Layered into the fold of each page was a loose sheet in Kenji’s lovely writing, rendered with great clarity, with explanatory characters beside each of his kanji. “I did this for Aki,” he said. “It was written in the Heian era, almost nine hundred years ago, so these pages,” he said, pointing to the printed book, “are written in the old style. And these,” he said, pointing to his own sheets, “I rewrote the way people talk now. All her lists. Adorable things. Depressing things. Things that gain by being painted,” he recited.
