After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

What should I do?
Aomame had no idea what to do next. She set the binoculars in her lap and clenched 
her fists—tightly enough for her nails to leave marks in her skin. Her clenched fists 
were trembling slightly. 
What should I do?
She listened to her labored breathing. Before she knew it, her body seemed to have 
split down the middle. One half was willing to accept the fact that Tengo was right 
there in front of her. The other half refused to accept it, trying to convince itself that 
this was not happening. Inside her, these two forces clashed, each trying to drag her in 
its own direction. It was as if every bit of her flesh was being shredded, her joints torn 
apart, her bones smashed. 
Aomame wanted to run straight to the playground, climb the slide, and speak to 
Tengo there. But what should she say? She didn’t know how to move the muscles of 
her mouth. Could she manage to squeeze out a few words? “My name is Aomame. I 
held your hand in an elementary school classroom in Ichikawa twenty years ago. Do 
you remember me?” 
Is that what she should say? 
There should be something a little better. 
The other Aomame gave her an order: “Stay hidden on this balcony. There’s 
nothing more you can do. You know that. You struck a bargain with Leader last night: 
you would save Tengo and help him to go on living in this world by throwing away 
your own life. That was the gist of your bargain. The contract has been concluded. 
You have sent Leader to the other world and agreed to offer your own life. What good 
would it do you now to see Tengo and talk about the past? And what would you do if 
he didn’t remember you or if he knew you only as ‘that strange girl who used to say 
the creepy prayers’? Then how would you feel as you went to your death?” 
The thought made her go stiff all over. She began to shiver uncontrollably, as if 
she had caught a bad cold and might freeze to the core. She hugged herself for a time, 
shivering, but never once did she take her eyes off Tengo sitting on top of the slide 
and looking at the sky. He might disappear somewhere the moment she looked away 
from him. 
She wanted Tengo to hold her in his arms, to caress her with his big hands. She 
wanted her whole body to feel his warmth, to have him stroke her from head to toe 
and warm her up. 
I want him to take away this chill I feel in my body’s core. Then I 
want him to come inside me and stir me with all his might, like a spoon in a cup of 
cocoa, slowly, to the very bottom. If he would do that for me, I wouldn’t mind dying 
right then and there. Really
. 

---

489
No, can that really be true?
Aomame thought. 
If that really happened, I might not 
want to die anymore. I might want to stay with him forever and ever. My resolve to 
die might simply evaporate, like a drop of dew in the morning sun. Or then again, I 
might feel like killing him, shooting him first with the Heckler & Koch, and then 
blowing my own brains out. I can’t begin to predict what would happen or what I 
would be capable of
.