He placed the cell phone on the table and someone stood up behind Koki and bent forward eagerly, leaning against him. Koki lost his balance and nearly hit his forehead against the table.

“Here, check it out!”

Hands went in all directions, in an attempt to grab the cell phone. Finally the guy seated across from Keigo grabbed it, and pushing away everyone else, he started to read the messages aloud in a high-pitched, girlish whine.

Just then they heard some loud girls’ voices near the café entrance. The men turned to look at the commotion and found three girls from their college, the core of a flashy group that hung out with Keigo-Keigo’s entourage, as others referred to them.

“Keigo!” one of the girls shouted and the three of them ran over to him in a group.

“What’re you girls doing here?”

The men scrunched over on the sofa to make room and the girls squeezed in. As soon as they sat down, they peppered Keigo with the same questions the men had earlier, and Keigo, being Keigo, gave them the same answers as before.

While Keigo and the girls were talking, the men passed around Keigo’s cell. Koki could tell from their expressions what sort of messages the dead girl had sent him. To him it felt as if the murdered girl’s body itself were being passed around from one pair of hands to the next.

A girl who’d sent one e-mail after another to a guy with no interest in her had been murdered at Mitsuse Pass. Keigo, sitting next to him, hadn’t murdered her. Still, if Keigo hadn’t met her that night-even if was just coincidence-the girl would never have wound up at the pass.

It was Koki’s turn to see the phone. Beside him, Keigo was entertaining the girls with the story of how he was interrogated by the police, and it was hard to tell how much was true and how much was being embellished for their benefit. Like, did they really shine a bright light on Keigo as they interrogated him, just like in a TV drama?

“A drama,” Koki muttered to himself. He looked down and saw the e-mail from the murdered girl. He didn’t want to read it, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away.

Universal Studios sounds like so much fun!

The words leaped out at him.

There was a patch of blue sky off in the distance, but raindrops were still striking the windshield. Drops mixed together and silently flowed down the glass, followed by more.

The car was stopped by the road that ran along the coast. The wet asphalt had changed color, making the surrounding scenery look dark. The inside of the car where Mitsuyo and Yuichi sat was as dark as if it were twilight.

Down this road was the police station. Just a few dozen yards more and they would enter its grounds.

They had no idea how long they’d been sitting there. Had they parked just a moment ago, or sat there the whole night? Mitsuyo reached out to touch the rain on the windshield. She was inside the car and of course couldn’t really touch it, but her fingertips felt as if they were wet. It was hard to see very far beyond the car.

For the last few minutes she’d noticed Yuichi’s ragged breathing beside her. If she turned, she would see him, but she couldn’t bring herself to look. She was seized by the fear that if she did look over, it would all be over.

At the Yobuko pier Mitsuyo had told Yuichi she’d go with him to the police. I can’t let you do that. You’ll get in trouble, he’d insisted, but she’d almost forced her way into the car.

She was with a murderer, but Mitsuyo didn’t feel afraid. It felt less like she’d met a murderer than like somebody she already knew had committed a crime. It had happened before she’d even met him, but still she felt frustrated and exasperated, as if she could have done something to prevent it.

They’d driven away from the parking lot in Yobuko and headed toward the center of Tosu. Until they hit the city, they didn’t say a word to each other. The roads were empty, and they soon neared the city center. As they did, a sign for the Tosu Police Department appeared by the side of the road. Yuichi shook the steering wheel nervously and slowed down.

A few dozen yards ahead was a cream-colored building standing alone in a large lot. A traffic-safety banner hung from the building, billowing in the strong wind from the nearby sea.

There were no other cars on the street.

“I think… you’d better get out here, Mitsuyo,” Yuichi said, hands on the wheel, eyes avoiding hers.

That’s when it started raining. The sky had become cloudy, and now raindrops were drumming against the windshield. A young mother pushing a baby carriage down the street hurriedly pulled on its plastic hood.

“You’d better get out here, Mitsuyo,” Yuichi repeated, and fell silent.

She was silent, too. “So that’s it?” she finally muttered.

Yuichi kept his eyes down, staring at his feet. She didn’t know what she hoped to have him say by asking that, but simply being told to get out here was too sad to bear.

They were silent again. The rain on the windshield began running down the glass in rivulets.

“If they see you with me you’ll get in trouble,” Yuichi murmured, his hands tightly clasping the wheel.

“You mean if I get out here, I won’t get in any more trouble?” Mitsuyo said roughly.

“Sorry,” he said.

She had no idea at all why she’d said that. The last thing she wanted to do at this stage was to abuse him.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.

In the side mirror she could see the young mother from behind as she pushed the baby carriage. The young woman was walking along at a normal speed, though she must have wanted to sprint to get out of the rain. Mitsuyo let out a huge sigh. She felt as if she’d forgotten to breathe for the past few minutes.

“After you go to the police, then what?” This came out of her mouth before she’d thought it through. Yuichi stared at his hands on the wheel, then looked up and shook his head as if he hadn’t a clue.

“If you give yourself up, then they won’t punish you as much, right?” Mitsuyo said.

Yuichi shook his head again as if he had no idea.

“Someday we’ll see each other again, won’t we?”

He looked toward her and she saw the tears welling up in his eyes.

“I’ll wait for you,” Mitsuyo said. “No matter how many years it takes.”

Yuichi’s shoulders began to shake, and he kept on violently shaking his head. Mitsuyo reached out and touched his cheek. She could feel his shaking through her fingers.

“I’m… scared. I might get the death penalty.”

Mitsuyo gently held his ear. It was burning up.

“If I hadn’t met you, Mitsuyo, I wouldn’t be this scared. I was kind of nervous before, thinking they’d arrest me, but I couldn’t give myself up. But I wasn’t this scared. I knew my grandparents would cry about it, and I’d feel sorry for all they’d done for me, raising me, but it didn’t hurt as bad as it does now. If I hadn’t met you…”

Mitsuyo listened as the words streamed out of Yuichi. She could feel his ear grow even hotter in her hand.

“But you still have to go,” Mitsuyo said. She felt him shaking, and could barely get the words out. “You have to give yourself up, and pay for what you did…”

Yuichi nodded, as if all the energy had drained out of him. “I might get the death penalty… Then I’ll never see you again.”

The phrase death penalty simply didn’t register with Mitsuyo. She knew what it meant, of course, but all the meaning had drained out of the term, and she could only comprehend it as goodbye.

Mitsuyo took his trembling hands. She wanted to say something but nothing came. The two of them were not simply saying goodbye, since goodbye still held the hope of a future. Mitsuyo felt she was making some huge mistake, and she desperately clutched Yuichi’s hands. Something was coming to an end, she knew. Right here, right now, something decisive was coming to an end.