Seizo Naemura leaves his wife and moves to Tokyo

Seizo Naemura leaves his wife and moves to Tokyo after pursuing a serious relationship outside his marriage and deciding to end the marriage on his own terms. His departure is not a negotiated separation: he quits his school job without telling his wife, leaves her a note and divorce notification, and moves away. The episode also links his marital rupture to Hiromi Kadokura, whose love for him persists even as she recognizes the pain and upheaval his decision will cause.

Background and the Marriage

Naemura’s marriage had become a sustained separation under one roof. His sister-in-law, Kayoko Imai, explained that he had another woman and was serious about her; Imai distinguished this from an affair that might simply have ended, because Naemura’s involvement led him to leave his wife in the lurch. He refused to identify the woman, even when his wife pressed him. Instead, he repeated that they had to separate, offering no fuller account.

The pattern of daily life made the breakdown tangible. Naemura refused the meals his wife prepared, ate out each night, returned late, slept in a separate bedroom, and left early in the morning. Imai described the couple as living in an emotional deep freeze. The secrecy extended to the wider family: his wife did not confide in Imai while she still believed reconciliation might be possible, and Imai learned what had happened only after the divorce was under way.

The Decision to Leave

More than a year after Naemura had spoken to Hiromi about a possible shared future, he announced that he would quit his job at the end of the school year. He had already discussed the plan with the school’s principal and vice principal, but had not told his wife. When Hiromi asked about her, he said that she would object and that he was tired of the situation. He described his approach as steamroller tactics: since his wife refused to divorce, he intended simply to walk out.

Hiromi understood the consequence of this plan before it happened. Naemura meant to move out unilaterally, leaving only a short note and divorce papers. She advised against it, but he would not change his mind. His decision echoed the manner in which he had described separation to his wife: rather than resolve the relationship through mutual understanding, he would make the break by acting first and leaving the other person to confront its aftermath.

Hiromi’s Position

Naemura’s plan unsettled Hiromi because it joined a cherished possibility to a painful reality. She loved him and found the idea of living together attractive, but had long decided not to indulge in sentimental fantasies. When he first spoke passionately about a future with her, she could not bring herself to tell him that she did not expect that future to happen; she thanked him instead. The subject then went unmentioned for quite a while.

When Naemura later announced that he would leave his wife, Hiromi felt responsible for the difficult position he had brought upon himself, even while recognizing that he had chosen it. She also observed that he had recently looked drained and had lost a great deal of weight. The account connects that visible deterioration with the strained domestic life he described, without making Hiromi’s sympathy a justification for his conduct. She feels for him, but also sees that his predicament is one he has helped create.

The Move to Tokyo

Naemura carried out his plan the following April. He left for Tokyo with a single large suitcase, a spare and portable image of a life being started over. He soon found a small, fully furnished apartment rented by the week, with appliances included. The temporary accommodation offered a place to stay without the commitments or settled identity of a permanent home.

He told Hiromi that he did not want people to know where he was and would not yet change his residence certificate to his new address. He expected to live there for a while. As he surveyed the tiny one-room apartment, he smiled as though a heavy burden had lifted from him. That relief is set against the losses and uncertainty surrounding the move: his wife has been left to complete the divorce, while Hiromi remains emotionally attached to a man whose new life is organized around withholding his whereabouts.

Significance of the Departure

The departure is both an act of separation and a concealment of identity and location. Naemura’s family had already been kept outside the truth of his marriage; his wife learned of his decision through the note and divorce notification he left behind, and his new address was deliberately kept unregistered. The move therefore changes more than his residence. It turns an unresolved domestic conflict into a disappearance from the ordinary channels by which others might find him.

The episode also places Naemura’s own language of decisive action beside the consequences for the people around him. He speaks of walking out because negotiation has failed, but the method he chooses repeats the isolation already established in his marriage: withheld information, separate lives, and a departure carried out without his wife’s agreement. His single suitcase and rented room suggest freedom from the burden he felt, while the secrecy attached to that freedom leaves the separation unfinished for those he has left behind.