Excerpt from Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The party had been advertised as "Most popular! Limited to people in their thirties, standard marriage party ☆" with the following conditions: "Must be thirty-something, want a child, and want both partners to work. Must agree to equal share of housework and household budget, be willing to purchase an apartment in Tokyo, and have a minimum annual income of four million yen. Lovers and sex in the home STRICTLY FORBIDDEN."

As the safest, best-known matchmaking party available, it was popular with newcomers, and very crowded.

Before going, you had to input details such as: Do you prefer a partner who likes cooking or cleaning? Which TV programs do you like watching in the morning? Do you want the TV to be on at mealtimes? What time do you go to sleep? Do you want to have separate bedrooms? Participants who were a greater than 95 percent match were marked with a star ☆ next to their name. My second husband was one of three men with a star.

Of the three, I felt that my husband, who was a year younger than me, was the cleanest and most likely to be comfortable to live with. To the question of whether he wanted to spend more on clothes, food, or the home, he had chosen food and wasn't so interested in the others, and he had stated that he preferred to stay at home rather than travel for the New Year and summer vacations, which also matched my tastes.

My friend sat next to me at the party. She had twelve starred people, maybe because she'd chosen the most popular conditions, such as taking a vacation abroad every year, turning off the light when going to sleep, and no need for either partner to do any cleaning beyond switching on the Roomba, and as a result she was struggling to narrow her choices down. In that sense you could say that my husband and I were lucky.

"Hello, I'm Saku Amamiya."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Amane Sakaguchi. Saku, the new moon—that's a nice name."

"I was born on the day of the new moon, so it's the simplest possible name my parents could have given me."

"Snap—it was raining when I was born, which is how I got to be called Amane, the sound of the rain. So we've both got simple names."

We had three minutes to talk together before moving onto the next candidate, so we didn't get the chance to say much more than that, but he didn't leave a bad impression. I couldn't really remember anything about the other two starred people, so I wrote his number down as my first choice, and we were set up as a couple and our contacts were exchanged.

We met up for dinner when we had days off, and on our third date we decided to get married.

The deciding factor was my telling him about my first marriage. When I explained the circumstances behind my divorce, Saku frowned.

"That's just terrible! Making sexual advances on your own family member, of all things!" He thought a moment, then said hesitantly, "If it's not too traumatic or difficult, would you mind telling me what happened? I think it's important that as family members we share the burden of the wound."

As we sat there in the cafe drinking tea together, I told him everything without holding anything back.

He listened, and then felt sick and had to rush to the toilet to throw up. We went into the unisex toilet where there was enough room for a wheelchair, and I rubbed his back while he vomited.

"I'm sorry. You're the one who was hurt, not me ..." He apologized repeatedly, oozing sweat. "Just hearing about it makes me ill ...The very idea of a married couple having sex, it's horrifying!"

Seeing him apologizing for being in such a state when I was the victim, not him, made me feel that I would be okay with this man.

And so, my husband and I became family.

* * *

As soon as we were married, we moved into a rented apartment in Higashi Nihonbashi. My husband's workplace was a little far away, with several train transfers, but the apartment was close to the station and sunny.

From Vanishing World © 2015 by Sayaka Murata. English translation © 2025 by Ginny Tapley Takemori. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. All rights reserved.