“Just like that, after all this time?” Ao said, sounding a little surprised.

“Yes, after all this time. I wasn’t able to ask you back then. It was too unexpected, too much of a shock. And I was afraid to hear the reason you guys so flat-out rejected me. I felt like if you told me, I’d never recover. So I tried to forget about all of it, without finding out what was going on. I thought time would heal the pain.”

Ao tore off a small piece of scone and popped it in his mouth. He chewed it slowly, washing it down with the cappuccino. Tsukuru went on.

“Sixteen years have gone by, but it feels like the wound is still there inside me. Like it’s still bleeding. Something happened recently, something very significant to me, that made me realize this. That’s why I came to Nagoya to see you. I apologize for showing up out of the blue like this.”

Ao stared for a time at the heavy, sagging branches of the willow. “You have no idea why we did that?” he said, finally.

“I’ve thought about it for sixteen years, but I have no clue.”

Ao narrowed his eyes, seemingly perplexed, and rubbed the tip of his nose—his habit, apparently, when he was thinking hard. “When I told you that back then you said, I see, and hung up. You didn’t object or anything. Or try to dig deeper. So naturally I thought you knew why.”

“Words don’t come out when you’re hurt that deeply,” Tsukuru said.

Ao didn’t respond. He tore off another piece of scone and tossed it toward some pigeons. The pigeons swiftly flocked around the food. He seemed to be used to doing this. Maybe he often came here on his break and shared his lunch with the birds.

“Okay, so tell me. What was the reason?” Tsukuru asked.

“You really don’t have any idea?”

“I really don’t.”

Just then a cheery melody rang out on Ao’s cell phone. He slipped the phone from his suit pocket, checked the name on the screen, impassively pressed a key, and returned it to his pocket. Tsukuru had heard that melody somewhere before. An old pop song of some kind, probably popular before he was born, but he couldn’t recall the title.

“If you have something you need to do,” Tsukuru said, “please feel free to take care of it.”

Ao shook his head. “No, it’s okay. It’s not that important. I can handle it later.”

Tsukuru took a drink of mineral water from the plastic bottle. “Why did I have to be banished from the group?”

Ao considered this for some time before he spoke. “If you’re saying that you have no idea why, it means—what?—that you—didn’t have any sexual relationship with Shiro?”