Matsuzaka Yukiko suicide

Yuko Matsunaka’s suicide is revealed through the account Mizuki gives to Mrs. Sakaki, after Yuko has vanished from their dormitory. Shortly before leaving, Yuko entrusted Mizuki with her name tag and offered a false explanation for her absence; she was found dead the following week. Her death remains without a known motive, but the conversation that preceded it recasts the name tag as a possible attempt to confide in someone before she disappeared.

The Name Tag and the False Departure

Yuko told Mizuki she was going home because a relative had died and she needed to attend a funeral. She said she had permission from the dorm master and expected to return by Monday morning. Before leaving, she took her name tag from her pocket and asked Mizuki to look after it. Mizuki agreed but wondered why Yuko could not simply leave it in a desk drawer.

Yuko answered that something was bothering her and that she did not want to keep the name tag in her room. She added that she did not want a monkey running off with it. Mizuki treated this as an unlikely joke: Yuko was not usually one to joke, and Mizuki doubted there were monkeys at the dorm. Yuko left behind the tag, an untouched cup of tea, and an absence Mizuki remembered as strange. The practical request thus carried an unease Mizuki did not understand at the time.

Discovery and the Unknown Motive

Yuko had not returned by Monday. The teacher responsible for her class became concerned and contacted her parents, who confirmed that no relative had died and that there had been no funeral. Yuko had lied about going home, and no one knew where she had gone. Her body was found the following weekend, while Mizuki was away visiting her family in Nagoya.

Mizuki later told Mrs. Sakaki that Yuko had died by suicide in a wooded place. She had left no note, and no clear motive was known. According to Mizuki, Yuko’s roommate had thought she seemed as usual and had seen no sign that she was troubled. The account establishes the death and the deception that preceded it, but does not resolve why Yuko chose to die.

What the Earlier Conversation Comes to Mean

Mrs. Sakaki asked whether Yuko had been trying to tell Mizuki something when she visited, left the name tag, and spoke about jealousy. Mizuki acknowledged that Yuko had discussed jealousy with her. She had not thought much of the conversation at the time, but later came to believe Yuko may have wanted to tell someone about those feelings before her death.

That interpretation gives the entrusted tag a second meaning without turning it into a definite explanation of the suicide. Yuko explicitly said she was troubled and did not want the tag in her room; her reference to a monkey made the request sound playful, yet its specificity also made it memorable. In retrospect, Mizuki and Mrs. Sakaki read the meeting as a possible attempt at communication, but the evidence does not show that Yuko explained her intentions or that jealousy alone caused her death.

Disclosure Through Retrospective Testimony

The event reaches the reader as Mizuki’s recollection in conversation with Mrs. Sakaki, rather than as a scene of Yuko’s final moments. Its meaning develops through a sequence of belated knowledge: the supposed funeral was invented, Yuko did not return, her death was discovered, and the conversation about jealousy and the name tag was reconsidered. What seemed like an odd request becomes a possible farewell or appeal, though it cannot be confirmed as either.

The narrative preserves the gap between an observable warning and an unknowable motive. Yuko’s request and her admission that something was bothering her are concrete; the reason she died remains unstated. The story therefore places weight on Mizuki’s later recognition that she had not understood the moment when it occurred, while resisting a conclusive explanation of Yuko’s final choice.