My boyfriend never spoke in any detail about what was happening, but lately when we were in bed together I could sense how utterly exhausted everything was making him. He didn't tell me anything specific about how things were with his wife, and on top of that I don't know the first thing about medicine, so I can't be sure that this is right, but I'm guessing that his wife's family probably wanted to keep her alive no matter what, and since my boyfriend said they were all “wonderful people,” I'm sure they must have told him that he should feel free to apply for a divorce if he wanted one. But every time he went to the hospital his wife was still lying there sleeping, and so he'd think, She's still alive, and that must have been really painful for him, terribly painful, and I'm guessing that he'd feel he had a kind of duty not to leave her until she dies, that it was this kind of attitude that made him sort of cool, that made people respect him. And of course he couldn't tell anyone about me. He'd been so worn out by everything that was going on that he couldn't have married me soon even if it had all ended, and he was wondering how much longer I'd be willing to go on seeing him with things as they were, and that made him uneasy, just as Shiori had said. Yes, yes, in the end it's always the same. It turns into a vicious circle. The only thing I can do for him now is not say anything. All I can do is worry that he'll come down on me too heavily, now that he's on top. He's just gotten older and older during the year and a half we've been together, but nothing I can do will stop that. Maybe it's because I was exhausted myself, I don't know, but I'd be in a sort of haze the whole time we were doing it, just thinking thoughts like these, and it didn't feel good at all. It felt like the darkness that filled the room was seeping down into me. The electrified town glittered brightly through the thin curtain, stretching on and on through the darkness, looking as far off as a dream. I found myself gazing outside every time I turned. I thought of the vast growl of cold wind that was probably blowing across the roofs.

We were lying side by side, falling asleep. Suddenly he spoke.

“How many years have you lived alone?”

“What? Me?”

His question was so completely unexpected that I shouted. The lights of cars passing by outside glimmered softly on the floor, which somehow took his question and whirled it around, leaving me momentarily bewildered, my memories of past and of recent events hopelessly mixed up.

Huh? What? Why am I here? What have I been doing all this time? For a moment I couldn't remember anything about the time before my boyfriend and I got together.