Ichikawa

Ichikawa is the Chiba Prefecture setting of a short but lasting intersection in Aomamé’s childhood: she and an unnamed boy attended the same primary-school class there in third and fourth grade. The place anchors the last period of their known connection before Aomamé’s move to Tokyo, after which the boy disappeared from her life and from her knowledge.

Setting and Childhood Connection

Aomamé recalls that she and the boy were in the same class in Ichikawa during her third and fourth years of primary school. The recollection identifies the city as being in Chiba Prefecture and gives the shared schooling a clear boundary: in fifth grade, Aomamé transferred to another school in Tokyo. Ichikawa thus marks a particular interval of childhood rather than a continuing relationship.

Separation and Uncertainty

After moving schools, Aomamé never saw the boy again and never heard anything more about him. When Ayumi asks where he is and what he is doing now, Aomamé can offer no answer. She knows only that, if he is still alive, he must be twenty-nine and would turn thirty in the autumn. The abrupt contrast between the precision of their shared grades and the complete absence of later news makes the remembered place a point of separation as well as connection.

Narrative Significance

The conversation returns to Ichikawa through Aomamé’s account of a lost childhood acquaintance. Ayumi wonders whether Aomamé has tried to discover what became of him, but Aomamé emphatically shakes her head. The city therefore remains attached to an unresolved absence: the boy’s life after their school years is unknown, and Aomamé has not pursued the question.