I stood outside my ex girlfriend s apartment

He returned to Oita after four years, traveling from Osaka by bullet train and feeling emotional at the substantially changed station area. He retraced former routines—pier, apartment, supermarket, and river—without contacting his ex or entering her building, feeling nervous and intrusive. He questioned nearly marrying her, acknowledged a pattern of running away, and regretted booking several nights in Oita’s now-dead, boring town.

Nostalgia turns into a critique of impulsive romance, avoidance, and boredom underlying his Japan life.