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228 that people in the movement can’t have any rests? Ha, ha” His laugh was mirthless.

Kimi-chan lowered her head.

At last, Toyama, half yawning, started to speak. “ ‘To go forward, or else to perish,’ eh? That stuff”

A chilly wind swept over the slightly raised shrine grounds. Kimi-chan felt at the end of her resources; she did not know how to convince him. Suddenly he got up. “Righto, I’ll meet Nagai.”

“Oh, that’s fine!” Happiness rang in her voice. “Throw off your moodiness—and remember, Nagai used to be one of your oldest friends.”

Kimi-chan was rising to go with him, but in a voice still full of anger he detained her.

“I’m going by myself.”

Toyama entered the union headquarters.

Several young members were in the hall arguing. When they saw him, they rose to their feet suspiciously.

“Is Nagai in?” he asked the young men. Their faces seemed to ask him what he was doing there.

“He’s upstairs,” one answered coldly.

Without a word, Toyama tramped up the stairs. The second room along the corridor was the leaders’. He banged on the door roughly.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Toyama. I want to see Nagai.”

“Oh, Toyama?”