Noboru Wataya and Creta Kano’s abusive relationship

Noboru Wataya and Creta Kano’s abusive relationship centers on an encounter Creta says was arranged for her but took place against her will. She calls it a violation that changed her as a person, while also describing her eventual recovery as a process that allowed her to reach a new level with help from Malta Kano. Her account insists on the distinction between surviving an experience and making the act right: she says what Noboru Wataya did was wrong and dangerous, with the potential to leave her lost forever.

The Encounter and Its Meaning

Creta recounts the history while Toru Okada asks to know more about Noboru Wataya. She says she cannot explain the full experience at that time, but promises to speak of it on another occasion. Her account gives a precise qualification: relations with Noboru Wataya had originally been arranged, so she does not call it rape in the ordinary sense; nevertheless, it was against her will, and she describes it as defilement and violation. The distinction is hers, and does not lessen her statement that the encounter was wrong.

Creta presents the experience as a turning point in her identity. She says it altered her in important ways and exposed her to the possibility of being lost forever. At the same time, she says she ultimately recovered, with Malta Kano’s help, and reached a higher level. The relationship therefore remains abusive even in her account of what followed: later recovery does not convert the original coercion into consent or erase its danger.

Contrast with Toru Okada

Creta explicitly distinguishes her encounter with Noboru Wataya from her later relations with Toru Okada. She tells Toru that their intimacy had a correct purpose and did not defile her. This contrast places the question of consent and meaning in Creta’s own interpretation rather than treating physical intimacy as inherently equivalent across the two relationships.

She also explains that, in a second dream, another woman took her place during an encounter with Toru. Creta regards the substitution as meaningful, though she says she does not know who the woman was. Her explanation connects the dream to the difference between her own experience and the role she says she occupied as a prostitute of the mind: a figure through whom things pass. She asks Toru not to feel guilty about their intimacy, separating it from the violation she attributes to Noboru Wataya.

Aftermath and Narrative Significance

Creta’s account gives the harm a lasting personal consequence without reducing her to it: she names the danger, describes a recovery aided by Malta Kano, and claims the distinction between what was done against her will and what she later understood differently. In a subsequent encounter, she asks Toru to hold her; he does so, uncertain whether it is right but feeling that it is not a mistake. The scene is presented as an act of closeness distinct from the coercion Creta has described.

The relationship also sits beside other forms of harm and control in the story. Ushikawa recounts having abused his wife and children, and Kumiko later tells Toru that she intends to kill her brother, Noboru Wataya, and surrender to the police. These accounts do not establish a causal link to Creta’s experience, but they place her testimony within a narrative where intimate relationships can become sites of coercion, damage, and consequential choices. Creta’s own account remains the clearest statement of what Noboru Wataya’s actions meant to her.