“I’m not trying to force anything. That’s not what I’m trying to do. But at least I’d like to see, with my own eyes, what kind of lid it is.”

Eri gazed at her hands on the table. They were larger, and more fleshy, than Tsukuru remembered. Her fingers were long, her nails short. He pictured those hands spinning a potter’s wheel.

“You said I look very different,” Tsukuru said. “I think I’ve changed, too. Sixteen years ago, after you banished me from the group, all I could think about for five months was dying. Death and nothing else. Not to exaggerate or anything, but I was really teetering on the brink. Standing on the edge, staring down at the abyss, unable to look away. Somehow, I was able to make my way back to the world I came from. But it wouldn’t have been surprising if I had actually died then. Something was wrong with me—mentally, I mean. I don’t know what would be the correct diagnosis—anxiety, depression. Something like that. But something was definitely abnormal. It wasn’t like I was confused, though. My mind was perfectly clear. Utterly still, with no static at all. A very strange condition, now that I think back on it.”

Tsukuru stared at Eri’s silent hands and went on.

“After those five months were over, my face was totally transformed. And my body, too. None of my old clothes fit anymore. When I looked in the mirror, it felt like I’d been put inside a container that wasn’t me. I don’t know, maybe my life just happened to reach that stage—a stage where I had to kind of lose my mind for a while, where my looks and my body had to undergo a metamorphosis. But the trigger for this change was the fact that I had been cut off from our group. That incident changed me forever.”

Eri listened without a word.

Tsukuru went on. “How should I put it? It felt like I was on the deck of a ship at night and was suddenly hurled into the ocean, all alone.”

After he said this, he suddenly recalled this was the same description that Aka had used. He paused and continued.

“I don’t know if someone pushed me off, or whether I fell overboard on my own. Either way, the ship sails on and I’m in the dark, freezing water, watching the lights on deck fade into the distance. None of the passengers or crew know I’ve fallen overboard. There’s nothing to cling to. I still have that fear, even now—that suddenly my very existence will be denied and, through no fault of my own, I’ll be hurled into the night sea once more. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to form deep relationships with people. I always keep a distance between me and others.”

He spread his hands apart on the table, indicating a space of about twelve inches.

“Maybe it’s part of my personality, something I was born with. Maybe I’ve always had an instinctive tendency to leave a buffer zone between me and others. But one thing I do know is that I never thought this when I was with all of you in high school. At least that’s how I remember it. Though it seems so long ago.”

Eri put her palms to her cheeks and slowly rubbed them, as if washing herself. “You want to know what happened sixteen years ago. The whole truth.”

“I do,” Tsukuru said. “But there’s one thing I want to make clear. I never, ever did anything to harm Shiro. Yuzu, I mean.”

“I know that,” she said. She stopped rubbing her face. “You couldn’t have raped Yuzu. That’s obvious.”

“But you believed her, right from the beginning. Like Ao and Aka did.”

Eri shook her head. “No, I didn’t believe her from the beginning. I don’t know what Ao and Aka thought, but I didn’t believe it. How could I? There’s no way you’d ever do something like that.”

“Then why did you …?”

“Why did I take Yuzu at her word and kick you out of the group? Why didn’t I stand up and defend you? Is that what you’re asking?”

Tsukuru nodded.

“Because I had to protect her,” Eri said. “And in order to do that, I had to cut you off. It was impossible to protect you and protect her at the same time. I had to accept one of you completely, and reject the other entirely.”

“Her psychological problems were that severe. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, they were indeed. Truthfully, she was backed into a corner. Someone had to protect her, and the only person who could possibly do that was me.”

“You could have explained that to me.”

She slowly shook her head a few times. “There was no room to explain things then. What should I have said? Tsukuru, would you mind if for a while we say you raped Yuzu? We have to do that now. Something’s wrong with her, and we have to take care of the situation. Just be patient, things will settle down later. I don’t know, maybe in two years? I couldn’t say something like that. I knew it was wrong, but I had to let you handle it on your own. Things were that tense. You should know, though, that Yuzu actually had been raped.”

Startled, Tsukuru looked at her. “By who?”

Eri shook her head again. “I don’t know. But someone had forced her to have sex against her will. She was pregnant, after all. And she insisted that it was you who had raped her. She made it very clear that Tsukuru Tazaki was the one who did it. She described it all in depressingly realistic detail. So the rest of us had to accept what she said. Even though we knew in our hearts that you couldn’t have done it.”

“She was pregnant?”

“Mmm. There was no doubt about it. I went to the gynecologist’s with her. We went to someone far away. Not to her father’s clinic, of course.”

Tsukuru sighed. “And then?”

“All sorts of things happened, and then at the end of the summer, she miscarried. And that was it. It wasn’t a phantom pregnancy. She really was pregnant, and really did have a miscarriage. I guarantee it.”

“Since she miscarried, you mean.…”

“Yes, she planned to have the baby and raise it herself. She never considered having an abortion. She could never kill a living thing, no matter what the situation. You remember how she was, don’t you? She always hated it that her father performed abortions. We often argued about it.”

“Did anyone else know she was pregnant and that she had a miscarriage?”

“I knew. And so did Yuzu’s older sister. She was the type who could keep a secret. She got some money together for Yuzu. But that was it—there was nobody else. Her parents didn’t know, and neither did Aka or Ao. This was our secret, just the three of us. But I think it’s okay, now, to reveal it. Especially to you.”

“And Yuzu kept insisting I was the one who’d gotten her pregnant?”

“She was very insistent about that, yes.”

Tsukuru narrowed his eyes and stared at the coffee cup Eri was holding. “But why? Why did she say I did it? I can’t think of a single reason.”

“I really don’t know,” Eri said. “I can imagine a number of possibilities, none of which are very convincing. I just can’t explain it. The only plausible reason I can think of is because I liked you. That might have triggered it.”

Tsukuru looked at her in surprise. “You liked me?”

“You didn’t know that?”

“Of course not. I had no idea.”

Eri gave a wry smile. “I guess it’s okay to tell you now, but I always liked you. I was really attracted to you. Actually, I was in love with you. I always kept it secret, and never told anyone. I don’t think Ao or Aka were aware of it. Yuzu knew, of course. Girls can never hide anything from each other.”

“I never knew,” Tsukuru said.

“That’s because you were a moron,” Eri said, pressing an index finger to her temple. “We were together that long, and I tried sending out signals. If you’d had even half a brain, you would have picked up on them.” Tsukuru pondered these signals, but couldn’t come up with a thing.

“You remember how you used to tutor me in math after school?” Eri said. “It made me so happy.”