Kasane

In this chapter, we learn that saki has stayed in the bamboo room for five days. We learn that she's not a tourist, but a "woman without a face" . She's been there for a few days, and she looks like a "monster" , but that doesn't matter to her. She says that even though she looks ugly, her life is worth more than it used to be. She goes on to say that she used to go out and rehearse as saki, and then come back and be alone with her, but she pretended not to be aware of how much saki's worth had grown. When she came back, she would pretend that she didn't know what was going on with saki because she was an actress, and the more she felt like someone else, the more her worth was diminished. She wonders if claps are meant for the audience, and wonders if they're meant for her, too. She tells us that she and saki have never even met, and that they should never have even been born. They should have been born, she says, "covering themselves with a thin, fake