Oto Kafuku quotes from Drive My Car (2021)

View Quote Oto Kafuku: From time to time, she starts sneaking into Yamaga's house.
Yūsuke Kafuku: Yamaga?
Oto Kafuku: The name of her first love. He's a high school classmate. He's not aware of her love for him. She doesn't want him to know, so that's OK with her. But she wants to know more about him. She wants to know everything about him without letting him know about her.
Yūsuke Kafuku: So she sneaks in.
Oto Kafuku: Right. While he's attending classes, she feigns illness and leaves early. Yamaga's an only child and his dad's an office worker. His mom's a schoolteacher. So the girl knows there's nobody at home during the day.
Yūsuke Kafuku: How does she sneak in? She's just an ordinary teenager.
Oto Kafuku: She takes a guess and searches under a potted plant by the front door. There's a key.
Yūsuke Kafuku: [laughs] What a careless family.
Oto Kafuku: She uses it to let herself into the house. She goes upstairs and opens a door. The number on the soccer uniform on a hanger tells her it's his room. The room is tidy for a 17-year-old boy, and she senses that he has controlling parent, his mom in particular. She breathes in. She listens carefully. She hears silence. An amplified silence, like the sound through a hearing aid, fills the room. She lies down on Yamaga's bed. She holds back the urge to masturbate.
Yūsuke Kafuku: Why? The limits of a television drama?
Oto Kafuku: No. She has her own set of rules. Things she'll allow or won't allow herself to do.
Yūsuke Kafuku: She can sneak into his house, but not masturbate there.
Oto Kafuku: Right.

View Quote Oto Kafuku: One day, she remembers her previous existence.
Yūsuke Kafuku: You mean that girl who sneaks in?
Oto Kafuku: She used to be a lamprey in her previous life.
Yūsuke Kafuku: A lamprey?
Oto Kafuku: She didn't leech off the fish that passed overhead like other lampreys do. She fastened her suction cup-like mouth to a rock on the riverbed and did nothing but sway there. Until she wasted away and really became like riverweed, she clung to the rock. She doesn't remember how she died. Did she starve to death? Was she eaten by other fish? All she remembers is swaying at the bottom of the river. In Yamaga's room, she suddenly understands. What she's doing here is the same. She can't tear herself away from his room, just like how she clung to a rock. Come to think of it, the silence in this room is very similar to underwater. Time stands still. Past and present fade away. And she... becomes a lamprey again. She begins to masturbate on Yamaga's bed. She strips off all her clothes one layer at a time. [she removes her own clothes while on top of her husband] She'd forbidden herself from doing it, but now she can't stop. Tears fall, wetting the pillow. She thinks that those tears are her token for today. Just then, someone comes home. A door opens downstairs. She notices then that it's starting to get dark outside the window. Is it Yamaga? Or his father? His mother? She hears that person coming up the stairs. It's over. But now, she can stop at last. At last, it'll all end. She can finally escape the karmic fate from her prior life. She'll become a new person. The door opens.

View Quote Yūsuke Kafuku: Then she leaves an unused tampon in his room.
Oto Kafuku: A tampon?
Yūsuke Kafuku: That's what you said.
Oto Kafuku: That's so weird.
Yūsuke Kafuku: More so than usual. Can this adapted for TV?
Oto Kafuku: Don't worry. The producer said it's for an innovative late-night slot.
Yūsuke Kafuku: If you say so. So she takes out an unused tampon from her school bag and puts it in a drawer in his desk. What if his overprotective mom finds it? She feels a rush of excitement at the thought.
Oto Kafuku: She's kinky.
Yūsuke Kafuku: The tampon is a token indicating she was really there.
Oto Kafuku: A token.
Yūsuke Kafuku: She continues sneaking in from time to time after that. She's aware of the risks. She's the type of who is trusted by her parents and teachers, so a lot is at stake.
Oto Kafuku: Nevertheless, she can't stop.
Yūsuke Kafuku: She can't stop. She sniffs around in his room, longing for his slightest scent. She always takes a token from his room when she leaves. A pencil or something that he won't notice is gone. And in exchange, she leaves a toke of herself. At her most daring moment, she took off her underwear and put it deep in his chest of drawers. She feels that they are gradually mingling by exchanging such tokens. And that she is giving him the strength to escape his mother's control. That's it for today.
Oto Kafuku: I see. Want to know the rest?
Yūsuke Kafuku: Yeah, I do.
Oto Kafuku: Shall I wait, or shall I write it? Which?
Yūsuke Kafuku: You can still wait.
Oto Kafuku: Yeah. I want to know the rest, too.
Yūsuke Kafuku: You really don't know?
Oto Kafuku: I never do, do I?
Yūsuke Kafuku: Well, I thought maybe this time it was about your first love.
Oto Kafuku: Of course it's not.