The narrator asks his childhood friend if she wants to go out with him in the summer. She's moved to a new apartment building with a guy named Issei. The two of them have been living in the same apartment building for a year. The narrator tells his friend that he's just returned from 15 years in America and they're back in Japan. He asks her if she'd like to go on an outing with him. She says no, but the narrator is so excited that she's going to ask him to go with her to a fireworks festival this week. He's not going to let her go, though, because he doesn't want to be seen flirting with another girl. He says he'll go anyway because he has a stomachache and he wants to see his new hair pin, which he bought in the West. Is he really going to go to the festival? The narrator says no. He wants to buy the hair pin so he can show it off to his friends back in the west. He tells his friends that he lied about his stomachache when they were little so they wouldn't think he was lying.