Pathway to Japanese Literature

It was Hatta’s dog from next door. Lowering its head as if deep in thought, it wandered unsteadily toward his cherished peony, circled two or three times while sniffing around the roots, then ambled vaguely back toward the veranda. It appeared to have fallen somewhere, two or three wet dead leaves stuck to its flank. Before the veranda lay an overturned bucket with his old shoes drying atop it. Stopping there, it suddenly assumed a contemplative expression and meticulously sniffed every part of the shoes before abruptly seizing the tied laces and letting each shoe dangle from either side of its face. In that state, it seemed to glance briefly toward him. Having arranged several cushions inside the glass door and stretched out upon them, he watched it.

(Something’s off,) he thought, his cheek still propped on his hand. The spotted dog, still holding the shoes in its mouth, averted its eyes from him, shook its head heavily, and staggered back toward the fence along the path it had come. The scene of the dog beyond the glass door appeared vividly before his eyes, yet somehow tinged with yellowish light. Finally, the spotted dog’s tail flickered briefly at the gap in the fence before disappearing outside with the shoes. (If that fence isn’t repaired soon, it’ll likely crumble away completely before long.)

He languidly sat up while gazing vacantly at the fence. Though the decaying bamboo fence had served as a partition between Hatta’s house and his own—preventing passage between them—Mrs. Hatta had been pulling out bamboo stalks for fuel, creating a gap through which dogs could now freely come and go. Before long, humans would likely pass through it too, and eventually even horses might manage. For now it remained dogs only, but that spotted one wandered into his garden three or four times daily as if drawn by some vague compulsion. With its mottled brown patches, it was an unpleasant creature. It dug at peony roots, carried off discarded objects—nothing but senseless mischief. Just the other day it had taken a broken light bulb with its frayed cord—what could possibly have been its purpose? The same dog must have stolen the leather wallet he’d left drying outside days earlier.

(But why does my body feel so heavy?) He had recently become distinctly aware that something in his body was malfunctioning. His body felt terribly sluggish, and correspondingly, his mood felt crushingly heavy. His emotions didn't stir in the slightest. A certain numbness vaguely permeated his entire being. Even when looking at things, he merely looked at them; no motivation to engage arose at all. Even now, that's exactly how it was. They were old boots he'd brought back after demobilization, not so worn that he couldn't wear them anymore. It wasn't that he particularly minded them being stolen—they were perfectly serviceable boots to have. Why was it that even while clearly seeing that spotted dog carry them off, he couldn't muster the will to stand and retrieve them? When the dog's figure had completely vanished, he was suddenly seized by a familiar physiological anxiety. The anxiety descended upon him vaguely, yet surely and relentlessly.

Outside the fence, a sudden wind had begun to blow.

Since when had this strange condition begun? This wasn’t something that had started just yesterday or today. He had first become aware of the malfunction in his bodily functions about a week ago—no, perhaps closer to ten days now. His appetite gradually diminished, moving his body became laborious, and he grew averse to doing anything. Like the pendulum of a grandfather clock left unwound gradually coming to a standstill, his emotional responses seemed to narrow their oscillations and begin losing all reaction. In response to phenomena, there was no corresponding stir of emotion. Judging from the loss of appetite, there seemed to be a digestive system disorder, but there were indeed signs of having caught a cold. That had been since that night when he drank with Nakayama and fell into the water.

His old friend Sangen had committed robbery for reasons unknown and was finally apprehended by Ibukuro Police Station. Since he couldn’t just leave it be, he met Nakayama that night to discuss countermeasures, but they ended up deciding to have a drink and went together to Kanda Market. He remembered that at Nakayama’s regular spot, they drank five or six glasses of pungent liquor. Then they went outside and were staggering through a dim area behind the market when，by some impulse，his body lurched as if flung forward and plunged into a fire prevention water reservoir still wearing his overcoat. Rather than falling in，it was as if he had been violently thrust forward. It was a terrifyingly deep reservoir，its bottom covered in a thick layer of sediment where he couldn’t get his footing. Submerged up to his chin in black water，things might have ended terribly had he not instinctively grabbed the reservoir’s edge with both palms. With Nakayama’s help he finally clambered out，sobered up，and hurried home just like that，but water had seeped through even his underwear，and his shoes and the creases of his trousers were filled with plenty of wet black mud. No matter how drunk he was，how had he ended up in such an idiotic situation? It was a dark vacant lot，scattered with wooden fragments and rope scraps that made walking difficult，but the faint reflection from the black stagnant puddle couldn’t have escaped his notice. When he stepped into the vacant lot，his mood，twisted by drunkenness，was indeed terribly turbulent. While drinking at the shop，they had talked only about Sangen the entire time and had even argued a bit with each other over it.

“That Sangen did something like that was all your doing from the start.”

Nakayama had repeatedly insisted on such things to him in an overbearing manner—in a way that seemed fixated solely on that point. Nakayama also appeared quite drunk. "In times like these, it’s okay to commit robbery—it was you who put that idea into Sangen’s head, wasn’t it?"

“That’s absurd,” he kept protesting. “There’s no way I’d say something that absurd.” “Even if I had said it, would Sangen have taken it seriously?” “There—you did say it.” “Even if you didn’t say it outright, you must’ve at least hinted at it.” “And then that poor bastard went and messed up.” “Since he messed up, it’s his loss.”

Nakayama’s eyes glinted as he said that too. Though they had met to discuss handling the aftermath of Sangen’s criminal case, talk of actual solutions scarcely arose, and they merely went in circles debating why Sangen had done such a thing. He found it somewhat distasteful to be drinking while using Sangen as a topic, but swept up by Nakayama’s fervor, he too seemed to be putting up a front. At first, he drank in such a manner to dull his intoxication, but as the alcohol gradually took effect, Sangen’s deeds began to feel like something fundamentally unrelated and distant to him.

“With robbers starting to emerge from among our own, we’re really something, aren’t we?”

In his drunken state, he blurted out exactly what he was thinking. Nakayama listened intently, his eyes glinting. Nakayama was two years older than he was and worked as an editor for a certain weekly magazine. It was said he wasn't particularly capable. Having been fond of drink since his youth, even when sober his nose remained bright red. The way his nose—a vivid crimson—seemed concentrated at the center of his face felt somewhat uncanny.

The morning after even his underwear had gotten soaked, when he awoke, the depths of his nose and the base of his ears throbbed unpleasantly. From his feverish body emanated a faint stench of stagnant water. When he took out the leather wallet from the wet coat’s inner pocket, only two or three ten-yen bills remained, and here too lingered a strong stench of stagnant water. He had washed it with water and left it to dry in a sunny spot in the garden, but before he knew it, it had vanished from where he’d laid it out. Because he hadn’t thought of Hatta’s spotted dog, he vaguely suspected that Shiraki’s little daughter must have taken it—for Shiraki’s daughter had sticky fingers, or so went the prevailing neighborhood rumor.

Three or four days later, stew appeared at dinner. When he saw the viscous stew on the meal tray, he immediately associated it with the muddy water reservoir behind Kanda Market and felt vomit surge up his throat. It felt as if a mass of revulsion sleeping in his subconscious had been abruptly activated by the actual stew and made a direct connection. He grimaced and spoke to the old woman assisting in the kitchen.

“This is inedible. Take it away.” He poured hot tea over his rice and finally managed to eat a bowl. The rice tasted unpleasantly like an eraser. Then, just to be sure, he took his temperature—the thermometer showed thirty-six point eight degrees. For someone whose normal temperature stayed far below average, this wasn’t normal. Since his baseline had never exceeded thirty-five degrees, something abnormal was definitely happening within his flesh.

(When it came to Sangen, Nakayama seemed downright furious with me.)

He idly wondered if he hadn’t fallen into that puddle because Nakayama pushed him rather than his legs buckling from drunkenness. That night Nakayama had persistently fixated on Sangen’s state of mind precisely because Sangen’s deeds weren’t someone else’s affair to him. He could vaguely imagine that much himself. After all, Sangen and Nakayama were old acquaintances who had emotionally followed nearly identical paths. Yet he couldn’t grasp why Nakayama had needled him about it that night. All he could summon was Nakayama’s large red nose—a visage resembling a dirty red dragon mahjong tile.

(If it was Nakayama who had shoved me, what kind of look had that guy been wearing at that moment?)

Every time he thought that, he became aware of a strangely cold amusement rising to his lips. Within that amusement was also contained the comical sight of himself being shoved. And that was nothing but absurdity. Any emotional response toward Nakayama, who had pushed him, had entirely died within him. What remained now was a cold from getting wet and the inscrutable disorder within his flesh that it had induced—nothing more. Determining which part of his body had gone awry felt too wearisome to pursue. A fatigue akin to that following a long march had persisted day and night these past two or three days. He wanted to sleep in a stupor all day long, but various tasks swarmed up, forcing him to walk around and meet people against his will. When he was moving about, his mind would be distracted, and he could even feel intensely engaged with reality; but upon finding himself alone and realizing his emotions had scarcely stirred, he would be seized by a certain unease. If it could be called anxiety at all, it was an impenetrable collapse—hard to grasp its true nature, like an ejaculation unaccompanied by pleasure. That had occurred occasionally over the past week or so. However, this week had only been recognized by him; in truth, it might have continued from long before—from years and years ago.

And yet, tasks kept arising one after another. When he pressed his face into the pillow and tried to sleep, it resembled that imp of consciousness that called him back from slumber time and again. Several meetings had piled up, and he also had to go to M Mental Hospital regarding Sangen. In preparation for applying for a psychiatric evaluation in connection with the trial, he needed to make preliminary inquiries in that regard. That was something Nakayama had proposed that night. A day had been set for him to go to M Hospital accompanied by Nakayama, but Nakayama seemed intent on utilizing this trip to write a psychiatric hospital visit report for his weekly magazine. There was a doctor he knew at M Hospital, but he had not yet made contact.

Moreover, he found himself compelled to seek new lodgings. His current residence faced persistent yet courteous eviction pressures. The landlord was neighboring Shiraki - both his own dwelling and Hatta's house counted among Shiraki's properties. Between Shiraki's home and his stood a boundary marked by Chojamon Gate; through this portal Shiraki would visit every third day or so. These visits served solely for hanafuda matches against him. Shiraki stood slightly younger and more diminutive in build. His flesh hung pale and quivering like fresh tofu. Tiny black pupils peered beneath milky-hued eyelids. Lacking stable employment, perpetual poverty seemed his lot. Daily life found him loitering about the house - sunning himself or tending fowl. The birds under Shiraki's care were gamecocks. He would raise them from chicks, drill them in combat, nurture them into formidable specimens, then haul them off to fighting pits. This very practice sustained his indigence. Thus arose his desire to sell off his properties for funds. Yet with tenants like this man stubbornly entrenched, prospective buyers stayed scarce. When pressing for vacancy, Shiraki employed such circuitous phrasing one might mistake it for urging continued occupation instead.

“You still haven’t found a house, have you?” When Shiraki abruptly said this, he suddenly assumed a pitying expression and began blinking rapidly. There was also an air about him as if ashamed of his own abruptness. Then he hastily added: “Not that I’m trying to rush you.” “It’s just that I went ahead with something.” “Though really—these days, a suitable house isn’t easy to come by anyway.” During lulls in casual conversation, Shiraki would insert this topic only to immediately withdraw it. Yet at times this carried more desperate urgency than outright demands ever could. At such moments he would silently observe Shiraki’s face. Since Shiraki himself would unilaterally end the discussion, he usually managed without offering any reply.

Through the glass door, from the gap in the Chojamon gate, Shiraki’s house was visible. Because the land was a step lower, in the sunken garden, a single gamecock strutted about like a king. Now only this one remained. He occasionally caught sight of Shiraki tending to the gamecock, but at such times Shiraki—despite his youth—gave an impression of collapse, as though his vitality had been completely drained by the rooster. And yet, on Shiraki’s face, something like a poignant joy lingered indistinctly. Every time he saw that figure, he felt strongly the word incompetent. All that the term incompetent encompassed. This young incompetent landlord had a fair-skinned, plump wife and a daughter. The one rumored to have sticky fingers was this girl. Whether the rumors were true or not, he didn’t know. Having inherited her parents’ blood, her skin was white—so white that her eyeballs took on a bluish cast. Moreover, her eyeballs moved ceaselessly and restlessly.

“It’s still frozen, they say!”

The girl came running in from the front of Shiraki’s house, shouting all the while. She twirled a bamboo sieve in her hand.

“It’s still frozen, they say!” What was frozen? He knew that. He had seen it when walking through town earlier—the rationed frozen fish delivered to the fish shop and piled up. Alaska pollock. Because they were frozen solid, the knives still couldn’t cut through them. After all, in this neighborhood—especially in Shiraki’s household—when it came to fish, they only bought rationed ones, so they seemed compelled to purchase any rationed fish available. That was why they were particularly sensitive about what had arrived at the fish shop today. But with them still frozen, there was nothing to be done.

He had never found it amusing that the hundreds of households in this neighborhood ate the same side dish—be it cod or whatever—for the same dinner. If they had gathered together to eat, that would be one thing—but each holed up in matchbox-like houses and listlessly picked at the same side dishes as their neighbors across the way. His current mood was particularly inclined to see it that way. Ever since the night he saw that thick stew, his appetite had rapidly declined. No matter what he looked at, his appetite wouldn’t stir, and no matter what he ate, it had no taste. Just imagining food made him feel like his throat was choking up. Cod. When he thought about the rough texture of Alaska pollock, like a cat’s tongue, he felt as if something hairy was being forcibly shoved down the inside of his esophagus. The frozen Alaska pollock would thaw, become passable to a kitchen knife, and turn into numerous fillets—hundreds or thousands of people waited for this.…

Now then—how should I go about retrieving that shoe? It’s not like I can sneak in and come back with the shoe clamped in my mouth— While listening to the girl’s high-pitched scream, he thought vaguely. Just thinking about it made the actual act of retrieval feel almost unreal. His skin was itching incessantly all over.

“You really are yellow after all. There’s no mistaking it—you’re yellow.”

Nakayama said while fitting a yellow filter to the camera. He stood before the camera looking slightly wretched. "Am I really that yellow?" "Yellow? You're like a summer mandarin."

Then Nakayama looked down and adjusted the lens position. He let both hands hang limply and gazed at Nakayama’s red nose. Seemingly unable to properly adjust the focus, Nakayama kept shifting his position but couldn’t bring himself to press the shutter. As he watched this, he found himself imagining without meaning to his own yellow face reflected upside down inside the camera. Behind his inverted and condensed face, the gray building of the mental hospital must have been reflected. The photography seemed unfamiliar; Nakayama tilted his head and angled the machine, making little progress—

Regarding the psychiatric evaluation matter, the physician acquaintance’s response had been that nothing could be determined until that time arrived, and even if the court accepted the evaluation request, it remained uncertain whether the case would be referred to this hospital. He had given a brief explanation of Sangen’s case, but the physician showed almost no interest. “There’s nothing particularly abnormal here,” the physician said when he finished listening. “His reasoning is coherent—”

When the physician finished listening to his explanation, he said that. Now that it was mentioned, that was true, he thought. But in the next instant, he realized he himself had been the one to organize and explain Sangen’s actions coherently. Nakayama sat beside him, remaining silent throughout. “Since you’ve come all this way, perhaps you’d care to tour the hospital as well?”

And first they were shown the operating room for brain surgery. It was an unremarkable narrow drab room. But when the physician opened the large case taken from the cabinet he felt a stinging sensation race through his body. They were surgical instruments. Large scalpels small scalpels compact drills and variously shaped tools lay neatly arranged polished to a dull sheen. The drill served to bore holes into skulls. Then inserting a scalpel through these openings they would sever frontal lobe tissue. The scalpels had blunt blades and cumbersome forms.

“The brain, you see, is soft and jiggly like a half-boiled egg. Severing blood vessels during separation becomes quite problematic.” “That’s why we employ such a blunt blade.” “We feel our way through like this—” The physician demonstrated the motion of handling the scalpel with both hands. He watched the slender fingers gripping the instrument shift with delicate precision. Nakayama inquired from beside him: “How long does the procedure require?” “It takes about thirty minutes to complete.” “Do you leave the skull’s aperture unsealed?”

“No. We close it after all. We drill into the bone—the fragments and powder mix with blood, get kneaded together into something like clay. Roll that up and push it into the hole; it seals itself.”

The physician closed the case and returned it to the cabinet. When those parts of a human being that think and feel are being groped at or severed with a metal scalpel, what might that very being itself be thinking or feeling? According to the physician’s explanation, the surgery used local anesthesia, allowing patients to converse with doctors during the procedure. This local anesthesia was needed only for the skull’s exterior, he had said—unnecessary for either skull or brain. That a brain capable of thought and feeling should lack sensation struck him as unnervingly uncanny. This sensation linked to an article he’d read a week prior—an animal experiment where an excised heart kept beating for hours in saline solution. If science progressed until brains or eyeballs could exist like that—what would become of a brain without sensory organs ceaselessly thinking in isolation? Of an eyeball endlessly seeing alone? Yet this came not as a question but as an eerie certainty settling over him. With a faint smile on his lips, he followed the physician into the cold corridor. His clogs clacked against the floor. His shoes remained stolen by the dog; he’d had no choice but to wear these wooden sandals.

There was nothing new in the ward area. A patient with an ordinary face was merely in a sooty hospital room. From around that point, Nakayama suddenly became talkative and began asking various questions. They seemed to be questions intended for his article.

Along the wide straight road within the grounds, a tall thin man was strolling slowly with his legs stretched out smoothly. The man had taken off his jacket, revealing suspenders on his slender torso. In the sunken eye sockets behind glasses, small black pupils moved vaguely and looked their way. And then the man quietly passed by him. A cold wind-like sensation brushed against him.

It was after bidding farewell to the physician that Nakayama took out his camera. Nakayama said while taking it out, "I’d meant to get permission to photograph the patient rooms too, but I got too caught up in the questions and forgot." "You’re spacing out," he answered with a slight smile. "Planning to publish these as a photo spread or something? You should at least take pictures of the buildings." "I was just thinking that." When Nakayama wasn’t drinking, his shoulders appeared oddly chilled, and his eyes had a parched look. Seeming unconfident in his photography skills, he muttered things like "Will this even develop?" but still took three or four shots.

“Let me take your photo.”

The sky churned with gray.

Beneath it, Nakayama stared searchingly at his figure standing absently there and spoke in a suppressed voice. "I’ve been thinking something was off for a while now—your face looks terribly yellow."

When the camera's shutter aimed at him clicked, he tilted his head slightly upward and gazed at the distant sky. The distant sky too was faintly tinged with yellow. The sensation of illness spread gradually through his chest.

On their way back, while being jostled on the train, Nakayama said. “You should drink clam miso soup.” “Three times a day, every day.” “Do you really think that would cure it?” “Every part of my body itches terribly.” “You need to avoid fatty foods.” “Eat a lot of starch.” “And you need to get your liver storing glycogen.”

“You know all sorts of things. I guess when you work as a magazine reporter or whatever, you end up picking up all kinds of things.” “It’s not something I learned through work. I had jaundice myself once, you know.”

Then they talked a bit about Sangen. Nakayama told how Sangen had broken into the victim's house trying to make them write a settlement agreement. "When I said I was Sangen's friend who'd come to apologize about this incident, they were quite friendly—I thought it was going well. But the moment I mentioned writing a settlement agreement, their face stiffened up and they said no." "Did you actually say 'settlement agreement'?"

“No—I said I hated the crime but didn’t hate the person themselves. I told them to put that in writing.” “That’s why your approach doesn’t work,” he laughed. “No—when we were talking, I actually got that far.” "I was saying how truly pitiful it was that he got caught over something like that." "But when I ask them to put that state of mind in writing, they say no, you see."

“That’s probably how it goes.” Feeling deep fatigue, he answered that way. “You shouldn’t push yourself too hard.” “What exactly do you mean by ‘too hard’?” With his suspenders still hanging down, Nakayama brought his red nose closer. “Well, “Going all the way to a place like that must’ve been rough.” “Well, I felt sorry for him.” “Who’s ‘pitiable’?”

Outside the window, on the street running parallel to the railroad tracks—whether from a car crash or someone being run over—cars and people clustered in a chaotic jumble that caught his eye. Blocked by the row of houses, it soon disappeared from view. Nakayama too seemed momentarily captivated by the sight, for he gave no reply. The train’s roar reverberated with terrible monotony. After a while, he asked.

“Will that hospital end up in your article?” “Yeah.” Perhaps due to the lighting, Nakayama’s face looked dark and gloomy. “I’ll manage to write it.” “That’s the job, after all.”

“But it’s a strange thing, isn’t it?” After a short pause, he said. “If you apply for a psychiatric evaluation and he’s deemed insane, Sangen will be acquitted. However, from Sangen’s perspective, he might say it’s better to go to prison than be deemed insane.” “That could be true.”

“From that perspective, I think we’re doing something terribly presumptuous.” “Not just with Sangen’s case—with everything.” “More than presumptuous—it’s all these flimsy methods without any real substance. This is how I feel like I’m living.”

He parted ways with Nakayama at the bustling station.

Burdened by his weary body, when he returned home he passed through the Chōjamon gate, went down to Shiraki’s place, and pleaded to have some clams spared for him starting tomorrow. Shiraki was sitting on the veranda gazing at a chicken crouched in a cage. He had known from the start that Shiraki brought clams from somewhere every day to feed that chicken. While playing hanafuda, Shiraki had once let slip about those clams. They were said to be large clams that were particularly invigorating.

“Yes. Yes. I suppose I could share some with you.”

Shiraki answered without taking his eyes off the gamecock in the cage. Through the sparse evening sun filtering through the clouds, the bird stretched its neck and fixed its sharp eyes on a single spot. It stood nearly three feet tall. Remaining perched on the veranda, Shiraki muttered something with apparent irritation.

“This is my only pleasure now.” “He’s become the last one left.”

“Are you going to enter this one in a match too?” “Yes. There’s going to be one held in Chiba soon—I do intend to enter it in that.” “If it wins through, tens of thousands of yen will come in,” Shiraki explained, his voice returning to its quiet tone. “But if it loses, not a single penny will be gained, and on top of that, it’ll become completely spent.” “It’d be good if it wins.” “There’s money involved too.” “I don’t particularly care about money itself—but when you’re poor, you do end up wanting it.” “I want this settled now.”

“It’ll win.” “With such good physique.”

“It’s not decided by physique alone.” “If this rooster loses, I’ll quit raising gamecocks for good,” Shiraki said as if talking to himself, turning toward him. “Will you try again with this one?” Shiraki kept shuffling the hanafuda cards while fixing him with an expectant look. He responded with a faint smile playing on his lips as he studied Shiraki’s bloated, pallid face. The man who’d taught him hanafuda was Sangen. After being demobilized with nowhere to live, he’d spent half a year sharing Sangen’s house, playing cards with him every night. Though Sangen had also been discharged from the military, he’d somehow secured a proper house despite being single—a two-room affair where he’d cleared out the damp three-mat room for his guest. Sangen played hanafuda with uncanny skill, his fingers seeming to possess their own sight. There was something unsettling about that preternatural dexterity. Once, during a mahjong game with Nakayama and others, he’d discovered that while Sangen could barely tally points, his tile-drawing technique rivaled a professional’s. When he mentioned this during one of their private sessions, Sangen had frowned slightly.

"My old man's blind." He believed Sangen's words without question. Something hazy seemed to click perfectly into place within him. "Want me to teach you the trick for guiding a blind man's hand when walking? You just need to take one step ahead of him before moving forward." Sangen's fingers were slender and long. They gave the impression of having no joints. Strangely, Shiraki's fingers shared that same quality. Though not particularly long, Shiraki's were thin digits that writhed sinuously, as if devoid of any driving force.

From the next day onward, he drank clam soup three times a day. The clams in the basket Shiraki brought clicked all day long in the kitchen sink. When he heard them on his way to and from the toilet, he felt something like quiet music flowing through his body. The clams were brought every morning by Shiraki's young daughter. When the girl reached the veranda, she called out to him in a loud voice. “Clams are here!” “She could just leave them on the veranda,” he thought from his futon. When he didn’t respond, the girl raised her voice even louder and shouted.

“Clams are here!”

From the time morning light began staining the sky, his world would unfurl into yellow. Every object within his vision appeared yellow while retaining its original color. After recognizing this as jaundice, his perception of yellow shifted—the membrane veiling his sight now felt neurally adherent to his retinas rather than external. He occasionally imagined bile permeating his body. In his mind’s eye, this bile thickened into a viscous yellow sludge resembling pus blended with ointment. The hallucination of this fluid streaming from the gallbladder near his liver and seeping through vessels and tissues merged hazily with his bodily lethargy. His body stayed leaden and numb. When alone, everything froze within a yellow stasis. He sensed that walking outside or playing hanafuda with Shiraki stemmed not from desire but from some oppressive compulsion—wearisome habits of existence.

"(Even if I'm aware of my illness—)" he would sometimes think while picking clams one by one from the soup. (That alone wouldn't do) One evening, in this state of physical and emotional numbness, he heard a word that still stung the surface of his heart. At that time, he shut the room tightly and was playing hanafuda with Shiraki. It was a game called Koikoi. Shiraki drawled it out as *Ko-yo-ko-yo*. Shiraki compared his captured cards with the protagonist's, and seeing it was still safe, drawled *Ko-yo-ko-yo* as he pushed the stakes higher to amplify his winnings.

“*Ko-yo-ko-yo*” “*Ko-yo-ko-yo*”

Shiraki’s small black eyeballs would suddenly take on a cruel gleam and shift at such moments. He reflexively put out and took in cards while his mind was pulled to the radio blaring nearby. From the radio, a live broadcast of the Tokyo Trials was airing. English and Japanese jumbled together could be heard. From within that, his ears picked out a particularly solemn and clear phrase. The phrase fell on his ear containing a certain weight and substance.

“Death by hanging” “Death by hanging”

“Death by hanging” “Hanging limply before his eyes—couldn’t he almost see the shape of a human figure?” he muttered inwardly. But the weight of those words was not limited to that alone. Those words carried an indescribable expansiveness. Because it was a mechanical sound that stifled human voices, that sensation grew all the more intense. It was uttered at a culminating point of the violent storm that had killed many people and something within his own self.

(How long has it been since I last heard such a substantial, weighty word?) He mechanically placed and flipped cards without engaging his consciousness there. Shiraki occasionally raised his eyelids, stealing brief glances at him while handling the cards. He suddenly recalled M Brain Hospital’s frigid corridors, surgical instruments that made skin prickle, and the gaunt tall man whose path he had crossed on the compound’s straight thoroughfare. When they passed each other, he had heard the words muttered by that man. Though incomprehensible, they were undeniably German. The man’s narrow torso appeared suffocated by black suspenders, his breathing labored.

(That guy was saved, that guy was)

That was the man who had been excluded from the tribunal for Class A war criminals under the diagnosis of paralytic dementia. He knew this man was confined in M Hospital, and when he saw the figure in the distance on the straight road, he immediately intuited it was that man. That tall figure approached, emitting a cold wind-like presence. Until they passed each other, the three of them had walked in silence. (Why did we fall silent back then, I wonder)

He saw Shiraki’s supple fingers flip the Rain’s Ten, match it with the Paulownia’s Twenty, and take them away. He watched it with a faint smile. And the match was over. He took out several banknotes from under the cushion and pushed them toward Shiraki.

“I’m a bit tired,” he said. “You still look quite yellow,” Shiraki answered while gathering up the cards. “Shall we stop now? Today I was the one who won.”

The radio continued reporting the details of the verdict. However, Shiraki seemed to have almost no interest in it. He listened closely to the radio as he smoked tobacco. After a while, Shiraki said quickly, as if gauging his reaction. “You still haven’t found a house, have you?” Instead of replying, he gave a slight nod.

“Well, you see, I’ve been in a bit of a bind.” “I don’t want to sell this house while you’re still attached to it, you see.”

“Yes. I’ll look for somewhere to move,” he answered listlessly. “If you move out, I won’t be able to get clams from you anymore.”

“If that guy would just win for me—well, even then I could manage for a while—” “How about selling Mr.Hatta’s house?” “Yes. If that can be done.” “Because my wife says she wants to go back to the countryside.” “But you should still keep gamecocks,” he said. “If you stop that, you’ll surely end up in a strange state.” Shiraki lifted his swollen eyelids and glanced at him with small pupils. The color of his eyes was cold and hard. He took the neatly arranged hanafuda cards from in front of Shiraki and, while putting them into the box, said.

“If it comes to it, you could sell this house with me still here. But I’ll do my best to look for a place as well.” “Yes. Yes.” Shiraki nodded ambiguously. And he stood up. He escorted him out to the veranda. Shiraki said while putting on his geta: “Mr. Hatta’s dog comes into this garden too, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” “Yesterday my chicken had a fight with it.” “Doesn’t that dog sometimes carry things off from your place?” “No,” he lied. “That’s a good dog though.”

Shiraki suddenly lowered his voice and said. “Mr. Hatta hasn’t been paying his rent at all, you know.” “It’s been several months now.” “Would you mind negotiating with him on my behalf?” “I’ll give you a commission.” He simply remained silent, smiling absently. Then Shiraki too wore a deflated smile on his face.

“When is the cockfighting gathering?” “Yes. In about two weeks.” After Shiraki bowed and passed through Nagamon Gate to leave, he returned to his room some time later and began writing a letter using the radio as a desk. It was addressed to Nakayama. While writing, beneath the stationery, the radio broadcast of the Tokyo Trials played. He wrote asking whether Sangen was still at Hibiya Police Station and requesting updates on his condition. After some thought, he added that he believed Sangen had fallen into sin because this world’s promises had grown fragile. As he wrote this, he suddenly found himself sinking into self-mockery.

(I’m always just saying and writing these flimsy, empty words.)

When he wrote that since he was being driven out of his house and wanted to be allowed to live together for a while, he still felt a faint resistance. He had a certain premonition that Nakayama would never welcome him. The people and events including Nakayama existed as flat patterns distanced from his heart, yet they also confronted him through compositions tinged with a vague air of vengeance. Ever since becoming aware of his physical and mental deterioration, even the occasional opaque anxieties that arose without cause would, when pressed further, seem to collide with such walls. While forcing a vacant smile onto his face, he heaved his sluggish body up and went out to mail the letter.

When he returned, he saw Mrs.Hatta squatting and pulling out bamboo from the boundary fence. Even when she heard his footsteps, Mrs.Hatta only glanced up at him from under her brows and still did not stop her hands moving. The decayed bamboo broke with a damp sound and was bundled in Mrs.Hatta’s hands. (With that kind of business, I wonder if there’s simply no room to pay the rent?)

He had already given up on the shoes the dog had carried off. After all, he had seen Hatta wearing them one day.

He had been neighbors with a man named HattA for nearly a year but had hardly exchanged words with him.HattA was a sallow-complexioned man with puffy features.He had always thought this man must have a weak stomach.On his livid face were small eyes like gunports.HattA would leave early in the morning and return at night.He would sometimes catch sight of him.HattA wore an ill-fitting suit faded by sunlight.Carrying a lunchbox under his arm he passed before his house at dawn and late night.A distinctive set of footsteps resounded at those hours.He had never seen HattA return home wearing a tie.He wore a short-waisted jacket over his shirt.At times he had shoes on his feet; other times geta.From this it became clear he was engaged in work requiring little attention to attire.

Whenever they met, Hatta would flash his eyes and stare at him. Unless greeted first, he never bowed. Then he would scurry past as if fleeing conversation. Both his house and Hatta's were Shiraki's property, identical in construction. From layout to cardinal orientation, they mirrored each other. The Hatts lived there childless—just husband and wife. This architectural parity occasionally stirred something in him. When reflecting on how dwelling shapes daily sensations, vague thoughts of Hatta surfaced. Walking the dim veranda to the toilet or gazing at the garden from his room, he instinctively knew these moods weren't his alone—the Hatts must share them too. He'd never looked inside their home. Yet he'd deduced their movements within through private logic. Only through such imaginings did he connect with them.

It was said that Hatta had worked as a school inspector in Korea before the war ended. He heard that from Shiraki. Now that he thought of it, Hatta’s demeanor still carried an air of someone who had been in the colonies, along with the half-baked authority of a school inspector—a lingering presence that defied precise location. The small eyes, like gunports, contained a reproachful glint that seemed to repel unnecessary people. A stubborn self-respect glinted there. In this neighborhood, Hatta must have been a difficult person to get along with. And the Hatta couple also appeared to be deliberately erecting a fence around themselves, as if wishing to live in isolation.

He did not know Hatta’s current occupation. None of the neighbors seemed to know either. Of course, he had absolutely no interest in wanting to know it.

However, a few days prior, he had accidentally discovered Hatta's trade.

On his way back from an errand, he was walking through a certain street. The time was evening. On a narrow street resembling a shabby entertainment district in the outskirts, stalls were lined up haphazardly on one side. Mingling with the passing crowd, he dragged his sluggish legs like a yellow apparition. His body remained terribly heavy, and moreover, his throat was parched. With winter's approach, the air had turned bone-dry. While searching for a shop selling something to drink, he walked weakly toward the station.

The street stalls on one side continued for about half a block. It was an extremely shabby cluster of street stalls; they appeared disjointed and lacked any cohesion in their arrangement. In the middle of them, two toy shops were lined up. Both had sooty reed screens, with rubber balloons and such tied to bamboo pillars. In one of these shops, amidst a discordant array of cheap red, blue, and yellow toys, he saw Hatta sitting there. (Hatta was sitting in a place like this)

In a perfectly natural, snug frame, there was Hatta’s face. That had been his first impression. There had been nothing strange about it. Yet the moment he recognized Hatta’s face, Hatta appeared to twist his livid countenance away in an unnatural manner. Across the road from Hatta hung the curtain of a shop selling amazake. What compelled him he couldn’t say, but he suddenly felt drawn to enter that shop, hunching his shoulders listlessly as he passed beneath the curtain.

(My throat had been dry.) However, he sat down at the frontmost table with a view of the street and ordered a cold drink. Through a gap in the shop curtain, across the road, Hatta's shop stood directly opposite. The setting sun slanted across Hatta's slightly downturned livid profile, staining his cheek green with reflections from the toys. Hatta fidgeted unnervingly, squirming his body and moving his hands without purpose. It was clear he was aware of him. His swollen face stayed rigid as if angered, and though his gaze kept shifting minutely, it never once settled on the amazake shop where he sat. He appeared to be consciously avoiding looking this way. While holding a cold drink in his mouth, he gazed vacantly at the scene.

The selection of toys displayed in the shop was pitifully sparse. They were arranged on a rough shelf and atop a red blanket spread beneath. The red blanket lay frayed in patches, its edges meeting the blackened earth. There sat a pair of shoes that appeared to have been discarded by Hatta. He distinctly remembered those shoes' color and shape. The words escaped his lips before he could stop them.

(Ah. That's the shoe the dog carried away.)

Then he felt a strange amusement rising like waves to his lips. The fact that those shoes—which the dog had carried off dangling from both sides of its face—now sat neatly arranged there created a peculiar, disconnected sensation that visually tickled him. While sipping his drink in small increments, he fixed his gaze on the shoes' shape for some time and stifled a laugh.

Hatta, sitting on the red blanket, grew increasingly restless—shifting his knees and busily touching the toys on the shelf. His small, squarish eyes, often downcast, occasionally gleamed with hostility as they darted along the street. Through a gap in the curtain, he watched as Hatta’s face and entire body gradually twisted with pain. In the amazake shop, there were no other customers besides him. The table where he sat was also dirty, with several stains formed. There, the empty glass he had drained distortedly reflected the shop curtain and the figures on the street. And some time passed.

"(Well...)" he thought slowly. (I should get going) At that moment, a discordant metallic sound suddenly rang out from Hatta’s shop. The sound pierced through the street’s bustle with a clanging resonance that felt out of place. Through a gap in the curtain, Hatta’s bowed figure flickered in and out of view. Upon closer inspection, a toy xylophone lay before his knees—metal strips fastened to wood—which he struck with desperate intensity. Hatta kept his head half-lowered as he continued pounding the small mallet. The clumsily played melody was Kusatsu-bushi. A reckless tone resonated through the clangor. Hatta’s downturned face appeared slightly bloodshot and terribly pained. Though the Kusatsu-bushi melody was off-key and poorly executed, he distinctly felt a stinging sensation seep into his chest from that sound. Suddenly holding his breath, he listened intently to the scattering metallic notes. Hatta kept striking the xylophone with gestures suggesting he might escape something through this persistence. The sounds scattered across the street like lonely fragments. Yet among the passersby, none stopped to heed them. Everyone hurried past the shopfront.

At that moment came a small rhythmic cry like a work chant. It pulsed intermittently in time with the Kusatsu-bushi melody. At the toy shop next to Hatta’s stall, its young owner held up a dog puppet with both hands, making it dance along to the xylophone. The expressionless toy dog moved its arms in exaggerated gestures as it performed to Kusatsu-bushi. Hatta’s xylophone and the puppet’s dance continued this way for some time. From behind the shop curtain, he watched Hatta’s face as he struck the instrument and the puppet’s jerky motions. Hatta’s downturned expression gradually took on a wretched hue, like a crab crushed underfoot. The neighboring young man, either caught up in the rhythm or straining to maintain it, shook his head vigorously while occasionally letting out high-pitched cries. Just as Hatta’s xylophone tempo suddenly accelerated—producing a chaotic clatter of metal pieces—the music ceased abruptly.

Hatta turned his head toward the neighboring shop and seemed to say something rapidly to the young man. Those words never reached him. A reproachful tone was clearly evident in the set of his mouth and posture. Hatta’s small, squarish eyes were piercingly directed at the young man. The young man seemed to be saying something back in response. Those words never reached him either. (Because I am here, because I am watching—)

Placing money on the table and rising listlessly, he thought. (So Hatta became miserable, and now he’s angry at having become miserable.) Hatta was crouching, leaning his body forward slightly as he said something to the neighboring young man. From the fragments of voice that reached him, it carried a tone of strong reproach. It seemed Hatta was reproaching him: how dare he make the dog dance along to the music he was playing without permission? Hatta’s voice, unlike his menacing face, occasionally grew hoarse with sorrow. While adopting a look of waning interest, the young man nevertheless continued to respond.

When he passed through the curtain and emerged onto the street, Hatta's body jerked and momentarily froze as if petrified. Taking that in, he turned up his coat collar and trudged off toward the station.

(What conclusion had that strange quarrel reached?) Even after that, he would occasionally recall that scene and think such thoughts. He couldn’t imagine that such twisted anger could ever reach a satisfactory conclusion. The only thing he could do was to let those scattered metallic sounds of Kusatsu-bushi resonate tinglingly through his skin. And whether it had been cruel of him to deliberately enter the amazake shop across the street instead of simply pretending not to see Hatta there—and then to have watched Hatta’s figure—he couldn’t say. Every time he thought about it, before any verbalized conclusion could surface in his chest, he felt a deep laugh tinged with shadow toward the way of humans as a whole—himself included.

Hatta’s dog still frequently appeared in his garden around this time. The peony—the garden’s sole decoration in its neglected state—could no longer be dug up by the dog, for he had spread clamshells thickly around its roots. The dog stuck its head under the veranda, sniffed around the base of the gate, then wandered off somewhere. The dog had a wound beneath its eye. That it was a recent wound could be understood even from the black clotted blood still adhering. It was undoubtedly a wound pecked by Shiraki’s gamecock. Perhaps because of the wound, the dog’s movements seemed more nervously sensitive than before. When he stood up on this side of the glass door, the dog startled and cowered, fleeing in the direction of Hatta’s house. The hole in the boundary fence had become large enough that not only could dogs pass through freely, but even humans could now do so with ease.

When morning came, he went down to the garden to lay out around the peony roots the clamshells from the clams he had eaten the previous day. As if engaged in winter preparations, the peony's trunk had begun turning brown and rough. He couldn't foresee whether he would still be living in this house by the time winter passed and this flower bloomed. There was nothing to do but let things take their course. Thinking this, he crushed the clamshells beneath his geta. The reply to the letter he had written Nakayama days earlier had already reached him. Of course, it contained wording rejecting his proposal. Thus there remained no immediate prospect of moving out from this house.

In Nakayama’s letter, it was clearly written that living together with him was detestable. “Considering that Sangen ended up like that after living with you, I’d rather cohabit with a corpse than live with you.” After such words, in small letters, “This is a joke” had been added. According to the letter, Sangen’s custody had already been transferred from Meguro Police Station to Kosuge. The date and time of the trial had been noted in the postscript. He did not know where Kosuge Prison was located. However, in his imagination, at the end of the cluttered houses’ back alleys, the building stood as a thin-walled concrete structure. He could vividly imagine Sangen’s figure confined within there to some extent. There was a sense of reality akin to looking at a single painting. Within there, Sangen sat embracing his knees, leaning motionless against the cold corner of the cell. Despite this posture emerging in his imagination with clear contours, Sangen’s facial features alone remained vaguely blurred, impossible to conjure. When he tried forcing himself to imagine it, the face would become Nakayama’s, or Shiraki’s, or Hatta’s. It wasn’t that he had forgotten Sangen’s face—it simply refused to properly connect to that scene. Yet merely imagining such scenes was all he could manage; to think of Sangen in any way that stirred deeper emotions felt terribly presumptuous. What could I possibly think? His thoughts immediately darted there. He remembered Hatta from that day.

"(No matter how twisted it might have been—)" he thought, conjuring Hatta's bluish-black strained expression. (Why can't humans sustain that full-bodied impulse—the kind Hatta channeled when hammering out Kusatsu-bushi—in every fleeting moment?) Yet even then, he had detected a wretched laughability in Hatta's movements. Or perhaps because of that, fragments of the Kusatsu-bushi melody had rasped upward through his chest like vengeance—

(I should go to Kosuge once and see. And then, after that, all sorts of things might begin anew within me.)

He thought such thoughts.

Regarding the matter of rent—whether he had discussed it with Hatta—Shiraki had undoubtedly come to probe into that. While playing hanafuda, Shiraki broached the matter in a roundabout way.

“No. “No, I haven’t discussed it yet,” he answered with an absent smile. “Winning from you at hanafuda seems faster than receiving a commission.” That day he kept winning. The stakes per round weren’t particularly large, but as his winning streak continued, a considerable stack of banknotes had accumulated beneath his cushion. And he also won the current round. After receiving the banknotes again, leaving the scattered bills on the floor as they were, he lit his tobacco.

“It would be rather odd for me to negotiate,” he said while looking at Shiraki. “After all, Mr. Shiraki, you should be the one to go.” “Yes. Yes,” Shiraki replied. “But I’m not good with words.”

“Yes. You do seem bad with words.” Shiraki slowly straightened his slouched knees and sat up properly. At Shiraki’s knees, only a few banknotes remained. Shiraki, from under his whitish swollen eyelids, flickered his gaze between there and his face while speaking in a low voice.

“Has your jaundice improved? You don’t look so yellow anymore.” “It’s the electric light making it seem that way.” “Actually,” Shiraki hesitated slightly, “I need some money, you know. Since tomorrow’s the Chiba trip... I thought you might’ve already settled things with Mr. Hatta. Not that it matters if you haven’t yet.” “Is tomorrow the cockfighting day?” “Well... there were various expenses involved.”

“Tomorrow, you’ll definitely win.” With a faint smile playing on his lips, he said. “But if you like, I could prepay the rent.” Shiraki was silent. He stood in the next room, then came back and handed the money to Shiraki. “Is your gamecock in good condition?” “Yes. Well…” Shiraki made a slightly pitiful face and put the money into his pocket. While gathering the scattered hanafuda cards, he said to Shiraki.

“Shall we play a bit more?” “No.”

He smoked his tobacco as some time passed. What if he and Hatta received moving fees from Shiraki and swapped houses with each other? He was vaguely thinking about such things. He had once heard such a story in a traditional comic monologue. Even if that happened, Shiraki might not clearly show his anger—or perhaps it was precisely in such a situation that his true anger would reveal itself. Shiraki suddenly raised his face.

“When I play hanafuda with you—it’s strange—I start feeling this irritation.” “Whether I win or lose.” “Irritation, huh?”

Shiraki floated a deflated, flabby smile and slightly lowered his head.

“I should take my leave. It’s grown rather late.” “Do rest thoroughly. Tomorrow will prove demanding for you.”

While escorting him to the veranda, he said in a low voice. The night air in the garden was unnaturally tepid.

For two or three days starting the next day, warm days continued.

He suddenly decided to visit Kosuge Prison. On the sunlit veranda, he shaved his beard. In the mirror were his face and, far behind it, the pediment of Shiraki’s house. Shiraki seemed to have returned home late last night. Last night, as he lay sleeping, there was a noise at Shiraki’s house, and a girl’s voice could be heard. “Dad’s drunk.” “He’s drunk.”

Then came more clattering noises. While listening to it, he fell asleep.

(Did he lose? Or did he win and drink celebratory sake?)

In the mirror was his face, now smooth. Whether from the sunlight or his imagination, the yellowness seemed to have lessened compared to before. He picked up the mirror, tilting it this way and that as he examined his face from various angles. As he did so, the contours of his face transformed in various ways. Within his face, he thought his ears still looked quite yellow, but that might not be from illness—perhaps they were just dirty with grime. Yet in gazing at his own face in the mirror from various angles, he felt a faint happiness. And through that association, he thought of Sangen at Kosuge. In all likelihood, Sangen probably couldn’t keep a mirror at hand there and would have almost no opportunity to scrutinize his own reflection. And when he thought that, at worst, a life cut off from mirrors might be imposed on Sangen for several years to come, he suddenly felt the man's misfortune approaching him with vivid clarity. Amidst that sensation, he recalled Sangen’s face from when he had confessed his father’s blindness. That was an expression that seemed to be enduring anger and disgust toward something unknowable. While putting away his shaving tools, he thought: "(In Hatta's face too, when he struck up the Kusatsu-bushi rhythm—)" "(There was something similar to that." "(What exactly was that about?)"

It was a clear, fine day. He got ready and went out. The road was thoroughly dry, and dust was rising in the wind. In the distant sky above the rows of houses, two or three paper kites were aloft. And they were swaying in the wind. While looking at them, he walked toward the station. As he neared the station, shops selling goods gradually increased along both sides of the road. He walked along, browsing each and every shop. He had known through newspapers that there were delivery services for Kosuge Prison, but he didn’t know what items could be sent or by what methods. Even if he couldn’t make the delivery, he could just take it back home. While thinking this, he ambled leisurely along, looking over the shop wares.

At a small butcher shop wedged between a shoe store and flower shop, he noticed eggs heaped in baskets. Thinking eggs might do, he stopped before it. The eggs held a whitish sheen in the clear daylight. When he drew near, he pointed at the eggs to the portly old man standing behind the meat-cutting table.

“Five of these—no, maybe I’ll take about ten instead.” When he absently peered into the shop’s interior, a single chicken stood on the butcher’s earthen floor. The chicken held its neck perfectly straight, eyes closed, not stirring a feather like a taxidermied specimen. That it was Shiraki’s gamecock became clear to him at a glance. The familiar color of its tail feathers was the first thing that caught his eye. He suddenly felt as though his chest had been pierced.

“What’s wrong with it? This chicken.” “Had its eye gouged out. In a cockfight.” The old man jerked his chin toward it. “This one’s meat is too tough to eat. Was made to buy it last night, but—”

“Even if you don’t tie it up, won’t it try to escape?” “Once it’s like this, it won’t budge at all. They’re noble ones, gamecocks. Don’t struggle—just wait to die, they do.”

While counting eggs and putting them into a paper bag, the old man answered. He let his gaze drop again to the chicken on the earthen floor. The chicken stood desolate, beak clamped shut. From comb to eye area, black blood clung thickly. Whether hearing human voices or not, the chicken remained rooted to the floor without stirring. In that stance—shoulders squared and wings spread—the will to fight seemed preserved only as hollow form. Beneath the blood-crusted scab, eyelids lay closed in faint darkness.

(So it's still alive) He had been thinking about how he'd shared clams with this chicken. But from today onward, Shiraki would likely stop bringing clams. "(And so finally, even I—)" he thought as he took the paper bag holding the eggs. (I might get sold off along with the house.) After paying, he left the shop. As he walked, the eggs made faint rattling sounds in the bag.

He was already near the station. From this station to Kosuge, it should take a considerable amount of time. Thinking he might buy a magazine to read on the train, he stopped in front of a bookstore. On the display stand, numerous magazines were lined up. Amidst rows of magazines with provocatively garish covers, he spotted the latest issue of Nakayama’s weekly magazine wedged between them, its cover slightly peeling at the edge. Tucking the bag of eggs under his arm, he reached out and pulled it free. He flipped through the pages. An article bearing Nakayama’s signature suddenly caught his eye. He stood where he was, skimming through the article haphazardly.

It was an account of a visit to M Mental Hospital. Nakayama had reported it in a reportage-style format. As he read on, he detected a strange sense of discrepancy within it. There was something frustrating lingering there. It was his own reflections, interspersed here and there, that had evoked that feeling.

(It seemed Nakayama hadn’t felt any of what I’d experienced there at all,) he thought as he kept reading the article. (I never saw or felt any of what Nakayama wrote about here.) Nakayama’s article emphasized the daily routines of patients observed in hospital rooms. In his memory, those scenes had faded into a hazy gray continuum. Yet Nakayama had meticulously collected and described them. Every added explanation had been lifted straight from the doctor’s own words.

"...a state of emotional desolation where they exhibit no emotional response to any circumstance. These unfortunate people show no affection toward even their close relatives and nurses, remaining coldly indifferent to the kindness of those around them. They have neither joy nor interest in anything, and no sympathy or moral sense toward others. They show no distress even toward illnesses accompanied by fever or pain." After describing the schizophrenic patients' ward, Nakayama had added this kind of explanation. Thinking that the trick to such articles was to write as if they knew everything, he continued reading.

"...In some patients, it was said that even in the earliest stages of changes to their emotional lives, they would sense something peculiar as their interests faded and their concern and affection toward those around them diminished—cases where they actually felt sadness." They came to vividly feel themselves being gradually severed from the real world. Thus when the emotions of those surroundings failed to provoke reactions in the patients, the means to forge human connections between them vanished, leaving the patients perceived as emotionally inscrutable figures devoid of approachable rapport. Those confined there all carried such misfortune. But can we truly dismiss these people as mere mental cases and think nothing more? "When we peer into our own interiors and survey our surroundings..."

He shifted his gaze to the photograph at the bottom of the page. Due to the paper quality, it had been printed blurrily. Yet there was no mistaking it—this was a photograph of himself. It showed him standing vacantly in geta, captured by Nakayama during that hospital visit. Behind his figure lay a faint impression of the ward’s architecture. A cold, bitter smile rose through his chest like iron sediment.

(For Nakayama, this was a well-executed ploy.) Closing the magazine and returning it to its place, he set off walking with a faint smile etched on his cheek. Rather than reading a magazine on the train, he now felt it better to look at the scenery outside.

Before his eyes, the railroad crossing gate smoothly descended at that moment. He adjusted his grip on the paper bag and stood still for a moment. Soon the train approached, and its bluish-black car rushed past before his eyes with a roar. The gust of wind generated by the train car's speed violently struck his face in that instant. The wind carried a metallic odor. He staggered slightly.