One autumn evening...

Miki Tokita was singing this song, “Harmony of the Insects,” in a loud spirited voice. She was keen for her father, Nagare Tokita, to listen to the song she had learned at school that day. And all her singing was making her face quite red.

Nagare was struggling to continue to listen to Miki’s out-of-key and very loud notes. A deep furrow was forming in the middle of his forehead, and his mouth was fast resembling an upside-down “u.”

“Chirping throughout the long autumn night. Oh, what fun to hear this insect symphony!”

When she finished singing, Miki was met with applause.

“Wonderful, wonderful,” said Kyoko Kijima, clapping her hands. Kyoko’s praise left her smiling with a smug sense of achievement.

“I can hear the pine cricket,” she began singing again.

“All right, Miki. Very nice, but enough!” said Nagare, desperate to stop her song. Having heard it three times already, he was well and truly sick of it. “Thank you for sharing your song, now go and put your randoseru away,” he said, picking up her school bag from the counter and holding it out to her.

Miki, still gloating from Kyoko’s praise, said, “Okay,” and disappeared into the back room.

“Chin-chillo chin-chillo chin-chillo-lin.”

Just as the singing Miki left the room, the café’s waitress Kazu Tokita appeared. “Well, it certainly feels like autumn has arrived,” she muttered to Kyoko. Miki’s singing had apparently heralded autumn’s arrival in the café, which always looked the same, regardless of the season.

clang-dong

Entering the café as the bell rang out was Kiyoshi Manda, a homicide detective at Kanda Police Station who was around sixty. It was early October, and the mornings were beginning to get quite chilly. Kiyoshi removed his trench coat and sat down at the table closest to the entrance.

“Hello, welcome,” said Kazu as she served him a glass of water.

“Coffee, please,” Kiyoshi replied.

“Coming straight up,” Nagare said from behind the counter, and popped into the kitchen.

When Nagare had gone, Kyoko whispered so that only Kazu could hear, “Kazu, the other day, I saw you walking in the front of the station with a man! Who was that? You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

Smiling mischievously with a playful sparkle in her eyes, Kyoko was no doubt waiting for Kazu to react in some way rarely seen—to blush, or something similar.

But she simply looked Kyoko in the face and replied, “Yes, I do.”

Kyoko looked genuinely surprised.

“Really? I didn’t know you had a boyfriend!” she bellowed, leaning closer to Kazu standing behind the counter.

“Well, I do.”

“When did this happen?”

“He was a senior student while I was at art school.”

“You mean you’ve been dating for ten years?”

“Oh, no. We’ve been dating since spring.”

“Spring this year?”

“Yes.”