After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

particular—almost miraculously so. Such things don’t happen all that often in this 
life. For some people, they might never happen
. At the time, however, Tengo had not 
been able to fully comprehend the event’s decisive meaning. And not just back then. 
He had not 
truly
been able to understand its meaning until almost the present moment. 
He had only vaguely embraced the girl’s image in his heart over the years. 
She was thirty now, and her outward appearance might be very different from what 
he remembered from when they were ten. She must have grown taller, her chest 
developed, and her hairstyle must have changed. If she left the Society of Witnesses, 
she was probably wearing makeup. She might be sporting expensive, stylish clothing. 
Tengo found it hard to imagine Aomame striding down the street wearing a Calvin 
Klein suit and high heels. But such a thing was, of course, conceivable. People grow 
up, and when they grow up they change. 
She could be in this bar right this moment 
without my realizing it
. 

---

461
Tipping back his beer glass, Tengo took another look at his surroundings. She was 
somewhere close by. Within walking distance. Fuka-Eri said so. And Tengo accepted 
Fuka-Eri at her word. If she said it, it must be true. 
The only other customers in the room were a young couple, probably students, 
sitting at the bar, engaged in an intense and intimate conversation, their foreheads 
practically touching. Seeing them, Tengo felt a profound loneliness, the sort he had 
not experienced for a very long time. 
I’m alone in this world
, he thought. 
I have no 
ties with anyone
. 
Tengo closed his eyes and concentrated on the elementary school classroom once 
again. He had closed his eyes and visited that place last night, too—with a 
tremendously concrete sense of reality—when he and Fuka-Eri joined bodies during 
the violent thunderstorm. Because of that, the picture he conjured now came back 
with special vividness, as if it had been cleansed of all dust by last night’s rain. 
Unease and expectation and fear scattered to the farthest corners of the spacious 
classroom, and hid themselves in the room’s many objects like cowardly little 
animals. Tengo was able to re-create the scene in meticulous detail—the blackboard 
with its partially erased mathematical formulas, the broken pieces of chalk, the cheap, 
sun-damaged curtains, the flowers in the vase on the teacher’s podium (though he 
couldn’t tell what type), the children’s paintings pinned to the wall, the world map 
behind the podium, the smell of the floor wax, the waving of the curtains, the 
children’s shouts coming through the window. His eyes could trace each omen or plan 
or riddle they contained. 
During those several seconds when Aomame was holding his hand, Tengo had 
seen many things and accurately seared each image on his retinas, like a camera 
taking a photograph. These images comprised one of the basic landscapes that helped 
him survive his pain-filled teens. The scene always included the strong sensation of 
the girl’s fingers. Her right hand never failed to encourage Tengo during the 
agonizing process of becoming an adult. 
Don’t worry, I’m with you
, the hand 
declared.