I turned out the lights. The various objects in the room were even more sharply visible now.

I could hear my breath, and my heartbeat.

I pulled the covers up over myself and sank my head deep down into the pillow. And then I heard it again.

The reverberations of a voice as pure as an angel's, the light tenderness, the melody—all this made my heart begin to flutter, to dance achingly. Like waves, distant and close, full of nostalgia, rolling on. . . .

Haru, is there something you want to say?

My heart felt like it was spinning, like something that goes on spinning even when it's hidden from view—I tried to lock the spinning on that sound. But there was no sign of Haru, nothing at all but the beautiful stream of sound stabbing through my chest. Perhaps on the other side of this beautiful melody I'd find Haru's smile. Or maybe—maybe she was screaming in a voice filled with hatred that my happiness and her death were two sides of a single sheet of paper. I didn't care, either way I wanted terribly to hear.

I needed to know what she was trying to say. I concentrated so intensely that the space between my eyebrows started to ache, and before long exhaustion rolled out on waves of sleep from the far side of the song. Deep down inside I gave up, murmured words expressing my decision to give up. As if they were the words of a prayer.

I feel bad, Haru. But I can't hear you. I'm sorry.

Good night.

“You were right, Haru's dead,” I said.

Mizuo just opened his eyes a little wider; that was it.

“So she really is?” he said, and shifted his gaze to the window.

The glittering nighttime town was stunning.

We were only fourteen stories up, but the view was quite good. I'd suggested that we go eat someplace sky-high for a change, and Mizuo had asked if I meant sky-high in cost or elevation. I'd laughed and said I meant both, and that's how we'd ended up here.

The world beyond the window was awash with shining beads of night, these beads were everywhere—I was overwhelmed. The lines of cars were a necklace circling the rim of night.

“What makes you think it's Haru?” I asked.

“The two of you were so close to each other.”

He said this in a perfectly ordinary tone, then cut himself a bit of meat and lifted it to his mouth. For a moment my hands stopped moving. Because all of a sudden I was on the verge of tears.

“Does Haru want to say something to me?”

“Afraid I wouldn't know that.”

“No, I guess not.”

I looked back down at my dinner. Maybe it wasn't such a big deal after all. Maybe the various lingering regrets that kept drifting up to the surface now that my alcohol-spattered life was getting ready to enter a new stage had simply taken form as an image of Haru. We'd already emptied two bottles of wine tonight—I'd had help from Mizuo—and the world before me was starting to get fuzzy around the edges.