Having finished his meal, the man stabs his chopsticks vertically downward into what is left of his rice, a rite that is only performed at funerals. The people around him just manage to resist a collective intake of breath and avert their eyes. Yoriko is staring at the chopsticks as if he has just flung a corpse on the table and, in her tipsy state, is on the verge of saying something, when a waiter, alert to Kiyoshi’s every eye movement, swoops in and removes the offending item. The group visibly exhales.
