Hmm, a chapter that doesn’t end with “Hisako is clearly the murderer”? That makes a change
Interesting that the author chooses to give us only a rather distant view of the delivery guy, mediated through somebody who never even spoke to him.
I think this (i.e. the delivery guy) is the first character we’ve seen who’s been parted from a woman close to them (his sister), which sort of lines up with the sentiments in the poem in the prologue. But I suspect it’s more complicated than that…
PS @NicoleIsEnough the week 6 and home-thread posts don’t yet link forward to this week-7 thread.
That’s a very interesting observation. I need to reread that poem at some point, it was so long ago I forget the details. He didn’t strike me as the poetic type, but who knows. The ending did seem to imply that he may have known what he was delivering after all. Or maybe something unrelated was his “answer”? To what question? This is all so vague and ominous and mysterious. I do hope there’s nothing supernatural, but the book’s world certainly seems to be full of premonitions and strange coincidences.
On a more practical level, in this chapter he was never seen on a bike, only on foot. Where did he get that bike from, and when?
It was because the narrator who interested in the young man unilaterally seemed to be unrelated to the murder case, so that reading this chapter was somehow exhausting.
When I read the last phrase of the young man in this chapter (“I have my answer at last. This is my answer”), I also remembered the poem in prologue…
It is difficult for me to image how can be related the story with a third eye to a contrivance of the murder case (really ominous ), nevertheless I’m looking forward to reading next chapter
I was late to finish week 7 (just now!) and so I’m just barely in time to start the next 2 chapters. I’m going to go ahead and prolong the Hisako-is-the-killer theory and say that somehow her ability to ‘see’ without sight is related to the delivery man’s 3rd eye obsession.
But overall this first half of this chapter was a slow and confusing read, only the second half really felt like it connected. If I weren’t behind already I’d probably re-read the first half to make more sense of it.
Very cool observation, this didn’t cross my mind at all!
Or maybe he even is the culprit? He’d be the first one to have a proper motive after all
Amazing speculation Keep’em coming please!
Somewhere in between I had this epiphany that for me many of the chapters somehow feel like JLPT listening exercises When is something relevant being mentioned, how does it connect to what we already know, how does it all fit together? send halp plz
Does he have a proper motive though? We haven’t seen any kind of relationship between him and the family yet, have we?
I had the same thought but believed it too obvious to be worth posting If I remember correctly, Hisako had her hair in おかっぱ style since she started middle school, which would mean bangs covering her forehead where a third eye might be. It all fits.
Hm okay maybe I should say he has a proper reason - to somehow revenge his sister who was killed. Whether or not that murder is related to the family, or whether he maybe just wanted to kill somebody (or a larger amount of people) and decided to aim for the birthday party is of course unknown so far.
But I agree that it would be too obvious if the murder stepped up after 50% of the book, saying “oh btw it was me” (I mean I know there are criminal novels that make it known up-front who the killer was, and the whole book revolves around how it was done, but this book doesn’t feel like it fits that type.)
Home Thread
), nevertheless I’m looking forward to reading next chapter 
Keep’em coming please!
send halp plz