In the photo, Akiyoshi was smiling. A smile all her own, utterly unlike the one that I or the other job hunters who had been present in that office had worn. Suddenly, the scene I had witnessed just before boarding the elevator that morning flashed before my eyes. I saw again that girl from my university, who was accomplishing all that I had in three years just by flattering a salaryman. DzŠƒ–‰‹”Ž™ƒ•’ƒ”–‘ˆ‘ƒ‹ǡdz–‘Ž†‹›‘•Š‹ǡ„—–•Š‡†‹†‘–”‡’Ž›ǤŠ‡ was gone, after all. Never in all this time had that fact been as clear to me as it was right now. If the Akiyoshi in that photo had heard what I was presently saying, she would have been shocked. She might have been disappointed, or even angry. ‘™‡˜‡”ǡƒŽŽ™‡Šƒ˜‡‹•”‡ƒŽ‹–›Ǥ‡ƒŽ‹–›‹•™Šƒ–ǯ•Š‡”‡™‹–Š—•”‹‰Š– now, and the end result of all that Akiyoshi had left behind was the job hunter I had seen today. Thus, in the end, Akiyoshi had ended up a liar. Even now, it still aches me somewhat to think that she would ever be deemed that way. ǥ‘‡–Š‹‰™ƒ–‡†–‘…Šƒ‰‡Ǥ Dz‹‡ǥƒ‹‰–Šƒ–Ž‹‡‹ǥ›‘•Š‹–‘Ž†ǥ‹–‘ƒ”‡ƒŽ‹–›ǥdz If only. As I spoke my slurred words with my clumsy tongue, though I had no real goal or concrete plan or means, I felt a flame burning in my aching chest. It was not a raging fire, just a quiet, smoldering, little ember. It was around then that I blacked out. The next morning when I came to, I found myself curled up on the floor beside the office chair that I should have been sitting in. The flooring beneath me was sticky. Before I even moved, just as I was registering what sort of a position I was in, I realized that the flame inside my chest was still burning. *** When we first formed Moai, we went out to all sorts of places under the pretense of the activities of our secret society. More succinctly, we went to photo galleries of investigative journalism from around the world and lectures given by authors who spoke out against hate speech and the like.