Back to the year of 2001, 3 years before. It was a big period to me.
In April I met some of the members of December Club by the introduction of the university staff who knew my homepege then. They asked me to help making their homepage. Mr. Nakamura was one of them (left in the front row).

December Club was the group of the same classmates of Tokyo Commercial College (presently Hitotsubashi University), totally 352, who were compulsorily made to graduate not in March the next year but in December 1941, the year the Pacific War broke out. A fairly number of them were killed in the war and the survivers were 142 in 2001.

I worked with them for the "Homepage of December Club" for more than half a year and completed it just before their 60th Memorial Meeting.
It includes almost all the documents they left in their albums, books and bulletins.

Since then, Mr. Nakamura kept intimate relationship with me, and not only took me to various places related to his college days but let me know what is Hitotsubashi University from a historical point of view.

And now at the beginning of the year 2004, he confessed that he was going to start a field survey of the history of the building Kanematsu Auditorium of his alma mater in Kunitachi City. In addition he wanted me to watch the full moon at his favorite hotel "Gyokeikan". He said seriously it would be necessary in order for me to understand his real character and the coming work hard for his age.

Under his strong request, I spent one night with my wife at Gyokeikan Hotel near Cape Inubozaki in Choshi City. It was February 6th that year.

Three months later, Mr. Nakamura started the search for "The Mystery of Kanematsu Auditorium". I accompanied him to all of the places he visited and saw what he investigated energetically.

Mr. Nakamura was struck down by the rupture of thoracic aortic aneurysm and had an operation to remove the whole spleen. The summary of the search, what he called a lifework, had to be given up for the reason.
I could not resist his request to do it for him. I decided at last to write it in a novel style as a title of "Romanesk and Four Gods", which is carried on my homepage under the new title of "The Story of the Auditorium Where Monsters Live".

There are short stories I removed on the way of writing and the following is one of them. (April 21st, 2007)

On the full moon night in November 1941.
The inn Gyokeikan lies on the cliff facing the Pacific Ocean west of the lighthouse of Cape Inubozaki at Choshi.
The fierce sound of waves is heard continuously in the room.
On the contrary, the night sky is silent. Stars of various sizes are widely scattered and a large full moon is lighting the rough sea all over.

Two young men encounter each other here since they graduated from the junior high school in Kumagaya. One is Rokuro Konogi, a second lieutenant with a military look, and another Tatsuji Naka, a student going to graduate advancedly next month.
They drink together in the room "Rocky Shore", wearing yukata after the bath. It is a room famous artists stayed in before, like Kotaro Takamura and Keigetsu Ohmachi.

They are talking about their each road divided to two ways after pitted field athletics during the school days.
Konogi took the road to the military academy, taking advantage of his manly body, while Naka entered Tokyo Commercial College.
Nearly six years have passed, which promoted their youth and also was clutches leading to destruction.

Konogi sent a letter to Naka, once an intimate friend, not knowing what came out to his heart.
"I am going to be sent to the front. Before that, I want to talk with you, looking at the moon.
Naka suggested to stay at "Gyokeikan"of Cape Inubozaki on the seashore. It was the inn associated with the boat club of his college.

Each of them thinks about this and that, looking at the full moon forever.
Konogi confesses his thought that he never told to anybody else.
"I don't want to part from Taeko, my love. I now realize nothing more precious for me than Taeko. She is pregnant with my baby. I may not be able to come back here to Japan. I really do not want to go."

Naka is also desperate.
"I will be sent somewhere after graduation, too. What did I learn for? I have a girl friend myself too. Where will my love go, though I got it at last? All the same with you that it is as painful as cutting off my own limbs."

"I should have brought Taeko with me. This may be the last moon I see in Japan."
"Come back alive. Live a happy life with your love. I will surely get my happiness with my love. Let's meet together again here and see the moon."

Rokuro Konogi was killed on the battlefield overseas, as predicted by himself.
Naka was sent to the front in China the next year and then to the south of the fierce battle. ......