Summary

In Chapter 4, Tsukuru began talking with another student named Fumiaki Haida. Haida was two years younger than Tsukuru and they found they had many things to talk about. Tsukuru lived in a one-bedroom condo in a community in Tokyo called Jiyugaoka. His sister lived there while she attended college but Tsukuru lives there through the rest of the book. Tsukuru's father died of lung cancer at 62 and left Tsukuru the condo.

The author includes a lengthy discussion about names in this chapter. Tsukuru's father, Toshio Tazaki, chose Tsukuru's name and the characters that would represent it. He selected characters for “to build” instead of the similar characters meaning “to create” because he felt the latter might be too much for Tsukuru to live up to. Toshio's name meant “man who profits” and Tsukuru felt this was appropriate for his father. Tsukuru said he...