In this chapter, the narrator tells us that he's gotten a lot of attention from girls in the past few months. He's also released a book, which he thinks will be a big hit with young men. He tells the narrator that he has a crush on a girl named Fumin. Fumin is famous for being a student competitor. The narrator tells Fumin that she's already a big star in the student competition world. He also tells the girl that he thinks she'll be a huge star in her own right if she keeps up with his writing. He says that he won't be able to forgive her if she loses to a "prodigious" girl like Fumin, because he'd rather lose to an "old fogy" girl than to a girl who's "an old fogy." The narrator then tells us about his high school friends who are going to see a play at the theater. They're in the same high school theater club as the narrator's friends from home, and they went to the theater together when the play was being performed. The play was amazing, and the narrator wishes he could have been there to see it. He then tells the story of how he and his friends ran into a group of friends in town who invited him to join them for the play. They all went to a nearby brothel, where they rented a room for the night. He thinks that Barusu, the protagonist in the play, has never had a girl "be interested in him"