Takeshi isn’t going to Hawaii, but he’s going out with some biker friends to see the first sunrise, and so it seems settled that I will see in the New Year on my own. I don’t feel particularly lonely. You don’t have to be with someone else not to feel lonely.
After dinner, Takeshi brought me home by bike. Every time I put on that heavy helmet and sit on the bike with my arms wrapped tightly around him, I’m terrified.
He said he had to go straight home, but when I told him I’d stocked up on sweet bean-jam buns he came in, lured by food. I poured some tea, put two buns from Bunmeido on a tray and went back into the sitting room, to find Takeshi reading the notebook that I’d carelessly left lying around.
Young though he was, he said irritably, ‘It’s a nightmare.’ When I asked what he meant
