Summary

In Chapter 25, Sentaro heard a cat yowling in the distance as he lay on the futon. He remembered Tokue telling him to listen but was unsure what the cat’s cries were meant to mean. It had been a month Sentaro quit working at Doraharu. Without the bakery, “he spent the days sitting around, indifferent to the passage of time” (171). He made a fleeting attempt to find a new job but could not bring himself to apply to other positions. In the dark, the protagonist thought about dorayaki and cherry blossoms. That night, in Chapter 26, Sentaro dreamed that he was in the countryside on a hill covered in cherry trees. On the hill he saw a young girl in a white blouse who beckoned him into a tea house. When she served him tea, filled with peach colored flower petals, the girl...