Because of his suicide attempt, Yozo is expelled from university. He moves into Flatfish’s house, where he is kept under close watch and forbidden from leaving. Flatfish inquires what Yozo plans to do for the future, and Yozo’s mind swells with nostalgia for his drinking days. Flatfish suggests vaguely that Yozo should return to his studies. However, his indirectness annoys Yozo and fails to make him understand that returning to school would be his most financially stable and supported option.

When Yozo affirms that he wants to be a painter, Flatfish laughs and then asks Yozo to think it over. The next morning, Yozo runs away and leaves a note for Flatfish assuring him that there is no cause for alarm, as he is simply visiting Horiki to consult him about his prospects. Though he does not mean what he wrote, Yozo realizes he has nowhere to go and no people to depend on. So, he visits Horiki.

Yozo is taken aback when Horiki meets him icily. He realizes that other people have the ability to compartmentalize, whereas he does not. Horiki says he has some business to attend to, and a woman named Shizuko arrives at the door soon after. Shizuko works for a magazine and has come to collect the work commissioned to Horiki. She overhears that Yozo has nowhere to go.

Shizuko is a widow, and she allows Yozo to live with her and her daughter Shigeko. After a while, Yozo asks Shizuko for work as an artist, assuring her he is a good one. Shizuko assumes Yozo is joking, leading Yozo to ask for work as a cartoonist instead. Soon, Yozo makes enough money to pick up smoking and drinking again.

Though Yozo’s depression continues to intensify, he finds some comfort in his stepdaughter, Shigeko, who has taken to calling him “Daddy.” One day, Shigeko asks Yozo if God answers prayers. He replies that God does, but not for people like him. Quickly pivoting, he asks Shigeko what she wants from God, and she replies that she wants her real father back. The answer stuns Yozo, and he retreats emotionally from Shigeko, perceiving her to be just as dangerous as anybody else.

Horiki returns to regularly visiting Yozo. He denigrates Yozo’s artistic ability and warns him about his womanizing. Yozo begins to grow skeptical of the existence of society as an actual body that will persecute him and becomes more “self-willed.” As soon as Shizuko comes home from work, Yozo goes outside to drink. Drunk at night, Yozo teases Shizuko and blames her for draining his youth. To pay for his worsening drinking habit, he sells some of Shizuko’s clothes at a pawnshop. He spends two nights away from home before returning with some amount of remorse. Sneaking around, he spies Shizuko and Shigeko in a room sharing a private tender moment. Not wanting to interrupt, he leaves quietly—never to return.

Yozo takes up residence at a bar in Kyobashi after asking the madam for a room. He lives his day-to-day life without incurring punishment or ostracism, confirming his burgeoning suspicion that his fear of social persecution was unfounded. However, his fear of other people is still present, and he has to drink before facing them. Almost a year passes, and Yozo also takes up drawing cartoons for pornographic magazines.

At a cigarette shop Yozo frequents, he meets a young woman named Yoshiko, whose youth, virginity, and trusting nature he grows attracted to. Yoshiko makes appeals to Yozo to quit his drinking, and when one night he falls down an open manhole and is rescued by...