That's not the way it used to be.

Mondays are English conversation, Tuesdays are swimming, Wednesdays she studies the tea ceremony, Thursdays she studies ikebana . . . that's the sort of feeling she had about her. She was the sort of person who was always doing something, and who did it all beautifully. In those days her very presence suffused a room with brightness and vigor. She wasn't an extraordinary beauty, but she had a really nice body, and her legs were long. Her features were all very compact and her face was tidily arranged, so the impression you got, looking at her, was one of cleanliness and purity. Whereas now she just seemed subdued. And I didn't think this was because she'd stopped using mascara and rouge, or because she was now twenty-five years old.

Mari had stopped responding to the outside world, she'd pulled the plug on the whole system, she was taking a break—I felt convinced of this. Because, as she saw things right now, life was nothing but pain.

“Here you go. One coffee with milk.” Smiling, Mari held out a cup, rousing me from my thoughts.

“Thanks,” I said.

She held a cup of strong black coffee in her hand, just like old times.

She kept grinning.

“Are you planning to stay over tonight?” I asked.

We'd left Mari's room in pretty much the same condition it had been in when she was living with us, and used it as a guest room. Though she hadn't read very many books during that period, and she hardly ever went out, and she hadn't listened to much music—basically all she did was go to sleep and then get up again, like a guest at some hotel who wasn't even having meals.

Mari shook her head. “No, I'll go back home. It'd only cause a big stir if my parents found out, so I'll go back before they do. I just had this urge to talk to someone, you know, and I figured you'd probably still be awake.”

“Then I'll lend you some shoes before you head back,” I said. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Nothing, really. Actually I feel better already,” Mari said.

Since it was late we both kept our voices down. As a result you almost had the feeling you could hear the snow whirling down outside. Snowflakes skittered whitely through the darkness on the far side of the fogged-up window. Everything seemed to gleam with a pale light.

“This sure is some snow,” I said.

“Yeah, I bet it'll pile up tonight.”

Mari's tone of voice made it sound like none of it really mattered much to her. For someone who'd just come walking barefoot over asphalt through the pitch black, she seemed pretty indifferent to the cold. I looked at her profile, her long hair, her small round lips. She was flipping disinterestedly through some new magazine.

I walked her as far as the front gate when she left.