For some time afterwards, Kensuke was troubled by a recurring fantasy. A naked young woman lurking in the deep recesses of some uninhabited island was arousing him mercilessly. Kensuke did not have a girlfriend at the time.
He often dreamed of frolicking in the woods. The flesh-coloured trunks of trees resembling crape myrtle sprouted up like sinuous tendrils from the earth, none of them adorned with a single leaf. As Kensuke walked among them, his legs got entangled in the curling branches and he'd sink deep down into the ground. No analysis was necessary to see that the smooth tree trunks symbolized Yukari's legs. Another recurring dream Kensuke had featured snakes writhing across the ground and transforming themselves into Yukari's legs. In the wilderness and in places that were clearly some island, Yukari metamorphosed into various plants and creatures and lived on.
Kensuke couldn't find out if the story was true by asking Aso. Even if Aso said, 'I was lying,' the story wouldn't just go away. The possibility that Aso's confessing it was a lie was the real lie would remain forever.
Kensuke tried dialling the number on the calling card that Yukari had given him, and got neither her parents' home nor her apartment, but rather, a sort of dormitory where the members of her religious cult lived. Kensuke told the feeble voiced woman who took the phone that he wanted to speak to Yukari.
'She's not here,' the woman said, and that was all she said.
Kensuke had expected Yukari to come to the phone without much of a to-do, so this stole his tongue. After a pause, he managed to ask, 'Where may I find her?'
The woman replied simply, 'I don't know.'
'How long has Yukari been away?'
'I haven't seen her face the last couple of weeks.'
When Kensuke asked her for Yukari's parents' number, she merely responded with a question of her own: 'Ms Nakazawa has a home?' The way she said it made Yukari seem like a vagabond with no family.
'So she doesn't have one?' Kensuke pressed.
'I wouldn't know,' the woman responded unceremoniously.
Kensuke couldn't tell whether Yukari did in fact have no home or whether the commune had simply been given no information. He put the phone down. All he had been able to confirm was that Yukari had not been back to the dormitory for about two weeks now. The awful thing was that Aso's story was beginning to show signs of plausibility.
It did occur to him to visit Battery No. 6 and check for himself, but the Tokyo authorities had declared the place off limits. Kensuke was due to take the public employment exam in order to become a teacher, and could not afford to get in trouble with the metropolitan government. Besides, he didn't have the courage to make a clandestine landing on Battery No. 6 under cover of darkness.
He felt he needed to see Aso again to get to the bottom of the matter. If Aso hadn't been lying, Kensuke needed to do something before it was too late. He didn't know what sort of criminal charges accrued from stripping a woman naked and leaving her on Battery No. 6. He figured that if she died of starvation, prosecution was inevitable.
He was thus on the verge of contacting Aso when news came that he had been hospitalized in his alma mater's affiliate. A chest X-ray had apparently shown a patch on Aso's lungs. A bronchoscope, and tests, revealed that a particularly virulent form of cancer had claimed most of his body already. His brain was blighted too, and surgery was impossible. Even with some desperate chemotherapy, Aso had only two months or so left to live.
Strangely enough, Kensuke was left unfazed by the news. He closed his eyes and calmly let the fact sink in that the time had come. The happy days that they'd shared sped all in a jumble across his mind's eye, but the idea that 'it was unbelievable' simply didn't occur to him - only the terrible pity of dying at twenty-three, Kensuke's own age.
Aso had probably sensed, even before he took the tests, that he didn't have much time left. And so he'd come that day to say goodbye. Given death as a premise, Aso's recent behaviour made sense. Just as Aso had seen his own death looming, Kensuke had intuited that his friend's days were numbered, and had no doubt been bracing for this.
Ten minutes or so after he'd digested the news, Kensuke suddenly began to sob. It wasn't that he was sad; rather, it was because confusing emotions besieged him deep inside. After crying for some time, he felt an irrepressible desire to go and see Aso. It was Kensuke's turn to say goodbye.
Kensuke thought he'd chosen a slow time for his visit but, in addition to Aso's mother, there were a few others gathered there in the private room. Aso lay on the bed, in no condition to carry on a normal conversation. The man who'd come to see Kensuke in a car just a month ago now lay before him hardly able to breathe and wreathed in tubes. The cancer cells that riddled Aso's body had wrought so dramatic a change in so short a time. His left lung had completely ceased to function; apparently, the end would come when the phlegm accumulated in his windpipe.
Right before he left, Kensuke approached Aso's pillow, bent low, and asked in a gentle whisper: 'Was that true, about Battery No. 6?'
Kensuke felt certain Aso wouldn't tell a lie on his deathbed. If he'd only shaken his head then, Kensuke's suspicion would have been allayed.
Instead, Aso smiled and nodded.
In disbelief, Kensuke tried again: 'Are you sure?'
Aso nodded twice in succession. Kensuke thought he saw a look of satisfaction on Aso's face, but it could have been his imagination.
Placing his hand on Aso's, Kensuke told him, 'Hang in there,' and left the hospital room. No doubt, it would have been more appropriate just to say 'Goodbye.' Two days later, Aso was dead at the young age of twenty-three.