Part II, Chapter Chapter 8, Tengo Summary

Tengo continues to worry about Kyoko and Fuka-Eri. He ends up going to visit his father, now living in a sanatorium. He has only been there twice before. He reads on the train, a story about a man lost in a world of cats, a place where the man is meant to be lost. The phrase "place where he is meant to be lost" bothers Tengo.

Tengo's father is physically healthy, though aged considerably; but his mind comes and goes. His father tells Tengo he is nothing, and Tengo suspects that his father is not actually his real father. He decides to read to his father the story of the town of cats. His father tells Tengo that they are all filling some sort of a vacuum. Tengo will fill the vacuum that the father...