Summary

In Chapter One, Yoshinobu Mikami and his wife Minako arrived at a police station’s mortuary. Inside, The couple saw an “examination table” (3) on which lay a body under a sheet. Mikami took note of the body’s size, it being neither adult nor child. He feared the body might be that of his missing daughter, Ayumi. The couple looked at the deceased girl; it was not their daughter. Mikami remembered his daughter, her longing for beauty and ultimately “what had happened” to her (4). He recalled a related past memory. There was a noise upstairs. Ayumi’s mirror was broken; she sat in the dark, beating her face.

Mikami and Minako leave the mortuary; this was not the first time they viewed a body in the search for their daughter. The officials offered overnight accommodations, but the couple declined. The station captain, trying...