all,”
“He should take his time thinking it over.”

The Postmaster smirked and said.
Then, with a heave-ho, he lifted the portable shrine and headed home.

The next morning, as Mitsuya walked along the mountain path—about four kilometers to where the bus was—

“Hey!”

From the tree shade, the Postmaster appeared and called out to stop him.
Beside him, a small animal squirmed—and that was the girl.

The girl opened her sunken eyes wide in her pointed face, but there was no passion there whatsoever—not eyes that spoke of anything.

The girl thrust her bony hands trembling into the front of her kimono and took out a large box of caramels.
She wordlessly held it out.
When Mitsuya extended one hand, she let them fall into his palm.
Her fingers were still cold.

“There!
“That settles it.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Send a letter when you arrive.”
“I’ll discount your postage.”

The Postmaster loudly frolicked as he heaved the girl onto his back with a “heave-ho!”

“Is she sick?”

“That’s right. It’s lovesickness.”

Carrying the girl on his back, the Postmaster briskly headed off.

When he tried to open the lid of the caramel he'd received on the bus, there was writing.

"I won't survive until your return. Yoshiko"

It was handwriting he recognized.

"Hmm."
"So that's how it was."

Mitsuya reconsidered.

If someone had told him that sooner, he wouldn’t have struggled so much, he thought.
He had intended to think it over for a year and then give his answer.
However, while he had generally settled on refusing the marriage, when he considered that doing so would completely shatter the hopes he had been clutching to his chest in that shrine hall, he found himself unable to summon the courage to reject it outright.

“This was for the best”

he thought.
If the girl died, he thought it might be good to visit the grave at least once.
"If I eat these caramels," he thought, "maybe this time I can finally overtake him."
He considered saving them until the day before the athletic meet, but before the bus even reached its final stop, he had devoured every last one.

And so he passed through the school gate once more.