Tadashi should have been on the business trip alone. His wife got the good idea that his birthday would be celebrated with the live broadcast of a radio program he often listened to. The disk jockey makes a call to the room he stays at. What a surprise! Excited Tadashi will enjoy the conversation with the D.J. for a while. The trick is revealed finally. Getting to know that his wife is put to the radio station over the phone, he will shed tears of gratitude. Although the tear may be a figure of speech, the husband and the wife's bond would deepen. But her plan failed.
He did not answer the call the D.J. made. A woman's voice answered it instead. And she said Tadashi was taking a shower. The wife's face was white with anger. Tadashi finally answered the phone, and began explaining the woman is his wife. His wife's anger exploded. The staff rose to say she should not come forward until the last revealing, when she shouted. Her voice to question her husband closely was broadcast.
"Why do you treat me like this?" His words taking it out on the D.J. followed vainly.
Sakiko could not miss it. Tadashi did not say those crucial things. He said he have got divorced soon. His talk may make you believe his affair got them divorced. Of course, it was a big factor. Sakiko thought various matters around them became larger when he got into a serape.
"I am going to take a shower," said Rin getting wet with rain.
"I can hear nothing." He tilted his head in confusion.
"What did you say?" His wife's harsh voice surprised him. They did not think at all Rin was struggling with a water heater.
"Look out!" Kazuyo looking down said nothing, but her high-pitched voice was recalled to Sakiko's ears repeatedly from far away. Sakiko remembered she had walked with her grandmother in the heats of summer noons, led by the hand. Sakiko thought Kazuyo may have scolded her at that time. But Kazuyo's troubled face uttering "Look out!" did not come to her mind. Her face was apparent intermittently in the watery sunlight. Kazuyo looked back toward Sakiko many times. Sakiko waited for the words "Look out!", but Satsuyo did not open her mouth. She can have heard a fox yelping as she listened. She wondered whether Kazuyo had really said "Look out!".
Rin turned a knob to turn on a pilot light. It took small blue fire as usual. It would have turned to a pilot light if she kept pushing the knob for 20 seconds. But the low flame gained unexpected headway before she waited for 20 seconds.
The flame spread in the can moved its tip up and down. The flare leaked flickering white light through inspection window. The heat had glued her fingers onto the knob. Opening fingers to draw back the hand will peel the stuck skins. She slacked her strength helplessly, then the fingers adhered to the knob again. She boiled with irritation and dared to open her fingers at a breath. The skins of fingers left on the knob looked animated. She felt no pain.
You must not ask anyone if he has heard from a person possibly in an accident. Tadashi had heard of it from his wife before. The tone was not grave when she told it was taboo. He was deeply embarrassed when she concluded he have broken that taboo. She declared it was his fault that Rin got injured. It did not matter a bit if he felt the absence of noise was strange. However, uttering his thoughts was not acceptable.
He felt artificiality in his wife's behavior. He could not believe there existed the taboo in the actual society. How did my utterance conflict with it if it exists? Even if it has something to do with asking for news, the relation should be far distant. In other words he thought that it was a forced analogy.
He does not deserve to be with Rin, for he jeopardized her life. She brought up their divorce as soon as she was convinced his fault can be a strong evidence to insist so. The prompt change strengthened his suspicion against her.
最終更新：2014年02月16日 09:06
