The narrator wakes up in the middle of the night, feeling empty inside. He's been dreaming about his mother, who hasn't seen him since he left the hospital. He wonders when the dream will end, and wonders if it's going to be the end of the story. The narrator asks seiichi if he picked up hinata in the rain, and he says that it wasn't like she was a dog or a cat, but rather that she was picked up by a man who was looking for her. He also asks if she's got a cold, and she says that she'll get a cold if she stays at the hospital, and that's why the man picked her up. He tells her that he's short-staffed at the moment, and asks her if she got dumped. She says no, and says that the man was just trying to get her to come with him to work for him. He asks her to leave the front of the house to him, and