He brought flowers that afternoon.

We ate sandwiches and a salad, feeling peaceful. I was still stretched out in bed, and every time we kissed he'd chuckle and say things like, “You stink so terribly of alcohol it's amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if your hangover made its way through your mucus membranes into me!” It seemed as if his smile ought to give off a perfume like a flower—maybe something along the lines of a white lily.

Winter was almost over. Though inside the room everything felt incredibly happy, I had the feeling that outside the window things were frighteningly dry. It seemed like the wind blowing past was hitting up against the sky, scraping noisily across its surface.

I figured it was just too sweet inside, too warm.

“I just remembered something,” I said. The sweetness and the warmth had reminded me. “I've been having something like a dream every night as I'm about to fall asleep, you know, it's always the same, and so I'm kind of worried that I might be starting to have hallucinations. Except hallucinations aren't supposed to feel very good, are they? Do you think with the amount I'm drinking I could be an alcoholic? Could I be that far gone?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Mizuo said. “Even if you do have something of a tendency toward dependence, the real problem is just that you have time on your hands, so you end up drinking too much—that's all. Things will go back to normal as soon as you start working again, and of course it's totally fine for you to be living the sort of slowed-down life you're living now. But the dream you mentioned . . . what sort of dream is it?”

“I'm not sure I'd actually call it a dream.” The pain and the nausea I'd felt were finally starting to soften. In this new mood I tried desperately to trace my way back to that happiness. “It's like . . . I get drunk and tumble into bed, right? And then I start to feel like I'm being sucked up into something, you know, it's like I'm walking in this place that used to be really important to me, a place that's precious to me, but with my eyes closed—that's the sort of feeling I have. There's this nice smell, and I feel so safe and relaxed, and then I start to hear this song, always the same song, ever so faintly. The voice singing it is so sweet I almost start to cry . . . maybe it's not even a song. But it's something like a melody, and it's ever so faint, and it's far away, and it's singing of absolutely perfect joy. Yeah, and it's always the same melody.”

“Sounds bad. You must be an alcoholic.”

“Huh?” I squinted at him, startled.

Mizuo burst out laughing. “Just kidding. Actually I've heard a story like that before. In fact it was just like yours. They say it means someone wants to speak to you.”