‘You don’t play pachinko. Izakaya would be more likely, except there are no pubs around here.’ She took her coat off. ‘Anyway, stop asking me so many questions. I just got a hunch that you were stuck somewhere and I needed to rescue you.’

‘Like a knight in shining armour.’

‘Precisely,’ she said, chuckling. ‘And you’re the damsel in distress.’ She turned to the telephone. ‘If you’re going to take shelter inside a phone booth, the least you could do is to call me so I’m not worried.’

She was right. He should have done that. ‘Sorry. That didn’t cross my mind.’

‘Stupid,’ she said, laughing. But then, her smile disappeared. She bit her lip, seemingly trying to contain her emotions.

‘What is it?’ Shoji asked.

Liyun turned to Shoji, but she didn’t say a word. The sound of rain and wind enveloped them. Yet, at that brief moment, Shoji thought he saw a spark in Liyun’s eyes.

Eventually, she spoke. ‘I told you I lost my brother, didn’t I?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘When he passed away, it was also raining. I remember looking out of the windows, barely seeing the trees that were just a few metres away.’ She paused, lacing her fingers. ‘Do you believe in women’s intuition?’ She looked down. ‘I don’t think I have it. At that time, I didn’t feel anything. While my brother was fighting for his life, I was just thinking what terrible weather it was.’

Shoji mumbled, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Ever since then, whenever it rains, I’ll start mentally ticking off a list of the people I care about. My family, my friends … I wonder whether they’re all right, or if something terrible is happening to them.’

He didn’t know what to say. She had been worrying about him.

She laughed awkwardly. ‘Not that anything ever happens. Silly of me.’

‘It’s not silly,’ he said. ‘You’ve been through a lot. You’ve lost someone important. You’ve got this space inside you, a gaping hole you can’t fill.’

‘How do you know?’

He averted his eyes. ‘Because I’ve lost someone too.’

‘Your ex-girlfriend?’

An ex? They had never broken up.

Liyun stared off into the distance. ‘The rain is not going to stop any time soon. Are we going to spend the entire night crammed in this tiny phone booth?’

Shoji shrugged. ‘Probably.’

She rubbed her hands togetherr and breathed into them.

‘Cold?’ he asked.

Liyun shoved her hands into her pockets, keeping quiet. He turned away from her. The pouring rain blurred his view, as if a white veil had blanketed Tokyo. Or was it all of Japan? Shoji thought of Yoko. Was she seeing the same thing as him now?

He imagined her in a tiny apartment somewhere, sitting by the window, gazing out over a park. Her oversized, brown woollen cardigan falling from her shoulders, revealing her protruding collarbone. She was holding a mug with two hands. He didn’t need to check to know that she was drinking black coffee. No sugar, no milk.