Kō Nakamura (中村 航) Ko Nakamura (1969–) graduated in the sciences from a technical university, then took a job at an optical equipment manufacturer. He also gave up playing in the band he'd been in since high school and began writing fiction. In 1999 he left his company to devote himself to writing full-time, and got into print in 2002 with Rirekisho (Résumé). The novel, about a young man who becomes a brother to a girl who is not his blood relative, won the Bungei Prize. It was followed by Natsu yasumi (Summer Vacation), and then Guruguru mawaru suberidai (Helter-Skelter)—the last installment in what the author calls his "first trilogy"—which won the Noma Prize for New Writers and was also listed for the Akutagawa Prize. 100-kai naku koto (Cry 100 Times), a love story Nakamura published in 2005, became a bestseller. His other works include Anata ga koko ni ite hoshii (I Want You Here) and Boku no sukina hito ga yoku nemuremasu yo ni (Helping My Lover Get a Good Night's Sleep). The purity and innocence of his love stories make Nakamura particularly popular with young readers.
A man is changing jobs and between starting his new one and leaving the old one has almost half a year of 'freedom', something that is pretty strange in Japan. 'His sabbatical'. He decides to create a list of what to do. Pretty soon things go 'off the rails' when he meets an old man with whom he starts playing shogi.
What follows in this short story goes from the creepy , to the 'touching' (the need to belong and have a 'family', whatever that means), to the hmmm around sexuality . The last spoiler is what makes the story interesting, 'even if'.
The best: some surprises along the way
The worst: that stalking behavior seems to be so normal in Japanese popular culture (manga, books, movies, games...)