"Dumb question-of course you didn't. Otherwise you wouldn't have run away," Sakura says. "So anyway, you left your home, and today you suddenly lost consciousness or your memory or something."

"Yeah."

"Did that ever happen before?"

"Sometimes," I tell her honestly. "I fly into a rage, and it's like I blow a fuse. Like somebody pushes a switch in my head and my body does its thing before my mind can catch up. It's like I'm here, but in a way it's not me."

"You lose control and do something violent, you mean?"

"It's happened a few times, yeah."

"Have you hurt anybody?"

I nod. "Twice I did. Nothing serious."

She thinks about this.

"Is that what happened this time?"

I shake my head. "This is the first time something this bad's happened. This time… I don't know how it started, and I can't remember at all what happened. It's like my memory was wiped clean. It never was this bad before."

She looks over the T-shirt I haul out of my backpack, carefully checking the blood I couldn't wash out. "So the last thing you remember is eating dinner, right? At a restaurant near the station?"

I nod.

"And everything after that's a blank. The next thing you knew, you were lying in the bushes behind that shrine. About four hours later. Your shirt covered in blood and your left shoulder aching?"

I give her another nod. She brings over a city map from somewhere and checks out the distance between the station and the shrine.

"It's not so far, but it would take a while to walk. But why would you have been over there in the first place? It's the opposite direction from your hotel. Have you ever gone there before?"

"Never."

"Take off your shirt for a minute," she says.

I strip bare to the waist, and she walks behind me and grabs my left shoulder hard. Her fingers dig into my flesh, and I can't help but gasp. This girl's pretty strong.

"Does it hurt?"

"You bet it does," I say.

"You hit something pretty hard. Or something hit you."

"I don't remember a thing."

"Anyway, nothing's broken," she says. She proceeds to prod around the sore spot, and aside from the pain, her fingers feel really nice. When I tell her so she smiles.

"I've always been good at giving massages. It's a useful skill for a hairdresser."

She keeps on massaging my shoulder. "Doesn't look like anything major. Give it a good night's sleep and you should feel better."

She picks up my T-shirt, puts it in a plastic bag, and tosses it in the garbage. My dungaree shirt she gives a once-over and throws in the washing machine. She rummages around in her dresser and comes up with a white T-shirt. She hands it to me, a brand-new white shirt that says Maui Whale Watching Cruise on it, with a picture of a fluke sticking out of the water.

"This is the biggest shirt I could find. It's not mine, but don't worry about it. It's just a souvenir from somebody. Might not be your style, but give it a try."

I tug the shirt on, and it fits perfectly.

"You can keep it if you want," she says.

I thank her.

"So you never had such a total memory loss before?" she asks.

I nod, then close my eyes, feeling the T-shirt, taking in its new smell. "Sakura, I'm really scared," I tell her. "I don't know what to do. I don't have any memory of hurting anybody. Whatever it was got me covered in blood, but I can't remember anything. If I committed a crime, I'm still legally responsible, right, whether I have a memory of it or not?"

"Maybe it was just a nosebleed. Somebody was walking down the street, bumped into a telephone pole, and got a bloody nose. And all you did was help them out. See? I understand why you're worried, but let's try not to think about worst-case scenarios, okay? At least not tonight. In the morning we can look in the paper, watch the news on TV. If something terrible really happened, we'll know about it. Then we can consider our options. There're plenty of reasons why someone might get bloody, and most of the time it's not nearly as bad as it looks. I'm a girl, so I'm used to seeing blood-I see that much every month. You know what I mean?"

I nod, and feel myself blushing a little. She scoops a little Nescafé into a big cup and heats up some water in a small pan. She smokes, waiting for the water to boil. She takes a couple of puffs, then extinguishes the cigarette with tap water. I catch a whiff of menthol.

"I don't mean to pry, but there's something I want to ask you. Do you mind?"

"I don't mind," I tell her.

"Your older sister was adopted. They got her from somewhere before you were born, right?"

"That's right," I reply. "I don't know why, but my parents adopted her. After that I was born. Not exactly what they had in mind, I imagine."

"So you're definitely the child of your mother and father."

"As far I know," I tell her.

"But when your mother left, she didn't take you, but took your sister, who's unrelated to her," Sakura says. "Not what you'd normally expect a woman to do."

I don't say anything.

"Why'd she do that?"

I shake my head. "I have no idea," I tell her. "I've asked myself the same question a million times."

"That must have hurt."

Did it? "I don't know. But if I get married someday I don't think I'll have any kids. I wouldn't have any idea how to get along with them if I did."

"My situation wasn't as complicated as yours," she says, "but I didn't get along with my folks for a long time, and I got mixed up in a lot of stupid things because of it. So I know how you feel. But it's not a good idea to make decisions so soon. There's no such thing as absolutes."

She stands in front of the kitchen stove and sips her Nescafé, steam rising from the large cup. The cup has a drawing of the Moomin cartoon characters on it. She doesn't say anything, and neither do I.

"Do you have anybody, relatives or someone, who can help?" she asks after a while.

"No," I say. "My father's parents died a long time ago, and he doesn't have any brothers, sisters, uncles, or aunts. Not a one. Not that I can prove this. But I do know he never had anything to do with any relatives. And I never heard anything about relatives on my mother's side. I mean, I don't even know my mother's name-so how was I supposed to know about her relatives?"

"Your father sounds like an alien from outer space or something," Sakura says. "Like he came from some far-off planet, took on human form, kidnapped an Earth woman, and then had you. Just so he could have more descendants. Your mother found out, got frightened, and ran away. Like in some film noir science-fiction flick."

I have no idea what to say.

"All joking aside," she says, and smiles broadly to show that she means it, "my point is, in this whole wide world the only person you can depend on is you."

"I guess so."

She stands there leaning against the sink, drinking her coffee.

"I have to get some sleep," she says, as if suddenly remembering. It's past three. "I have to get up at seven-thirty so I won't get much, but a little's better than none. I hate going to work on no sleep at all. So what're you going to do?"

"I have my sleeping bag with me," I tell her, "so if it's no bother I'll just sack out in a corner." I take my tightly rolled-up sleeping bag out of my backpack, spread it out, and fluff it up.

She watches, impressed. "A regular Boy Scout," she says.

After she turns out the light and gets in bed, I climb into my sleeping bag, shut my eyes, and try to go to sleep. But I can't stop picturing that bloody white T-shirt. I still feel that burning sensation in my palm. I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling. A floor creaks somewhere. Somebody turns on a faucet. And again I hear an ambulance in the night, far off but echoing sharply in the darkness.

"Can't fall asleep?" she whispers in the dark.