murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

over this, and then climbed into her jeans. I put my clothes on, too.
"Let me think about it," said Naoko. "And you think about it, too."
"I will," I said. "And speaking of lips, what you did with them just
now was great."
She reddened slightly and gave a little smile. "Kizuki used to say that,
too."
"He and I had pretty much the same tastes and opinions," I said,
smiling.
We sat across from each other at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and
talking about the old days. She was beginning to talk more about
Kizuki. She would hesitate, and choose her words carefully. Every
now and then, the snow would fall for a while and stop. The sky never
cleared the whole three days I was there. "I think I can get back here
in March," I said as I was leaving. I gave her one last, heavily padded
hug with my winter coat on, and kissed her on the lips. "Goodbye,"
she said.
1970 - a year with a whole new sound to it - came along, and that put
an end to my teenage years. Now I could step out into a whole new
swamp. Then it was time for exams, and these I passed with relative
ease. If you have nothing else to do and spend all your time going to
lectures, it takes no special skill to get through end-of-year exams.
Some problems arose in the dorm, though. A few guys active in one of
the political factions kept their helmets and iron pipes hidden in their
rooms. They had a run-in with some of the baseball-players under the
wing of the dorm Head, as a result of which two of them were injured
and six expelled. The aftershock of the incident was felt for a long
time, spawning minor fights on an almost daily basis. The atmosphere
that hung over the dorm was oppressive, and people's nerves were on
edge. I myself was on the verge of getting knocked out by one of the
baseball-players when Nagasawa intervened and managed to smooth
things over. In any case, it was time for me to get out of there.
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