"Mario was lonely. He had few friends and no girlfriend, but he didn’t want to go home because his mother would be there waiting for him, and she wouldn’t let her son stay out late. It wasn’t that Mario didn’t like his parents; it was just the way things were with them. His father was an obstetrician who delivered babies at a hospital in Tokyo, while his mother worked as the editor of a literary magazine. For years they had been living off their earnings from this job.
The only other person around was the old man who lived upstairs. The apartment had once belonged to two brothers, one of whom had married and moved away. When the marriage ended, the wife had stayed on alone until she died, leaving behind a single daughter who had also left at some point. She was now in her thirties and still unmarried. Mario could hear her crying every night when he came home late from school.
Sometimes Mario watched the girl from afar. Sometimes she would look up and catch him staring at her and then quickly turn away. But sometimes she would smile at him, which made him blush.
He knew little about her: her name was Mayuko and she went to the same junior high as he did. They never talked to each other, not even during class. In fact, they hardly ever saw each other outside of school."