“He followed his daily routine, and she followed hers. But without her there, Tengo noticed a human-shaped void she had left behind.”

“After the small woman had left, Ushikawa stared at the door for the longest time. She had shut the door behind her, but there was still a strong sense of her in the room. Maybe in exchange for leaving a trace of herself behind, she had taken away a part of Ushikawa's soul. He could feel that new void within his chest. Why did this happen? he wondered, finding it odd. And what could it possibly mean?”

“And her sleep was too long and deep for that:so deep that she left her normal reality behind.”

“He felt as if his heart had dried up. I needed her he thought. I needed someone like her to fill the void inside me. But I wasn’t able to fill the void inside her. Until the bitter end, the emptiness inside her was hers alone.”

“I was reborn," she said, her hot breath brushing his ear."You were reborn," Tengo said."Because I died once.""You died once," Tengo repeated."On a night when there was a cold rain falling," she said."Why did you die?""So I would be reborn like this.""You would be reborn," Tengo said."More or less," she whispered quietly. "In all sorts of forms.”

“Looking at her nails, Aomame had a strong sense of what a fragile, fleeting thing her own existance was. Something as simple as the shape of her fingernails: it had been decided without her.”

“Shimamoto was in charge of the records. She'd take one from its jacket, place it carefully on the turntable without touching the grooves with her fingers, and, after making sure to brush the cartridge free of any dust with a tiny brush, lower the needle ever so gently onto the record. When the record was finished, she'd spray it and wipe it with a felt cloth. Finally she'd return the record to its jacket and its proper place on the shelf. Her father had taught her this procedure, and she followed his instructions with a terribly serious look on her face, her eyes narrowed, her breath held in check. Meanwhile, I was on the sofa, watching her every move. Only when the record was safely back on the shelf did she turn to me and give a little smile. And every time, this thought hit me: It wasn't a record she was handling. It was a fragile soul inside a glass bottle.”