Yes, I was. I was head over heels in love with Miss Matsunaka. I’ve never been so attracted to
somebody in my life. But when I wasn’t able to make her mine I decided that, no matter what, I
had to at least have her name. If I could possess her name, then I’d be satisfied. But before I could
carry out my plan she passed away.”
“Did you have anything to do with her suicide?”
“No, I didn’t,” the monkey said, shaking his head emphatically. “I had nothing to do with that.
She was just overwhelmed by an inner darkness.”
“But how did you know, after all these years, that Yuko’s nametag was at my house?”
“It took me a long time to trace it. When Miss Matsunaka died, I tried to get her nametag from the
bulletin board, but it was already gone. Nobody had any idea where. I worked my butt off trying
to track it down, but no matter what I did I couldn’t locate it. It didn’t occur to me at the time that
Miss Matsunaka would have left her nametag with you, since you weren’t particularly close.”
“True,” Mizuki said.
“But one day I had a flash of inspiration that maybe—just maybe—she’d given it to you. This was
in the spring of last year. It took me a long time to track you down—to find out that you’d got
married, that your name was now Mizuki Ando, that you were living in a condo in Shinagawa.
Being a monkey slows down an investigation like that, as you might imagine. At any rate, that’s
how I came to steal it.”
“But why did you steal my nametag, too? Why not just Yuko’s? I suffered a lot because of what
you did!”
“I’m very, very sorry,” the monkey said, hanging his head in shame. “When I see a name I like, I
end up snatching it. This is kind of embarrassing, but your name really moved my poor little