After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Air Chrysalis
. I’m just a technician. 
Komatsu is responsible for everything else.” 
The Professor concentrated on his thoughts for a while. In the hushed room, Tengo 
could almost hear his brain working. The Professor then said, “This editor, Mr. 
Komatsu, came up with the idea, and you’re cooperating with him on the technical 
side.” 
“Correct.” 

---

111
“I’ve always been a scholar, and, to tell you the truth, I’ve never read fiction with 
much enthusiasm. I don’t know anything about customary practice in the world of 
writing and publishing fiction, but what you people are planning to do sounds to me 
like a kind of fraud. Am I wrong about that?” 
“No, you are not wrong. It sounds like fraud to me, too,” Tengo said. 
The Professor frowned slightly. “You yourself obviously have ethical doubts about 
this scheme, and still you are planning to go along with it, out of your own free will.” 
“Well, it’s not exactly my own free will, but I am planning to go along with it. 
That is correct.” 
“And why is that?” 
“That’s what I’ve been asking myself again and again all week,” Tengo said 
honestly. 
The Professor and Fuka-Eri waited in silence for Tengo to continue. 
“Reasoning, common sense, instinct—they are all pleading with me to pull out of 
this as quickly as possible. I’m basically a cautious, commonsensical kind of person. I 
don’t like gambling or taking chances. If anything, I’m a kind of coward. But this is 
different. I just can’t bring myself to say no to Komatsu’s plan, as risky as it is. And 
my only reason is that I’m so strongly drawn to 
Air Chrysalis
. If it had been any other 
work, I would have refused out of hand.” 
The Professor gave Tengo a quizzical look. “In other words, you have no interest 
in the fraudulent part of the scheme, but you have a deep interest in the rewriting of 
the work. Is that it?” 
“Exactly. It’s more than a ‘deep interest.’ If 
Air Chrysalis
has to be rewritten, I 
don’t want to let anyone else do it.” 
“I see,” the Professor said. Then he made a face, as if he had accidentally put 
something sour in his mouth. “I see. I think I understand your feelings in the matter. 
But how about this Komatsu person? What is he in it for? Money? Fame?” 
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what Komatsu wants,” Tengo said. “But I do 
think it’s something bigger than money or fame.” 
“And what might that be?” 
“Well, Komatsu himself might not see it that way, but he is another person who is 
obsessed with literature. People like him are looking for just one thing, and that is to 
find, if only once in their lifetimes, a work that is unmistakably the 
real thing
. They 
want to put it on a tray and serve it up to the world.” 
The Professor kept his gaze fixed on Tengo for a time. Then he said, “In other 
words, you and he have very different motives—motives that have nothing to do with 
money or fame.” 
“I think you’re right.” 
“Whatever your motives might be, though, the plan is, as you said, a very risky 
one. If the truth were to come out at some point, it would be sure to cause a scandal, 
and the public’s censure would not be limited to you and Mr. Komatsu. It could 
deliver a fatal blow to Eri’s life at the tender age of seventeen. That’s the thing that 
worries me most about this.” 
“And you should be worried,” Tengo said with a nod. “You’re absolutely right.” 

---

112
The space between the Professor’s thick, black eyebrows contracted half an inch. 
“But what you are telling me is that you want to be the one to rewrite