After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 9 
Aomame 
WHAT COMES AS A PAYMENT 
FOR HEAVENLY GRACE
When Aomame walked into the adjoining room, Buzzcut followed and swiftly closed 
the door. The room was totally dark. Thick curtains covered the window, and all 
lights had been extinguished. A few rays of light seeped in through a gap between the 
curtains, serving only to emphasize the darkness of everything else. 
It took time for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, as in a movie theater or 
planetarium. The first thing she saw was the display of an electric clock on a low 
table. Its green figures read 7:20 p.m. When a few more seconds passed, she could tell 
that there was a large bed against the back wall. The clock was near the head of the 
bed. This room was somewhat smaller than the spacious adjoining room, but it was 
still larger than an ordinary hotel room. 
On the bed was a deep black object, like a small mountain. Still more time had to 
go by before Aomame could tell that its irregular outline indicated the presence of a 
human body. During this interval, the outline remained perfectly unbroken. She could 
detect no signs of life. There was no breathing to be heard. The only sound was the 
soft rush of air from the air conditioner near the ceiling. Still, the body was not dead. 
Buzzcut’s actions were based on the premise that this was a living human being. 
This was a very large person, most likely a man. She could not be sure, but the 
person did not seem to be facing in this direction and did not seem to be under the 
covers but rather was lying facedown on the made-up bed, like a large animal at the 
back of a cave, trying not to expend its physical energy while it allows its wounds to 
heal. 
“It is time,” Buzzcut announced in the direction of the shadow. There was a new 
tension in his voice. 
Whether or not the man heard Buzzcut’s voice was unclear. The dark mound on 
the bed remained perfectly still. Buzzcut stood stiffly by the door, waiting. The room 
was enveloped in a silence so deep Aomame could hear someone swallow, and then 
she realized that the sound of swallowing had come from her. Gripping her gym bag 
in her right hand, Aomame, like Buzzcut, was waiting for something to happen. The 
clock display changed to 7:21, then 7:22, then 7:23. 
Eventually the outline on the bed began to show a slight degree of motion—a faint 
shudder that soon became a clear movement. The person must have been in a deep 
sleep or a state resembling sleep. The muscles awoke, the upper body began to rise, 
and, in time, the consciousness was regained. The shadow sat straight up on the bed, 
legs folded. 
It’s definitely a man
, thought Aomame. 

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“It is time,” Buzzcut said again. 
Aomame heard the man release a long breath. It was like a heavy sigh slowly 
rising from the bottom of a deep well. Next came the sound of a large inhalation. It 
was as wild and unsettling as a gale tearing through a forest. Then the cycle started 
again, the two utterly different types of sound repeated, separated by a long silence. 
This made Aomame feel uneasy. She sensed that she had found her way into a region 
that was completely foreign to her—a deep ocean trench, say, or the surface of an 
unknown asteroid: the kind of place it might be possible to reach with great effort, but 
from which return was impossible. 
Her eyes refused to adapt fully to the darkness. She could now see to a certain 
point but no farther. All that her eyes could reach was the man’s dark silhouette. She 
could not tell which way he was facing or what he was looking at. All she could see 
was that he was an extremely large man and that his shoulders seemed to rise and fall 
quietly—but enormously—with each breath. This was not normal breathing. Rather, it 
was breathing that had a special purpose and function and that was performed with 
the entire body. She pictured the large movements of his shoulder blades and 
diaphragm expanding and contracting. No ordinary human being could breathe with 
such fierce intensity. It was a distinctive method of breathing that could only be 
mastered through long, intense training. 
Buzzcut stood next to her at full attention, back straight, chin in. His breathing was 
shallow and quick, in contrast to that of the man on the bed. He was trying to 
minimize his presence as he waited for the intense deep breathing sequence to end: 
apparently it was an activity the man practiced routinely. Like Buzzcut, Aomame 
could do nothing but wait for it to end. It was probably a process the man needed to 
go through to become fully awake. 
Finally, the special breathing ended in stages, the way a large machine stops 
running. The intervals between breaths grew gradually longer, concluding with one 
long breath that seemed to squeeze everything out. A deep silence fell over the room 
once again. 
“It is time,” Buzzcut said a third time. 
The man’s head moved slowly. He now seemed to be facing Buzzcut. 
“You may leave the room,” the man said. His voice was a deep, clear baritone—
decisive and unambiguous. His body had apparently attained complete wakefulness. 
Buzzcut gave one shallow bow in the darkness and left the room the way he had 
entered it, with no unnecessary movements. The door closed, leaving Aomame alone 
in the room with the man. 
“I’m sorry it’s so dark,” the man said, most likely to Aomame. 
“I don’t mind,” Aomame said. 
“We had to make it dark,” the man said softly. “But don’t worry. You will not be 
hurt.” 
Aomame nodded. Then, recalling that she was in darkness, she said aloud, “I see.” 
Her voice was somewhat harder and higher than normal. 
For a time, the man stared at Aomame in the darkness. She felt herself being stared 
at intensely. His gaze was precise and attentive to detail. He was not so much 
“looking” at her as “viewing” her. He seemed able to survey every inch of her body. 
She felt as if he had, in an instant, stripped off every piece of clothing and left her 

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stark naked. But his gaze didn’t stop with the skin; it pierced through to her muscles 
and organs and uterus.