Abstract

Hakyoku (Breaking Point) is first and foremost a character study. The novella centers on Yosuke, a self-obsessed college student intent on becoming a public official. The majority of the book’s drama has to do with Yosuke’s romantic entanglements with two different women: Maiko and Akari.
At the opening of the novella, it is clear that Yosuke sees himself as master of his own universe. He is studious, confident, and ambitious. His girlfriend Maiko shares these qualities with him. She is equally dedicated to her own future as a politician, which requires considerable sacrifice. Yosuke’s dissatisfaction with Maiko stems from her apparent lack of interest in sex, which drives Yosuke into the arms of another woman.
At a moment when Yosuke and Maiko have very little time for each other, Yosuke goes to see a friend perform in a campus comedy show. Yosuke is attracted to the bare legs of the younger woman sitting next to him. He describes how he would touch her legs — if he were not fully committed to seeking public office. Yosuke is keenly aware that straying from the narrow path would cost him his dream. Fear, in other words, is all that prevents Yosuke from acting on his desires. This scene is one of a series throughout the novella. Additionally, at several points, Yosuke learns about male police officers who have been caught abusing their power and expresses bitter disgust for disgraced men. Yosuke is determined to succeed.
The night that Yosuke passes his exams, Maiko is otherwise occupied. Yosuke then finds himself with Akari, the young woman from the comedy show. She invites him over to celebrate. Yosuke tells Akari that he can’t. He tells Akari that he’s romantically involved with another woman. But when Akari tells Yosuke that she has baked a cake for the occasion (and bought champagne that she herself is too young to drink), Yosuke relents. In Akari’s room, the sexual tension builds and soon Yosuke carries Akari to her bed. At this point, Akari stops Yosuke and tells him that she has never slept with anyone.
Yosuke goes to the bathroom to collect himself. When he returns, Akari is nowhere to be found. Yosuke looks everywhere, even outside. He calls her name, but he gets no response. Finally, he looks under Akari’s bed, where his eyes meet hers. Akari tells Yosuke that she has a real talent for hide-andseek.
From then on, Yosuke and Akari become romantically involved. Yosuke leaves Maiko. Yet, some time later, in the middle of the night, Maiko arrives at Yosuke’s door. She wants to come in, but Yosuke won’t let her. Maiko then tells Yosuke that he’s being “unfair.” “You slept with Akari when we were together,” she says. At this, Yosuke gives up. Maiko comes inside. Yosuke and Maiko sleep together.
That night, Maiko tells Yosuke a story about her childhood. This story-within-a-story seems to predict the direction that the rest of the novella will follow.
When Maiko was in grade school, she was sick and home alone when she thought she heard a noise in the house. She looked around and found a man in her bed. Barefoot, she leapt out the window, got on her bicycle, then rode off as quickly as she could. Some time later, she decided to ride home. She knew that her mother would be home soon, and she assumed that the man had long since given up chasing her. As she headed home, she saw the man. He had not given up. Instead of riding away from the man, Maiko decided to ram into him. She narrowly missed him, then pedaled home, where she found her mother waiting, looking at her “like she never had before and never would again.“
Once Maiko has finished telling this terrifying story, she tells Yosuke that she has had dreams about the man ever since. These dreams take different forms, but in every variation the man eventually catches her.
Yosuke says nothing about his night with Maiko to Akari.
With time, Akari’s sexual appetite intensifies. While Maiko never had a sex drive to match Yosuke’s, Akari’s libido gradually eclipses his. The couple spend all of their time in bed. Yosuke is not unhappy about this, but he finds himself drained and unable to keep up with his lover. Yosuke also dwells on Akari’s strange habit of speaking to his penis as if it weren’t a part of him — as if it were its own being.
In the novella’s final scene, Yosuke and Akari go to a cafe. Yosuke can tell that something isn’t right with Akari, but he can’t put his finger on it.
Then Akari begins to speak. She tells Yosuke that, some time earlier, she had run into Maiko on the street. At first, Maiko said nothing about Yosuke. As Akari saw it, the two of them had really hit it off. As they were about to go separate ways, Akari decided to ask Maiko for her contact information. “As if she were answering [her],” Maiko told Akari about the night that she had spent at Yosuke’s following their break-up. In this way, Yosuke learns that Akari had long known about his affair with Maiko. As he tries to grapple with this revelation, Yosuke is confused. He thinks about the many times that he and Akari had had sex since she had apparently learned about his infidelity. While Yosuke is unable to respond, Akari continues to speak. She had also felt the temptation to sleep with other people, she explains, but pricked the tip of her finger with a safety pin to keep her own desires in check. “You didn’t do the same,” Akari says, “And this is why I can’t forgive you.”
As Akari’s monologue ends with these words, she runs off. Yosuke tries to stop her, but she pricks him with a pin and frees herself. Yosuke then chases her down the street, but a man gets in his way. Without thinking (or perhaps acting on old instincts from his rugby days), Yosuke knocks the man out. As the chase turns increasingly violent, the police join in. Yosuke manages to elude the first officer who lunges at him, but the second one tackles him.
In the story’s final pages, Yosuke stares upward, thinking about how rarely he looks at the sky. He wishes that the officers then apprehending him would do the same. Then, behind the police, Yosuke sees Akari. At first, he thinks she’s smiling. “Then [he] realized she wasn’t laughing — not at all.” As Yosuke begins to fall asleep, he leaves us with his last words: “I always could sleep whenever I wanted.”

Author’s Information

---