Chapter Eight

Isn’t love an unprecedented experience?

It was only when I stood on the edge of death that I truly came to know it.

In the corner of this sealed hospital room, for the first time in my life, I sincerely wished to be touched by someone.

That didn’t necessarily mean physical contact.

Even a meeting of minds would have sufficed.

I felt that through such connection, I might finally grasp what it means to be alive.

And yet, why is it that humans seek the opposite sex?

Why do we fall in love?

How is it any different from a male animal driven to seek out a female?

…But in the end, none of that really mattered.

I just wanted to immerse myself in the sea of love—

to let myself drown in it.

All that remained was the image of me, gasping for oxygen, thrashing in desperation.

Wasn’t that very struggle itself a sign of my clinging to life?

That was all there was to it.

Monday morning, I was looking forward to the tutor’s arrival.

After finishing my high school review, my studies moved into new areas. Due to time constraints, I was mainly focusing on math and English.

The tutor handed me an English vocabulary book and said,

“Go through this a hundred times.”

“English vocabulary isn’t something you memorize—it’s something you encounter. It’s all about how often you meet each word.”

I set the brand-new vocabulary book beside me and started studying math. When I finished, as I was putting my textbooks away, I asked a question.

“They said the high school boy who committed suicide did so because of the stress from exams, right? What do you think about that? I heard a rumor that it might have been because of love.”

“I don’t know. I’m neither him nor involved with him.”

The tutor’s expression became serious.

“You’re old enough now to be considered an adult, so I’ll tell you a theory. There are three types of suicide.”

He sighed deeply, and I saw a trace of uncertainty in his eyes. My heart raced at the thought of peering into the abyss of life itself. It was a secret pleasure, like touching someone else’s hidden truth.

“The first is hanging. Most people who die this way are trying to escape real-life suffering—like debt. When a company goes bankrupt, there are many hangings. The second is self-immolation. This is usually done by people trying to protest something in society. In 1969, a French woman named Francine Lecomte set herself on fire in Paris to protest the Vietnam War.”

I was surprised and amazed that the tutor knew such an incident. It was more than just being knowledgeable—it felt like something deeper.

“Lastly, the suicide you want to know about is drowning. There is a certain beautification of oneself in this type. It’s often caused by heartbreak. Drowning suicide is a kind of ritual. Water symbolizes purification and rebirth, and the manner of death is an aesthetic.”

“So, they seek a beautiful way to die?”

“There was a man named Misao Fujimura, said to be the most brilliant student since the founding of his old high school. In 1903, he carved a farewell poem called ‘Thoughts on the Rock’ into the bark of a mizunara oak tree and then jumped into Kegon Falls. The truth is summed up in a single famous word: ‘incomprehensible.’ Life itself is incomprehensible.”

“Did he also seek a beautiful death?”

“For a long time, the truth was a mystery. But a letter revealing his heartbreak was found. Think about it—carving a farewell message into a tree above the waterfall is nothing but aesthetic.”

“I feel that the high school boy didn’t kill himself to die, but to become one with the sea, and that death was an unintended result.”

Even though he knew well that entering the cold winter sea meant certain death, I imagined he was driven by an urge to dive in anyway—as if wanting to dissolve into the sea itself.

“That idea is inappropriate but interesting. Just don’t tell others. But yes, there is an aspect of seeking an aesthetic in death. Those three suicide types I mentioned were just one theory. Don’t take it too seriously. By the way, you’re in love, aren’t you?”

I regretted being seen through by a tutor so skilled at reading people.

“I won’t pry. Love can be a driving force for living.”

But I thought he was mistaken—love was not my “driving force to live.

After Nao left and I was alone, sometimes I found myself unable to focus on studying. It was a feeling slightly different from loneliness. When Nao was nearby, and I could hear the quiet rustling of the pages as she turned her book, even without any conversation, it felt as if the room was filled with "time," and that gave me a sense of comfort. My hand holding the pencil grew steadier, and my mind cleared.

After seven o’clock, when she waved and said, "See you tomorrow," closing the door behind her, the atmosphere in the hospital room instantly slackened, and only her presence lingered in the space like a faint lingering fragrance.

Then, as that lingering feeling quietly faded, deep inside my heart—where the roots of the will to live seemed to grow—there was a sensation as if a chilly breeze gently blew in.

It wasn’t so much cold as it was an illusion that the temperature of my soul had dropped by one notch. Though I wasn’t cold, I felt a chill as if ice had been poured down my spine, and it was a sensation akin to putting on extra clothes. At such times, I would close my notebook and lie down on the bed.

I stared at the ceiling—or rather, I just lay on my back, with the ceiling in my line of sight. I could see the hospital room’s light reflected softly and vaguely on the white surface.

The sound of the pages from the paperback Nao had been reading still lingered in my ears.

The ceiling of the sterile room was not just clean—it was excessively pure white, as if it had been obsessively polished with alcohol every morning. Even the fluorescent lights seemed to have turned a frightened pale yellow there.

But I wasn’t really looking at the ceiling.

I used that whiteness of the ceiling as an altar reflecting her image, projecting Haruka’s likeness onto it like a magic lantern. I traced her smile, the movement of her shoulders, the flicker of her gaze—every detail, without error. It was like a sculptor possessed by a god, wholeheartedly carving out the Virgin Mary still sleeping inside the stone. Haruka already existed on that white ceiling; the sculptor’s work was only to reveal her.

I was never enjoying this. I was suffering.

The image of Haruka floating on the ceiling eventually became wrapped in pure white, held in the arms of an unknown man. Every time his fingers touched her, what was supposed to be inside her was tainted one by one. That scene, like a curse, wouldn’t leave my mind.

I prayed many times to be freed from this spell. I tried following the text of magazines, flipping through vocabulary cards, or absentmindedly tracing the seams of the curtain hanging on the hospital window with my eyes.

But all those actions were like small stones thrown into the sea of my mind—only faint ripples appeared on the surface, never reaching the phantom lurking deep within.

Before I knew it, my gaze was drawn again to that white ceiling, and at a random moment, Haruka’s cheekline and finger movements would rise up like smoke.

It was a “return” beyond the power of will. It was as if my soul was caught in her orbit.

The more I tried to forget, the clearer the memories became. The more I tried to push them away, the sharper the contours emerged. Yet when I tried to recall and focus, the Virgin Mary refused to show her outlines. Her figure became vague and elusive.

And once again, that cold wind blew into the depths of my heart. Being alive felt unbearably lonely, and yet at the same time, it seemed like a miracle.