The months go by. Kumiko’s family persistently contacts Toru about the divorce. He ignores all their messages until finally Kumiko’s father calls him. Toru finds it odd that Kumiko would use her family as her intermediary, given how fraught and resentful her relationship with them has been in the past. Toru wants to see Kumiko in person and discuss the divorce, but her father insists that she won’t see him. In October, Noboru’s uncle, Niigata’s representative to the Lower House, passes away, assuring a swift climb to political power for Noboru.

Meanwhile, Toru’s facial mark never goes away, and he gets used to it. But he cannot get accustomed to his loneliness. The Kano sisters disappeared, as had May Kasahara and, of course, Kumiko. In a fit of loneliness, Toru writes Mamiya a letter describing the course of his life since he met Mamiya in his home. Mamiya writes back that he has been thinking about Toru often; perhaps, he wonders, the empty box Mr. Honda left for Toru was simply a means to ensure that Mamiya and Toru’s paths would cross. Mamiya says that he, too, is strongly attracted to wells, despite the trauma of his first experience with the well in Outer Mongolia.