One midsummer day, I returned to the countryside from Tokyo. I wanted to see my "uncle" again, the man I had loved since I was a child. He was the man who had looked after me kindly as I grew up in a single-parent household. When I heard rumors that he had lost his wife, I couldn't stay still. The days we spent together, under the pretext of helping out, were filled with nostalgia and a faint thrill. But I didn't just want to be by his side. I wanted to become his special woman. I wanted to become his wife, a dream I had had since I was a child.