Toru decides to wait for Kumiko

Toru decides to stay home and wait for Kumiko after learning that she is pleading guilty and intends to accept whatever verdict the court gives. The decision is a restrained commitment rather than a reunion: Kumiko is facing trial and imprisonment, while Toru remains at a distance, choosing to wait without knowing what will follow.

The Decision to Wait

May Kasahara asks whether Toru will stay home and wait for Kumiko again. He nods. The gesture makes his answer plain before he can explain it, but May immediately complicates the apparent certainty by asking whether this is a good thing—or whether it is. Toru does not claim confidence. He says only that he supposes this is how they have worked things out.

The Circumstances

The decision follows news that Kumiko is expected to plead guilty in the spring and accept the verdict. The trial is not expected to be long; a suspended sentence is considered possible, though a light sentence is presented as the worst likely outcome. These prospects give Toru grounds for hope, but they do not promise that Kumiko will return soon or that their marriage will resume as before.

Meaning and Ending

Toru’s assent continues a pattern of waiting for Kumiko, but the scene does not present waiting as a solution or a guarantee. His admission that this is simply how they have worked things out conveys resignation alongside loyalty: he accepts the uncertain arrangement without claiming to understand it. The exchange ends not with reassurance but with a bird’s distant cry, followed by silence and the hollow drilling of a woodpecker. That subdued close leaves the decision open-ended, like the relationship it sustains.