One day in February, Satoko's parents travel to Kyoto to see a sick relative; taking advantage of this, she persuades Kiyoaki to skip school and join her on a rickshaw ride through the snow. They kiss for the first time. When they pass the parade ground of the Azabu 3rd Regiment he has a vision of thousands of ghostly soldiers standing upon it, reproducing the scene in the photograph described in Chapter 1. Miles away, Honda has a similar premonitory shudder, seeing his friend's empty desk in the schoolroom. The next morning, they meet very early in the school grounds and have a long conversation in which Honda expresses his conviction of the reality of fate and inevitability.