Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Artwork by Deborah Serra
Midori pulled away from me with a smile on her face. "OK, I'll wait! I believe in you," she said. "But when you take me, you take only me. And when you hold me in your arms, you think only about me. Is that clear?" "I understand exactly." "I don't care what you do to me, but I don't want you to hurt me. I've had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy."
After lunch, Kizuki suggested we skip classes and go play pool or something. [...] Kizuki didn't make a single joke as we played, which was most unusual. […] He died that night in his garage. He led a rubber hose from the exhaust pipe of his N-360 to a window, taped over the gap in the window, and revved the engine.
Before long I noticed that one of the girls kept glancing in my direction. She had extremely short hair and wore dark sunglasses and a white cotton mini-dress. I had no idea who she was, so I went on with my lunch, but she soon slipped out of her seat and came over to where I was sitting. […]
"My name's Midori," she said.
"Play "Norwegian Wood'," said Naoko. Reiko brought a porcelain beckoning cat from the kitchen. It was a coin bank, and Naoko dropped a 100 piece from her purse into its slot. "What's this all about?" I asked. "It's a rule," said Naoko. "When I request "Norwegian Wood'', I have to put 100 into the bank. It's my favourite." […] "That song can make me feel so sad," said Naoko. "I don't know, I guess I imagine myself wandering in a deep wood. I'm all alone and it's cold and dark, and nobody comes to save me.”
We walked on for some 15 minutes before passing through a village. There were no signs of humanity here […] We sat down on the dry grass of the meadow. The tall grass surrounded us, and we could see nothing but the sky and clouds above.
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