Urushigahara Station

Urushigahara Station is the landmark for the supermarket where Nanao’s closing visit turns an attempt to discard a reminder of the Shinkansen journey into an unlikely prize. The station itself is not described in detail; the scene is set in the nearby supermarket, whose ordinary queues and giveaway draw bring Nanao face to face with both a remembered companion and the journey’s lingering traces.

Setting and Surroundings

The supermarket near Urushigahara Station is large enough to stock food, household goods, stationery, and toys. Nanao arrives on an unusually cold early-December day, with an icy wind outside and a sky that seems ready to release snow. He has no particular purchase in mind, but carries a box of mochi toward the registers.

The checkout lanes are busy, with about five people waiting in each open line. Nanao tries to judge which will move fastest and chooses the second lane from the left. The visit’s small delays unfold against the adjacent registers moving more quickly: an elderly woman accidentally spills the coins from her purse, and the people behind her stoop to help. One coin rolls to Nanao’s feet; he repeatedly misses as he tries to catch it. Meanwhile, Suzuki’s laughter reaches him from the nearby line.

The Ticket and the Return Visit

Nanao’s reason for coming to this unfamiliar area is an old giveaway ticket. He had taken the Arthur Raffle Ticket from Tangerine’s pocket aboard the Shinkansen, without being quite sure why, and then forgotten it. Later, while doing laundry, he found it again. The ticket brought back the memory of the terrible journey, and he considered throwing it away to rid himself of its reminders.

Instead, something stopped him. Noting that the supermarket was at a station he had never visited, he decided to come and see whether the ticket had won anything. Near the exit, he takes the ticket from his wallet and examines its amateur drawing of a train on the back. The route from forgotten keepsake to unfamiliar destination gives the supermarket visit its purpose: Nanao has not erased the past, but has allowed one of its stray objects to lead him somewhere new.

The Prize and Its Echo

At the supermarket, Nanao discovers Suzuki standing nearby, an unexpected encounter that links the present visit to the world of the Shinkansen journey. After the ticket wins, Suzuki claps Nanao on the shoulder and congratulates him. Nanao’s smile freezes when he looks into the prize box: it is neatly divided between fist-sized tangerines and bright yellow lemons. The cashier celebrates his good fortune, and Nanao accepts the box, though he privately wonders how he will carry it home and what he could do with so many lemons.

For an instant, the fruit seems to radiate pride, as though the tangerines and lemons are telling him they had promised to return. The mundane prize thus carries an uncanny echo of the journey and its remembered characters. Urushigahara Station becomes the point of return for a piece of that past, but the return is altered: what Nanao had nearly thrown away brings him not another crisis, but a strange, comic stroke of luck.