As they got even farther from the station, there were fewer people on the street. Eventually Tengo turned into a little park, a nothing little playground in one corner of a residential district. The park was deserted. Of course it is, Ushikawa thought. Who feels like spending time in a playground on a cold, windy December night? Tengo passed under the cold light of a mercury-vapor lamp and headed straight toward the slide. He stepped onto it and climbed to the top.

Ushikawa hid behind a phone booth and kept an eye on Tengo. A slide? Ushikawa frowned. Why does a grown man have to climb to the top of a slide on a freezing cold night like this? This wasn’t near Tengo’s apartment. There must be some reason he would go out of his way to come here. It wasn’t exactly the most appealing playground. It was cramped and shabby. In addition to the slide there were two swings, a small jungle gym, and a sandbox. A single mercury-vapor lamp that looked like it had illuminated the end of the world more than a few times, a single crude, leafless zelkova tree. A locked-up public toilet was the perfect canvas for graffiti. There was not a thing in this park to warm people’s hearts, or to stimulate the imagination. Perhaps on a bracing May afternoon there might be something. But on a windy December night? Forget it.

Was Tengo meeting up with somebody here? Waiting for somebody to show? Ushikawa didn’t think so. Tengo didn’t give any signs to indicate that he was looking for someone. When he entered the park, he ignored all the other equipment. The only thing on his mind seemed to be the slide. Tengo came here to climb up that slide.

Maybe he had always liked to sit on top of slides when he needed to think. Maybe the top of a slide in a park at night was the perfect place to think about the plot of the novel he was writing, or mathematical formulas. Maybe the darker it was, the colder the wind blew, the shabbier the park, the better he could think. What or how novelists (or mathematicians) thought was way beyond anything Ushikawa could imagine. His practical mind told him that he had to stay put, patiently keeping an eye on Tengo. His watch showed exactly eight p.m.

Tengo sat down on top of the slide, as if folding his large frame. He looked up at the sky. He moved his head back and forth, then settled on a single spot, and gazed upward, his head still.

Ushikawa recalled a sentimental old pop song by Kyu Sakamoto. It began: Look up at the night sky / see the little stars. He didn’t know how the rest of it went and he really didn’t care to know. Sentiment and a sense of justice were Ushikawa’s two weakest areas. Up on top of the slide, was Tengo feeling sentimental as he gazed at the stars?

Ushikawa tried looking up at the sky himself, but he couldn’t see any stars. Koenji, Suginami Ward, Tokyo, was not the best place to observe the night sky. Neon signs and lights along the street dyed the whole sky a weird color. Some people, if they squinted hard, might be able to make out a few stars, but that would require extraordinary vision and concentration. On top of that, the clouds tonight were blowing hard across the sky. Still, Tengo sat motionless on top of the slide, his eyes on a fixed point in the sky.

What a pain in the butt this guy is, Ushikawa decided. What possible reason could there be to sit on a slide, gaze up at the sky, and ponder things on a windy winter night like this? Not that he had any right to criticize Tengo. Ushikawa had taken it upon himself, after all, to secretly observe Tengo, and shadow him. Tengo was a free citizen and had every right to look at what he wanted, where he wanted, the whole year round.

Still, it’s damn cold. He had needed to pee for some time, but had held it in. The public toilet was locked, though, and even in a deserted place like this he couldn’t very well just pee next to a phone booth. Come on, he thought, stamping his feet, can’t you just get up and leave already? You might be lost in thought, overtaken by sentiment, deep into your astronomical observations, but Tengo—you gotta be freezing too. Time to go back to your place and warm up, don’t you think? Neither of us has anyone waiting for us, but it’s still a hell of a lot better than hanging out here and freezing our rear ends off.

Tengo didn’t seem about to get up, though. He finally stopped gazing at the sky, and he turned his attention to the apartment building across the way. It was a new condo, six stories tall, with lights on in about half the windows. Tengo stared at the building. Ushikawa did the same but found nothing that caught his attention. It was just an ordinary condo. It was not an exclusive building, but fairly high-class nonetheless. High-quality design, expensive tile exterior. The entrance was beautiful and well lit. It was a different animal entirely from the cheap, slated-to-be-torn-down place that Tengo called home.

As he gazed up at the condo, was Tengo wishing he could live in a place like that? Ushikawa didn’t think so. As far as Ushikawa knew, Tengo wasn’t the type to care about where he lived. Just like he didn’t care much about clothes. Most likely he was happy with his shabby apartment. A roof over your head and a place to keep out of the cold—that was enough for him. Whatever was running through his head up there on the slide must be something else.

After Tengo had looked at all the windows in the condo, he turned his gaze once more to the sky. Ushikawa followed suit. From where he was hidden, the branches of the zelkova tree, the electric lines, and the other buildings got in the way. He could only see half the sky. What particular point in the sky Tengo was looking at wasn’t at all clear. Countless clouds ceaselessly scudded across the sky like some overwhelming army bearing down on them.

Eventually, Tengo stood up and silently climbed down from the slide, like a pilot having just landed after a rough solo flight at night. He cut across the playground and left. Ushikawa hesitated, then decided not to follow him. Most likely Tengo was on his way back to his place. Plus Ushikawa had to pee like crazy. After he saw Tengo disappear, he went into the playground, hustled behind the public toilet, and in the darkness where no one could see him, he peed into a bush. His bladder was ready to burst.

He finally finished peeing—the operation taking as long as it would take a long freight train to cross a bridge—zipped up his pants, shut his eyes, and gave a deep sigh of relief. His watch showed 8:17. Tengo had been on top of the slide for about fifteen minutes. Ushikawa checked again that Tengo wasn’t around and headed toward the slide. He clambered up the ladder with his short, bandy legs, sat down on the very top of the freezing slide, and looked up. What could he have been staring at so intently?

Ushikawa had pretty good eyesight. Astigmatism made his eyes a bit out of balance, but generally he could get by every day without glasses. Still, no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t make out a single star. What caught his attention instead was the large moon in the sky, about two-thirds full. Its dark, bruised exterior was clearly exposed between the clouds. Your typical winter moon. Cold, pale, full of ancient mysteries and inklings. Unblinking like the eyes of the dead, it hung there, silent, in the sky.

Ushikawa gulped. For a while, he forgot to breathe. Through a break in the clouds, there was another moon, a little way apart from the first one. This was much smaller than the original moon, slightly warped in shape, and green, like it had moss growing on it. But it was undoubtedly a moon. No star was that big. And it couldn’t be a satellite. Yet there it was, pasted onto the night sky.

Ushikawa shut his eyes, then a few seconds later opened them again. This must be an illusion. That kind of thing can’t be there. But no matter how many times he opened and closed his eyes, the little moon was still in the sky. Passing clouds hid it occasionally, but once they passed by, there it was, in the same exact spot.