At exactly 9 p.m., right on schedule, the express train for Matsumoto pulled away from the platform. Seated on the bench, Tsukuru watched as its lights faded down the tracks, as the train sped up and finally disappeared into the summer night. Once the last car was no longer visible, everything around him felt suddenly deserted. Even the lights of the city seemed to have faded a notch, like when a play is over and the lights go out after the last act. He got up from the bench and slowly made his way down the stairs.
He left Shinjuku Station, went into a nearby restaurant, sat at the counter, and ordered meatloaf and potato salad. He barely finished half of each. Not that the food tasted bad. This restaurant was famous for its delicious meatloaf. He just had no appetite. As always, he only finished half his beer.
He rode the train home and took a shower, and carefully scrubbed his whole body with soap. He then put on an olive-green bathrobe (a gift from a girlfriend back on his thirtieth birthday) and sat down on a chair on the balcony, letting the night breeze waft over him as he listened to the muffled din of the city. It was nearly 11 p.m., but he wasn’t tired.
Tsukuru remembered those days in college when all he’d thought about was dying. Already sixteen years ago. Back then he was convinced that if he merely focused on what was going on inside of him, his heart would finally stop of its own accord. That if he intensely concentrated his feelings on one fixed point, like a lens focused on paper, bursting it into flames, his heart would suffer a fatal blow. More than anything he hoped for this. But months passed, and contrary to his expectation, his heart didn’t stop. The heart apparently doesn’t stop that easily.
From far off in the distance, he heard a helicopter. It seemed to be getting nearer, the sound growing louder. He looked up at the sky, trying to catch sight of it. It felt like a messenger bringing some vital news. But he never saw it, the sound of the propellers fading, then disappearing completely to the west, leaving behind only the soft, vague hum of the city at night.
Maybe back then Shiro had been hoping to break up their group. This possibility suddenly struck him. Seated on a chair on the balcony, he slowly filled out this hypothesis.
Their group in high school had been so close, so very tight. They accepted each other as they were, understood each other, and each of them found a deep contentment and happiness in their relationship, their little group. But such bliss couldn’t last forever. At some point paradise would be lost. They would each mature at different rates, take different paths in life. As time passed, an unavoidable sense of unease would develop among them, a subtle fault line, no doubt turning into something less than subtle.
Shiro’s nerves might not have been able to stand the pressure of what had to come, the trauma of the inevitable end of this tight-knit group of friends. She may have felt she had to unravel the emotional bonds of the group herself or else be caught up, fatally, in its collapse, like a castaway sucked down into the abyss by the whirlpool of a sinking ship.