Chapter 38 Section 38

Heisuke left the hotel and walked on the long sidewalk leading to Tokyo Station.The snow continued to fall with the same rhythm. Noriko Negishi's words lingered in his mind.He felt that he heard the voice of Yukihiro Kajigawa who had never met before: "If you love someone, you should make him happy..." But my situation is different from yours, Kajikawa-san. If I stand in your position, I can also say such free and easy words.But, now I... Heisuke felt chest tightness again.Something swelled outward inside him.He found it difficult to stand up, so he squatted down, and the scarf around his neck slipped to the ground.

Snowflakes keep getting eaten by the wet concrete sidewalks... Knowing that it is impossible to accumulate, but still persistently falling snowflakes reminds Heisuke of an innocent child. "Are you okay?" someone asked.The voice of a young man. Hirasuke didn't look at each other, just raised a hand: "Ah, I'm fine. Thank you." He stood up and rewrapped his scarf.The man who cared about him was a short man dressed as a company employee in a wool-colored overcoat. "Are you okay?" The man asked again with concern. "Ah, it's all right, really, thank you."

The man dressed as a company employee smiled and walked away in the opposite direction of Heisuke.After watching him go away, Hirasuke continued to walk forward. I know what to do, he thought. I don't need anyone to tell me what to do, I already knew the answer years ago... By the time we got home, the snow had stopped.Perhaps the area around his house hadn't rained in the first place, because the ground wasn't very wet. The doors in the hallway were not locked.The shoes that Naoko had taken off were placed neatly by the door.Heisuke glanced inside, and Naoko was not in the Japanese-style room.Heisuke couldn't care less about taking off the scarf, so he went upstairs and knocked on Naoko's door.There was no answer.

With a sense of foreboding, he opened the door. There was no sign of her in the room.A half-read pocket novel lay open on the table. That must be in the bathroom, Heisuke tilted his head and thought.But in that case, there should be slippers in front of the bathroom door. When I came up, I didn't seem to see the shadow of slippers. Heisuke went downstairs and found that she was not in the bathroom.He came to the Japanese-style room and just wanted to see if she was in the kitchen, when suddenly he felt something move in the yard. The floor-to-ceiling windows were open, Heisuke came to the window and looked into the yard, and found Naoko squatting in the corner of the yard.There was a cat in front of her, a light yellow striped cat.Whose cat is raised? There is still a collar around the neck, and there is a small bell on the collar.

Naoko was tearing up kamaboko into small pieces and feeding it piece by piece, and the cat seemed to be eating happily. Heisuke knocked on the glass loudly, and Naoko turned around with a gentle expression on her face that was rarely seen recently.Hirasuke thought, by the way, her original expression was like this. However, Naoko's expression didn't last long.Seeing Hirasuke standing in front of the window, her expression immediately disappeared, as if a bud that had just bloomed would wither immediately. Heisuke opened the floor-to-ceiling windows.The cat who was eating kamaboko arched its back warily.

"Where did the cat come from?" Heisuke asked. "I don't know. I often break into the yard recently." Probably hearing Heisuke's voice, the cat escaped through the fence, leaving only the leftover kamaboko on the withered lawn. Naoko took off her sandals, walked past Heisuke and entered the room.She wrapped the remaining kamaboko in a tissue and placed it on the low dining table. "About skiing," Heisuke said, licking his chapped lips, "you'd better go." After hearing this, Naoko's whole body stopped moving, looking confused.She turned her head to look at Pingjie, frowned slightly and answered, "Huh?"

"Ski trip, haven't you received an invitation letter? Then go and participate." Naoko stared at his face with an incredulous expression. "Why did you say that all of a sudden?" "Because I think you should. Don't you really want to?" "You just said that on a whim?" "No, I really think so." Naoko blinked several times in succession, lowered her gaze, with an expression of wondering about Heisuke's intentions. She looked up at Heisuke again and shook her head. "I will not go." "why?" She didn't answer, and she wanted to leave the Japanese-style room expressionlessly, as if she was wearing a Noh mask.Heisuke shouted behind her: "Saka Nami!"

Naoko stopped in her tracks.Her mood had lost her composure, which could be seen in the way her shoulders went up and down.She turned around, her eyes starting to turn red. "Why?..." she whispered. Heisuke closed the French windows and turned to her side. "It's my fault for making you suffer for so long. All I can say now is, "Sorry!" "Ping Jie stood on the spot and lowered his head. The earth seemed to stop spinning, and all sounds died out.However, this feeling lasted only for a moment.After that, all kinds of sounds filled his ears: the sound of cars passing by the door, the cry of children, the sound of someone's stereo...

Among the various sounds, there was also a whining sound.He looked up.It was Naoko who was crying, and several tear grooves had been plowed out of her cheeks. "Sami Nami..." he called out again. She covered her face with her hands, went into the corridor, and headed for the stairs.I ran up the stairs, and then, "Bang Dang", there was the sound of the door being slammed shut. Heisuke sat on the straw mat as if he had lost his frame.He crossed his legs and crossed his arms. Something is moving.I saw that the cat had come back to the yard just now, and was eating the kamaboko left on the lawn with relish.

Hirasuke comforted himself in his heart that it was nothing serious, it was just that one season was over. Naoko, who had locked herself in her room since evening, did not come out at night.Out of worry, Ping Jie came to her door many times.Hearing the sobbing sound from inside, he breathed a sigh of relief and left from the door. After 8 o'clock in the evening, Pingjie ordered a pack of instant noodles and ate it alone.How can I still feel hungry?Ping Jie himself felt a little funny.At the same time, he also thought, it seems that he will learn how to cook in the future. After eating, Heisuke took a shower, read the newspaper, and watched TV.Ping Jie found that his current mood was unexpectedly calm.He clearly felt that his shoulders had lost all strength.

He added two big cubes of ice to the glass, then poured about two centimeters of whiskey over the ice cubes.Holding the wine glass, he returned to his bedroom.He sat cross-legged on the quilt, slowly sipping whiskey, trying not to think about anything in his mind.Probably this approach worked. When the glass was empty, sleepiness also hit.He turned off the light and got under the covers. In this way, Hirasuke never saw Naoko that night.Needless to say, she didn't even go to the bathroom once while eating, which made him feel a little incredible. He thought back to the time when he was dating Naoko in the past.They were not married then.From the time I met her during the day until we left in front of her house at night, she never went to the bathroom once.This is not an occasional situation, but has always been the case.During this period, Hirasuke had to go to the bathroom at least once.For another example, when watching a movie or having dinner together, he also thought about whether she would also go when he went, but no matter how he thought about it, he felt that it was unlikely.Generally speaking, if you go into the bathroom together, the man will come out before the woman in most cases. When he got to know her very well, he asked her this question, and she answered him with some embarrassment.The answer is actually very simple. "Because I held back," she replied. Ping Jie asked her why she held back.She answered this question very simply: "If you don't hold back, it's too realistic, right?" Is there anything wrong with being too realistic?Although Hirasuke still had this question in his heart, he didn't pursue it any further.She probably has her own rules, he thought. In the darkness, Hirasuke closed his eyes.Perhaps his eyes had been closed long ago.He saw many small black dots intertwined under his eyelids to form a wonderful pattern.As he gazed at the patterns, the whole world turned upside down. It was a strange feeling when Hisuke opened his eyes this morning.When he came back to his senses, his eyes were already looking at the roof.He didn't know when he opened his eyes.He felt as if his soul had gone out of his body, and after wandering somewhere, he returned to his body again. Heisuke sat up and shivered.Only then did he feel that it was cold this morning. He hurriedly took off his pajamas and put on his shirt and sweater.As he put on his trousers, he kept mumbling: "It's cold! It's cold!" After leaving the bedroom, he found that the opposite door was half open.Hirasuke hesitated a little, and looked in through the crack of the door.Naoko was nowhere in front of the desk or on the bed. Heisuke went down the stairs and saw Naoko's slipper on the third-to-last step.Going forward, Pingjie found another slipper buckled upside down on the ground in the middle of the corridor. He looked into the Japanese-style room and found Naoko in pajamas, staring out the window in a daze. "Sanami." He called out. She turned her head slowly and looked at him: "Dad..." "You'll catch a cold if you dress like that!" he said, feeling something strange by intuition. Naoko tapped her temple with the tip of her finger and tilted her head slightly. "Dad, what's wrong with me?" "what?" "I remember I got on the bus. I should have gone to Nagano with my mother. Why are you still here?"