murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

smile. "I can't imagine what it's like."
"Count your blessings," Nagasawa said.
His womanizing was the reason Nagasawa lived in a dorm despite his
affluent background. Worried that Nagasawa would do nothing else if
allowed to live alone in Tokyo, his father had compelled him to live
all four years at university in the dormitory. Not that it mattered much
to Nagasawa. He was not going to let a few rules bother him.
Whenever he felt like it, he would get an overnight permission and go
girl-hunting or spend the night at his girlfriend's flat. These
permissions were not easy to get, but for him they were like free
passes - and for me, too, as long as he did the asking.
Nagasawa did have a steady girlfriend, one he'd been going out with
since his first year. Her name was Hatsumi, and she was the same age
as Nagasawa. I had met her a few times and found her to be very nice.
She didn't have the kind of looks that immediately attracted attention,
and in fact she was so ordinary that when I first met her I had to
wonder why Nagasawa couldn't do better, but anyone who talked to
her took an immediate liking to her. Quiet, intelligent, funny, caring,
she always dressed with immaculate good taste. I liked her a lot and
knew that if I could have a girlfriend like Hatsumi, I wouldn't be
sleeping around with a bunch of easy marks. She liked me, too, and
tried hard to fix me up with a first-year in her club so we could
double-date, but I would make up excuses to keep from repeating past
mistakes. Hatsumi went to the absolute top girls' college in the
country, and there was no way I was going to be able to talk to one of
those super-rich princesses.
Hatsumi had a pretty good idea that Nagasawa was sleeping around,
but she never complained to him. She was seriously in love, but she
never made demands.
"I don't deserve a girl like Hatsumi," Nagasawa once said to me. I had
to agree with him.
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