Father’s Theory of the Three Important Women

Father’s Theory of the Three Important Women is a declaration by Junpei’s father that a man will encounter exactly three women who have real meaning in his life. The theory offers no explanation for its number, but its certainty gives it lasting force: Junpei treats love as both a matter of recognition and a dwindling supply of chances. Years later, deciding that Kirie is his second such woman, he begins to understand that the count matters less than choosing to accept another person completely.

The Declaration

When Junpei is sixteen, his father introduces the theory during one of their rare exchanges about life. Though they share a family bond, they are not close enough to speak openly, and the declaration is so unexpected that Junpei has no answer ready. His father presents it coolly and with the confidence of a self-evident fact: among all the women a man meets, only three will have real meaning for him, no more and no less.

The theory is also a warning about choice. Junpei’s father says that becoming involved with many women will be a waste if one of them is the wrong person. Junpei does not ask the questions that immediately occur to him: whether his father has already met his three, whether his mother was one, or what became of the others. The distance between father and son leaves the rule unexplained, and that silence becomes part of its power.

A Theory Becomes a Countdown

After leaving home at eighteen to attend college in Tokyo, Junpei meets several women and believes one of them could have real meaning for him. Before he can express his feelings, she marries his best friend and later becomes a mother. Junpei removes her from the possibilities open to him, leaving, if he accepts his father’s theory, only two important women still to come.

From then on, a new relationship prompts the question of whether this woman is one of the three. The prospect of finding someone important is joined to a fear of spending one of his remaining chances too soon. Because Junpei believes he failed to express his love at the right time and in the right way, he worries that he will keep hold of what does not matter and let what does matter slip away.

This anxiety helps establish a pattern. After months with a woman, Junpei notices some small feature of her character or behavior that displeases him and feels relief. He remains in relationships cautiously, as if assessing them, until they dissolve without arguments or dramatic partings. His father’s theory does not simply help him identify a meaningful relationship; it gives him a reason to hold back from committing to one.

The Rule’s Hold on Junpei

Around the time he graduates from college, Junpei has a violent argument with his father and cuts off contact with him. Yet the theory remains with him, its basis still unknown, and becomes something like an obsession. Junpei even considers, half-jokingly, whether turning to men could free him from the countdown, but recognizes that women remain the objects of his sexual interest. The thought reveals how thoroughly the rule has framed his sense of romantic possibility: he looks for an escape from its arithmetic rather than simply discarding it.

The theory persists less as advice from a continuing relationship than as an inherited measure Junpei carries by himself. Its numerical certainty contrasts with his difficulty expressing love in concrete terms. What his father declares as a fixed law becomes, in Junpei’s experience, a source of hesitation: he wants to recognize the right person but fears using up the limited chances he believes remain.

Kirie and the Meaning of the Second Place

After his relationship with Kirie ends, Junpei waits for her to contact him, while his own calls cannot be completed. When summer arrives, he accepts that she has no intention of seeing him again. The relationship closes quietly, in the same manner as the earlier ones that had gradually faded. But he cannot quietly settle what it meant. He asks himself whether Kirie belongs in the count and postpones his decision for six months.

During that interval, Junpei writes many short stories and often remembers Kirie’s words, “Just me and the wind.” He comes to recognize that his feeling for her is unlike what he has felt for other women: it has a definite weight for him, even though he does not know what to call it and may never see her again. Her absence, rather than a renewed relationship, clarifies the significance of what he felt.

At the end of the year, Junpei decides to count Kirie as number two. The old arithmetic still supplies the language of the decision—one place remains—but it no longer governs its meaning. Junpei concludes that numbers and the countdown are not important. What matters is deciding in one’s heart to accept another person completely, and doing so as something that must be both the first time and the last. His choice does not restore contact with Kirie or resolve the uncertainty of the theory; it changes what he understands love to require.