All that remained now was a sort of quiet resignation. A colorless, neutral, empty feeling. He was sitting alone in a huge, old, vacant house, listening as a massive grandfather clock hollowly ticked away time. His mouth was closed, his eyes fixed on the clock as he watched the hands move forward. His feelings were wrapped in layer upon layer of thin membrane and his heart was still a blank, as he aged, one hour at a time.

Tsukuru gradually began to eat again. He bought fresh ingredients and prepared simple, decent meals. Still, he regained only a little of the weight he’d lost. Over nearly a half year’s time his stomach had drastically shrunk, and now, if he ate more than a fixed amount, he threw up afterward. He started swimming again early in the mornings at the university pool. He’d lost a lot of muscle, got out of breath when he went up stairs, and needed to regain his strength. He bought new swim trunks and goggles, and swam the crawl every day, between 1,000 and 1,500 meters. Afterward he’d stop by the gym and silently use the machines to train.

After a few months of decent meals and regular workouts, he’d mostly recovered. He had the muscles he needed (though he was muscular in a very different way from before). His posture became erect, not slouched, and the color returned to his face. For the first time in a long time, he even had stiff erections again when he woke up in the morning.

Around this time his mother paid a rare visit to Tokyo. She found that Tsukuru had started to act and speak a little oddly, and, after he hadn’t been home for New Year’s, she decided to go to check up on him. When she saw how much her son had changed in the space of a few months, she was speechless. But Tsukuru attributed it to “normal changes you go through when you’re my age.” What he really needed, he told her, were clothes that actually fit him now, and his mother totally accepted his explanation. She’d grown up with a sister and, after her own marriage, was more familiar with how to raise her daughters. She had no idea how to raise a boy, and so Tsukuru convinced her that his changes were normal developments. She happily took him to a department store to buy new clothes, mostly Brooks Brothers and Polo, the brands she preferred. His old clothes they either threw away or donated.