1Q84

Having interpreted his father’s cryptic behavior as tacit confirmation that they are not related by blood, Tengo says, “If my assumption is correct, that makes it easier for me. Not because I hate you, but—as I said before—because I no longer need to hate you” (424). As Tengo leaves the room, he sees a tear run down his father’s face.

Back in Tokyo, Tengo wakes up the following morning feeling like a weight has been lifted. The image of his mother and the man who is not his father no longer haunts him.

Two weeks later, Fuka-Eri calls Tengo from a payphone outside his apartment. She comes over and insists on staying indefinitely. When asked why, she replies, “I don’t want to be alone when something happens” (428).

Tengo leaves Fuka-Eri in the apartment to go to work. During his lunch break, Ushikawa arrives once again to press Tengo to accept his offer. This time, he explicitly states the terms of the proposal: Tengo must extricate himself from the Air Chrysalis situation and forget all about it, or else his personal safety will be at risk. Again, Tengo refuses, citing his suspicions that Ushikawa and his probable employer Sakigake were involved in Kyoko becoming “irretrievably lost.”

At the end of the school day, Tengo calls Fuka-Eri to tell her he is on his way home. She replies, “Better hurry. [...] The Little People are stirring” (434).

Leader lies on a yoga mat while Aomame carries out a painful stretch and massage routine. 30 minutes later, she asks Leader to lie on his stomach so she can perform “the finishing touch” (443). Yet as she holds the ice pick at the precise spot on the back of Leader’s neck, she feels some mysterious force preventing her from killing him. When Leader says, “I’m waiting for you to finish once and for all” (444), Aomame knows that he is aware of her murderous intent. Moreover, Aomame’s killing hand remains frozen until Leader allows it to move again.

Leader explains that the Little People grant him these powers, but in return they make their unspeakable desires his own. He adds that he is “the one who listens to their voices” (446), and therefore he must be killed to maintain a balance between the Little People and humanity.

Aomame doubts this, believing instead that Leader is simply a serial child rapist making excuses for himself. Then, as if reading Aomame’s mind, he makes a clock levitate in the air, convincing her of his supernatural powers. Nevertheless, Aomame rejects the Leader’s notion that he must be killed to maintain an earthly balance between good and evil, preferring instead to let the man live the rest of his short life in excruciating pain.

This causes Leader to take a different approach, claiming responsibility for Ayumi’s murder. Although he says he did not kill her himself, he regrets being unable to stop the Little People from doing so. When Aomame asks why they didn’t kill her instead, Leader says that Aomame is a “special being” whom they cannot kill. He also encourages Aomame to kill him as revenge against the Little People, depriving them of their vessel. This too fails to convince her.

Having exhausted all other tactics, Leader proposes a deal: If Aomame kills him, he will spare Tengo’s life. Shocked that Leader knows of her love for Tengo, Aomame says, “But you can’t possibly tell that much, Tengo’s name has never taken a step outside my heart” (449)—to which Leader replies that both Aomame and Tengo entered 1Q84 for a reason, and that they “will be assigned [their] proper role here” (449). He even uses the term “1Q84,” even though Aomame made it up and never shared it with anyone.

Tengo returns to his apartment to find Fuka-Eri looking exceptionally beautiful to him. After dinner, he remarks that a thunderstorm is brewing, to which Fuka-Eri replies, “Because the Little People are stirring” (457). Although it is only nine in the evening, Fuka-Eri insists on going to sleep and having Tengo read her a story in bed. He paraphrases “Town of Cats” for her. After he finishes, Fuka-Eri says that Tengo went to his own “town of cats” when he visited his father, and now he needs to do a “purification.”

Aomame asks Leader if 1Q84 is a parallel world. Leader says no, adding that 1984 “no longer exists anywhere” (462) for Aomame and that there is no way to return. He also points out that the two moons exist only to differentiate 1Q84 from 1984, and therefore very few people are aware of them. He quotes the song “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” singing, “Without your love, it’s a honky-tonk parade” (463). Leader also suggests that the Little People exist only in 1Q84, not in 1984. He theorizes that some countervailing force pulled Aomame into 1Q84 as a bulwark against the Little People.

Leader goes on to explain that the Little People emerged through his daughter—who at this point is assumed to be Fuka-Eri. The Little People then made Leader their agent; Fuka-Eri filled the role of Perceiver, while Leader became a Receiver. He says he and Fuka-Eri became one, to which Aomame replies that that is merely a euphemism for the fact that Leader raped his own daughter. Leader counters that Fuka-Eri was merely a “concept [that] took on human shape” (465), which he refers to as a dohta, or a sort of double.

Meanwhile, the “real” Fuka-Eri escaped to fight the Little People by aligning herself with a man named Tengo Kawana. Leader goes on to explain that Fuka-Eri and Tengo collaborated to create an “antibody” for the Little People’s “virus” in the form of the popular book Air Chrysalis. Aomame herself has a role to play in the fight against the Little People by killing Leader, their current vessel. Leader says that Aomame and Tengo arrived in 1Q84 because they were drawn to one another. He adds that Tengo has loved no other woman but Aomame.

Leader then elaborates on the choice he presented to Aomame before: If she kills Leader, the Little People will look for a new vessel and leave Tengo alone. However, Sakigake will hunt Aomame down and likely kill her. In either scenario, a reunion with Tengo is very unlikely. With tears in her eyes, Aomame agrees to Leader’s terms. As thunder and heavy rain roar outside the window, Aomame presses the needle into the back of Leader’s neck, killing him.

Fuka-Eri asks Tengo to hold her in bed so they can undergo a “purification.” They drift to sleep. When Tengo wakes up, he and Fuka-Eri are naked. Tengo cannot move, and his penis is erect. Fuka-Eri climbs on top of him and tells him to close his eyes. When he does so, he is back in the classroom holding hands with ten-year-old Aomame. Just like in his memory, Aomame lets go of his hand and runs out of the classroom, at which point Tengo ejaculates inside Fuka-Eri.

After it is over, Fuka-Eri says, “I will not get pregnant” (481), cryptically placing the emphasis on the “I.” She also says that the Little People have stopped stirring. While Fuka-Eri showers, Tengo realizes he must do everything in his power to find Aomame.

Aomame leaves the bedroom and tells Buzzcut to let Leader sleep for at least two hours. As Aomame walks down the hall to the elevator, she is prepared to pull out her gun and shoot herself should Buzzcut or Ponytail pursue her, but no one follows her.

In a taxi, she heads to Shinjuku Station as Tamaru instructed. There, she removes a travel bag filled with basic necessities and cash from a coin locker. Using a payphone, she calls Tamaru who gives her the address of a safe house in Koenji—the same neighborhood where Tengo lives. The plan is that Aomame will stay there for a week before traveling far away and having her appearance changed.

The next morning, Tengo struggles to go about his normal routine. Having not heard from Komatsu in weeks, he calls his office, only to be told that Komatsu has been out sick for over a week. Both Tengo and the person on the phone doubt that Komatsu would let himself be away from the office so long no matter how sick he was.

Leaving Fuka-Eri behind in his apartment, Tengo makes good on the promise he made to himself to find Aomame. He goes to the telephone company where there are telephone books for each of Tokyo’s wards but finds nobody with Aomame’s name. He calls their old school and retrieves a forwarding address from when she moved, but she no longer lives there.

Tengo returns home with no leads as to Aomame’s whereabouts. After pondering Aomame’s name for a few moments, Fuka-Eri says, “She might be very close by” (509).