Nakahara was hospitalized in Chiba sanatorium in January 1937. In February, he was released and moved back to Kamakura, as he could not stand to continue living in the house which contained the memories of Fumiya. He left a number of his works with Kobayashi, and was making plans to return to his home town of Yamaguchi when he died in October 1937, at the age of 30, of tubercular meningitis. Shortly after, his second son died of the same illness.