Kurata and Asami grew close, however, when Asami discussed her miscarriage with him. She had miscarried a child just after she had broken up with her boyfriend. She hadn’t known that she was pregnant until after the split, and the miscarriage was unrelated to the shock of breaking up. Asami had a condition, which meant she was more likely to suffer a miscarriage.

When she found out that she was pregnant, she had decided to keep the baby, even if it meant being a single mum. Having made this choice, the news that she was more prone to miscarriage came as an even bigger shock. She couldn’t help but feel that it was her fault.

Overwhelmed by guilt, she shared her feelings with her close friends outside work, her parents, and her sister. Although they tried to console and comfort her in her time of sadness, none of them could offer words that dispelled the clouds from her heart.

It was while she was in this state that Kurata came up to her and asked, “Is something wrong?”

She didn’t think that he would understand the delicate subject of losing a baby, being a man and all. But she desperately needed a sympathetic ear—it did not matter whose it was. Of the people she had already told, her female friends had cried with her, and her parents had tried to reassure her by telling her it wasn’t her fault. She therefore assumed that Kurata, likewise, would empathize and tell her something to console her. So, she spoke honestly of her feelings.

However, after he listened to her story, his first response was to ask how many days she had carried the baby. After she told him ten weeks, or about seventy days, he asked, “Why do you think the child you were carrying was granted life in this world for those seventy days?”

This sparked so much anger in Asami, her lips began to tremble.

“Are you really asking why it was given life?” Her eyes flushed red, she sobbed convulsively. “Are you telling me I’m a bad person?”

She found herself unable to stop herself from snapping at him like this. She had already blamed herself for her child never having been born. But to then be told this by someone who had absolutely no business in saying such a thing made her even more distraught.

Kurata seemed to understand what she meant and smiled kindly. “No, you’ve got it wrong.”

“What have I got wrong? The child I was carrying could do nothing! I couldn’t even let it be born! It was my fault! I was only able to give that child seventy days of life! Only seventy days!”

With a composed expression, he calmly waited for her to stop crying, and then said, “That child used its seventy-day-long life for your happiness.”

He spoke gently, but with unwavering certainty.