Julia’s Reviews > Kitchen > Status Update

“When we were in each other’s arms, I knew something that was beyond words. It was the mystery of being close to someone who is not family. My heart dropped out, and I was feeling what people fear the most; I touched the deepest despair a person can know… If I could get through this, morning would come, and I knew without a doubt that I would have fun again, laugh out loud. If only the sun would rise…”

“The thing was… she had reminded me that I could get excited over something unknown, and a tiny window opened in my heart.” 133

“But still, his eyes, his whole person, were saying one thing only. He himself would never speak it. To say it would mean to suffer from it. To suffer terribly. That thing was, ‘I want her to come back.’
More than words, it was a prayer.” 136

“‘Yes. It’s delicious. So delicious it makes me grateful I’m alive.’” 125

“What motivated me was probably that little light still left in my half-dead heart, glittering in the darkness.” 127

“Somewhere deep in my heart I felt I had known her long ago, and the reunion made me so nostalgic I wanted to weep tears of joy.” 129

“He lived exactly as if his awareness of things had been formed in some other dimension, after which he was plopped down on this planet to fend for himself.” 117

“We both laughed. The was the only way the two of us had to make light of the wounds in our hearts.” 118

“How afraid was he? Did he think of me, if even for a flickering instant? Was the moon climbing high in the sky as it was now?” 125

“Without a prospect in sight, day after day went by, like losing one’s mind bit by bit. I would repeat to myself, like a prayer: It’s all right, it’s all right, the day will come when you’ll pull out of this.” 113

“…the expression on her face hinted that she had tasted deeply of the sorrows and joys of this world.” 115

“Through my curtains I would see the sky getting lighter, blue-white, and I would feel abandoned in the chill and silence of dawn. It was so forlorn and cold, I wished I could be back in the dream. There I would be, wide-eyed, tortured by its lingering memory.”

“Sleeping at night was what I feared the most. No—worse than that was the shock of awakening. I dreaded the deep gloom that would fall when I remembered he was gone. My dreams were always about Hitoshi. After my painful, fitful sleep, whether or not I had been able to see him, on awakening I would know it had only been a dream—in reality I would never see him again. And so I tried not to wake up.”

“‘You see, Yuichi, how much I don’t want to lose you. We’ve been very lonely, but we had it easy. Because death is so heavy—we, too young to know about it, couldn’t handle it. After this you and I may end up seeing nothing but suffering, difficulty, and ugliness, but if only you’ll agree to it, I want for us to go on to more difficult places, happier places, whatever comes, together.’” 101

“I knew it: the glittering crystal of all the good times we’d had, which had been sleeping in the depths of memory, was awakening and would keep us going. Like a blast of fresh wind, the richly perfumed breath of those days returned to my soul.”

“‘Why is it that everything I eat when I’m with you is so delicious?’” 100

“We all believe we can choose our own path from among the many alternatives. But perhaps it’s more accurate to say that we make the choice unconsciously.” 97

“I felt that I was inside Yuichi’s nightmare, and that if I stayed here too long I, too, would become a part of it, destined to be snuffed out in the gloom.” 99