The trip to Sado Island

The trip to Sado Island is a holiday that becomes a fault line in Lucy’s relationships with Lily Bridges and Teiji. Its ferry crossing, moped rides, and shared play by the sea briefly make the three seem joined in a lighthearted adventure. But when Lucy collapses on the island’s coast and later finds Lily and Teiji together at the mining museum, the trip’s apparent ease gives way to suspicion and abandonment. The return to Tokyo closes the excursion without repairing that fracture.

Departure and arrival

Sado Island already carries a meaning for Lucy before she sets out. She understands the island as lying in an unlucky direction from Tokyo, a belief she connects to the misfortune associated with the northwest. Rather than being deterred, she feels drawn toward it. The destination thus carries an ominous charge even as the journey promises escape from the city.

Lily meets Lucy at Tokyo Station, where they plan to take the shinkansen to Niigata and then board a ferry. Lucy has told Teiji about the plan but does not expect him to come. She believes he has not traveled beyond Tokyo since arriving there at fourteen, and imagines the city as the world he has learned to follow through its streets, bridges, and rivers. His sudden appearance at the station overturns her expectation: just after Lucy has found Lily and brought her to the right part of the platform, Teiji comes through the ticket barrier, waving. Lucy jumps with joy. When she hugs him, he neither embraces her in the usual way nor stands entirely unresponsive; she feels his warmth and muscles, then pulls back to avoid making him uncomfortable.

The train carries them through the hills to Niigata, where they head directly to the port. In a burst of holiday excitement, they run to find a place on deck from which to watch mainland Japan disappear. The crossing takes more than an hour over calm water. They arrive in Ryotsu in the late afternoon, with dark mountains rising beyond the fishing town. Lily studies the mountains while Teiji turns toward the sea, laughing and staggering in the wind. In the back streets, the three run around corners and peer through the windows of wooden houses. Teiji picks up a discarded piece of fishing net and chases Lucy; Lily calls after them, warning him not to throw it over Lucy or hurt her.

The island as shared adventure

The group rents mopeds and leaves Ryotsu along the road toward the Sotokaifu coast, continuing by the sea to Nyuukawa and a northern destination. Lucy has reserved a simple traditional inn overlooking the Sea of Japan. After leaving their bags and shoes, they go down to the rocks and sand. What begins as looking at the water becomes paddling in the small waves under the shore’s street lamps. The cold splashes over their tired feet, and the sand between the rocks disappears beneath their steps.

Lily runs through the water and Lucy follows, laughing. When Lily trips and falls backward into the sea, Lucy laughs so hard she fears she might not be able to stop even if Lily is hurt. Lily then pulls Lucy back into the water and throws her down. Their play continues along the wet sand: Lily runs off, and Lucy answers not by chasing her but by turning cartwheels, delighted that she can still hold her legs straight after about twenty-five years without doing them. A little later the two walk side by side, breathless, their faces and hands stung by the cold.

The intimacy of this beach scene changes when Lily points out Teiji’s clothes, folded on the shore and held down by a smooth gray stone. Lucy looks out and sees him swimming, a pale figure moving among the moonlit waves. He turns between swimming on his front and back, apparently relishing the water against his bare skin. The moment draws Lucy’s attention back to Teiji, but it also places her beside Lily as an observer of him: the three are together on the island, yet Lucy’s attention repeatedly measures the closeness between the other two.

Collapse and abandonment

The next day, the friends ride toward Senkaku Bay, where they intend to see its celebrated cliffs. Before setting off, Teiji loads a new roll of film into his camera and quickly photographs Lily and Lucy mounting their mopeds. On the ride, Lucy becomes caught up in an unexpected excitement and speeds ahead, though she knows she may lose control and cannot make herself slow down. At Senkaku Bay she stops so abruptly that she nearly goes over the handlebars.

Lucy starts toward the cliffs but becomes dizzy and increasingly ill. She considers the ride, a fish’s eye she ate for breakfast, and the cartwheels from the previous night as possible causes, but cannot continue. She apologizes to Lily and Teiji, falls to the ground, and loses consciousness. She is only vaguely aware of two astonished faces and perhaps Lily’s cool hand on her forehead as Lily turns her onto her side and puts something soft beneath her head.

When Lucy wakes, Lily and Teiji are gone. She cries and paces the clifftop, expecting them to return if they have gone for help; nearby campsites and hostels are only a short distance away. Eventually she rides on to Kinzan and the mining museum. There she finds Lily and Teiji coming out together. Teiji is wearing a new T-shirt bearing the island’s name in large blue and black letters. They are laughing about something and take several moments to notice Lucy. She stands in their path and remarks that they seem to have had a good time. They respond that they had been worried about her. The contrast between their shared laughter and Lucy’s long wait sharpens the scene: their account does not erase the fact that she woke alone and had to make her own way to find them.

Return and continuing consequences

Later, Lily explains that she went down to look at the sea and take pictures, then encountered Teiji and had ice cream with him. With her arm tightly through Teiji’s, Lucy tries to assess what she actually witnessed: no kiss, touch, shared secret, flirtatious exchange, or photograph of Lily taken by Teiji. She continues to trust her instinct that something is wrong, while admitting that she is prepared to be proved mistaken. The distinction between what she saw and what she suspects remains unresolved; the trip supplies no decisive confirmation, only details that she replays against her uncertainty.

The three spend the afternoon visiting temples and museums, collect their bags in the early evening, and head for the ferry. As the jagged mountains recede from the deck, Lucy’s mind fills rapidly with images from the holiday: wooden temples, seagulls, the road passing beneath the mopeds, white futon covers and pillows, and moving puppets digging for gold. She is happy to be going home. At Tokyo Station, Teiji says goodbye to Lucy and Lily because work requires him to stay late and start early the next morning. Lucy and Lily enter the underground passages to find their separate platforms. Lucy takes the Yamanote Line clockwise; Lily goes counterclockwise, and their platforms face one another. Lucy cannot see Lily waiting on the opposite platform before her train arrives, an absence that extends the trip’s unsettled ending into the city.

In the days afterward, Lily repeatedly calls, but Lucy does not answer. On the fourth day, she leaves her apartment and walks through the night, following the Yamanote Line counterclockwise from Gotanda toward station after station. The memories that accompany her route include the handkerchief and ice cream exchanged between Lily and Teiji and their leaving her on the cliffs. By morning Lucy has walked a marathon and circled Tokyo. The trip’s emotional aftermath is thus mapped onto movement through the city: the island journey took the three away from their ordinary paths, while Lucy’s solitary loop returns her through places associated with other relationships and back to where she began.