The chapter opens with the bell already ringing. It's the end of the first week of the second semester of the university of E. The bell rings again, and this time it's for the second week of a three-week course on the distribution of resources in the national economy. This time, the bell rings for the first time, and the students discuss how the economy is growing. They're all eager to continue the course next week, but they're interrupted by the arrival of a student named Washiya, who wants to talk to Furuta. She's eager to discuss the present-day state of affairs with him. He's a student in the university's economics department, and he's very popular with the women in the office. He asks if he can talk to her later, and she says that she's fine with that. She tells him that she lost her wallet at school, and that she doesn't have the money to buy lunch, so she can't pay for lunch anymore. She says that thud row, who works in her office, is a good student, but that he is also a good friend of hers. He helps her a lot, she tells him, but he is a "smart seminar student" , who is popular with women in his office. She asks him if he was the one who invited her to a party for single people, and when he didn't finish his report, she says, he was "crushed" . He tells her that he'd been invited to the party just to "balance out the numbers," and that's why his report wasn't complete. She