The only time I really felt vividly aware that Mari was a living creature during the time she stayed in our house was when she was crying. Even that didn't happen too often during the second half of her stay, but in the beginning, during the weeks after she first came to live with us, she'd always be sobbing to herself in the guest room when I went into the kitchen to make coffee at night. Her sobs slipped softly through the darkness and sank down into me, into my very being, the way the endless rains do in the monsoon season.

I often got pretty depressed myself back then. It felt like I was standing at the very edge of this world, that's the kind of mood I was in, the kind of emptiness I felt. And in those days, whenever Mari was all alone in the house, when everyone else had gone out, she'd slip into my brother's bedroom—his room, which we'd left just as it was when he died. I'd notice that she was gone when I came home, and I'd get a little worried and would go upstairs and catch sight of her through the half-open door, curled up in the middle of my brother's color-filled room, crying. She even cried in the bath. I'd head for the bathroom as soon as she'd finished, planning to take a bath myself, and when we passed in the hall, steam would still be rising from her skin; her face would be a brilliant red, you could tell she'd just climbed up out of the hot water . . . and yet her eyes would be red and puffy, and she'd be sniffling as she walked by. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that she left the water salty, I'd think as I lowered myself into the bathtub, and then I'd sit with the hot steam drifting up all around me, feeling so terrible that I could hardly stand it.

Could it actually be true that tears help people to heal?

Because Mari did eventually stop crying, and went back home.

“Ask her when we can talk next time, okay? I mean, if you should happen to run into her someplace,” my mother said.

“Okay, I'll tell her if I see her,” I replied, standing up.

I went to campus and handed in a few essays, then decided that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to clean out my locker every once in a while, and went over to the locker room. When I got there I found a note taped to the door. I took it down and read it. It was from a friend, a guy named Ken'ichi.

I can return the money.

Call me around lunchtime tomorrow.

Ken'ichi

Ken'ichi had borrowed money from practically every bozo in the world and then run off without returning a yen to anyone. He had stopped coming to campus a while ago. I'd lent him fifty thousand yen all together, but I hadn't actually expected to get any of it back. My brother was the same way, so I could sort of understand. Judging from the things I heard, it sounded like you'd come up with a pretty incredible sum if you added up all the money he'd managed to scrape together, and so everyone was raging, people were going crazy with anger. But even though there were occasions when I'd find myself staring at some piece of clothing I'd wanted, thinking, If only I had that fifty thousand yen right now, I just figured that was the way things went. He was a good guy, but that didn't mean anything when it came to money. And anyway, who could stand to be around someone who wasn't just a good guy, but even returned your money on time? I thought, shaking my head, wondering how he could possibly manage to pay me back. I folded up the note and put it in my pocket, then headed out into the still-snowy courtyard.