This chapter's epigraph comes from a conversation between Hiroshi and his sister, Natsume. Hiroshi tells his sister that he's going to visit her on his birthday, but she's too busy to come. She's annoyed that he doesn't want her to meet him, and he tells her that it's her birthday, not his, and that she shouldn't worry about it. He also says that he loves her, but that he can't talk to her right now because he has to go to a baseball game.