Mizuki and Yuko Matsunaka

Mizuki and Yuko Matsunaka are dormitory acquaintances whose relationship becomes consequential only after Yuko entrusts Mizuki with her name tag shortly before her death. Yuko’s unexplained suicide leaves Mizuki with an object, a question, and a belated sense that a private confidence had been placed in her hands; years later, the tag helps connect Mizuki with the monkey who had stolen it and other names.

Their Unequal Visibility

Yuko stands out in the dormitory: she is widely admired for her beauty, comes from a prosperous family that runs a well-known inn in Kanazawa, and is believed to do well in school. Yet her social visibility does not mean intimacy. She is quiet, keeps her feelings to herself, and seems to have few close friends. Mizuki, the dorm’s student representative, has encountered her in passing, but the two are in different grades and have never discussed anything personal.

That distance shapes the force of Yuko’s visit. One October evening, while Mizuki is in her room listening to the radio and doing homework, Yuko knocks and asks to talk. Mizuki makes tea and is surprised that someone she barely knows has sought her out over a personal matter. Yuko asks whether Mizuki has ever felt jealous. The question becomes more significant after Yuko’s death, although Mizuki does not initially understand what Yuko intended to disclose.

The Name Tag and Yuko’s Death

Yuko says she is going home for a relative’s funeral and expects to return by Monday. She asks Mizuki to look after her name tag while she is away, explaining that something is bothering her and that she does not want to leave the tag in her room. She adds that she does not want a monkey to take it. Mizuki agrees, treating the remark as an odd joke; Yuko leaves the tag and the untouched tea behind.

Yuko never returns. The account she gave Mizuki was false: no relative had died, and there was no funeral. After the dormitory teacher contacts her parents, Yuko’s absence is discovered, and her body is found the following weekend. She has died by suicide, without a note or a clear motive. Her roommate had noticed nothing unusual. The news transforms the earlier visit into a possible farewell, but it does not supply a definitive explanation for Yuko’s decision.

Mizuki later tells her counselor that Yuko had spoken with her about jealousy. She suspects Yuko may have wanted to tell someone about it before she died, but she had not recognized the importance of the conversation at the time. Mizuki also chose not to share the exchange after the death. She feared that mentioning jealousy might make others suspect her of something, and that adding such speculation to the already unsettled dormitory would intensify the confusion. Her silence preserves Yuko’s confidence, but it also leaves Mizuki alone with an interpretation she cannot verify.

What the Tag Preserves

Mizuki keeps Yuko’s tag alongside her own in a box at the back of her closet. The longer she waits, the harder it becomes to return it casually, and she cannot bring herself to discard it. She comes to wonder whether Yuko deliberately wanted her to keep it, though she cannot explain why she was chosen. Their limited acquaintance makes the gesture more, rather than less, mysterious: Mizuki can identify no close bond that would account for it, beyond her role as a student representative.

The tag’s significance changes as time passes. At first it is simply an item Yuko has left in Mizuki’s care; afterward it is a material remainder of a conversation that ended without clarification. Mizuki’s continued possession of it keeps the unresolved encounter present, even though she and Yuko had shared almost no personal history. The object cannot reveal Yuko’s motive, but it gives that unanswered question a durable form.

A Connection Carried Forward

Much later, Mrs. Sakaki places two tags on the desk: one bearing the name Mizuki Ozawa, the other Yuko Matsunaka. Mizuki recognizes them and is shocked to see them together. The paired objects make visible the connection that began with Yuko’s request and survived in storage, although they do not resolve why Yuko entrusted her with the tag.

When Mizuki later says goodbye to the monkey, she gives him Yuko’s name tag, telling him that he should keep it because he liked Yuko. The monkey confirms that he did like her and promises to take care of the tag and not steal anyone else’s. Mizuki asks why Yuko chose her just before her death. The monkey cannot answer; he suggests only that the choice brought him and Mizuki together. Mizuki accepts that possibility. Their relationship therefore ends not in recovered certainty about Yuko, but in an acknowledged chain of connection: Yuko’s unexplained act led Mizuki to preserve the tag, and the tag helped bring Mizuki and the monkey into conversation.