“When you're in a town like this, all covered with smoke - you forget that there's a world outside. Nothing amazing happens here. And you get used to that. Used to a world where everything is ordinary. Every day we spend here is like a whole lifetime of dying slowly. But now Haruko is here. That's how I know there really is a world outside.”
“Nothing amazing happens here. Everything is ordinary. The huge factory that can be seen from our town, the Medical Mechanica Plant, all the adults got excited when it came here, like it was really a big thing. The white steam that blows out every day at the same time, it looked to me like smoke that signified some kind of omen. Smoke that spreads out and covers everything.”
“I can hardly tell anymore where the truth ends and the lies begin.”
“When you're on a bike, the ocean's a lot closer than you think. The autumn salt wind went right through to the back of my nose. And maybe it's because, like Haruko said, my head was empty.”