On a beautiful April morning, a man walking on Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood street sees what he considers the “100% perfect girl” for him walking in the opposite direction towards him. She is in her thirties and is not particularly beautiful and doesn’t stand out, but the moment he sees her his heartbeat quickens and his mouth turns dry. 

The next day, he will tell someone that he passed the 100% perfect girl and when they ask for details he won’t recall any defining features about her, just that she was perfect. As the distance between them on the sidewalk decreases, he imagines having a thirty-minute conversation with her before getting lunch and then seeing a Woody Allen movie before stopping by a bar and spending the night together. 

When they are within fifteen yards of one another, he runs through various conversation openers, but finds his ideas ridiculous. He wonders if he should just directly wish her good morning and tell her she is the 100% perfect girl for him, but figures she wouldn’t believe him or reject him. They pass in front of a flower shop where the asphalt is damp and the smell of roses linger in the air. She is wearing a white sweater and clutching a letter in her hand. He finds himself unable to speak to her and when he turns around to try again, she is lost in the crowd.

In hindsight, he knows now that he should have given her a long speech that starts with “Once upon a time” and concludes with “A sad story, don’t you think?” In this story, he imagines that he had stopped her to talk and after she returned his affection they sat on a park bench and told stories for hours. The boy proposes a test, saying that if they are truly 100% perfect for one another, they will meet again. She heads east and he leaves to the west, but the test was a mistake as this interaction had been nearly impossible and would likely never happen again. In the winter, they both come down with the flu and lose their memory of the incident and experience love again with people who are 75% and 85% perfect for them. One April morning, the boy heads out to get coffee and the girl goes to send a letter and when they pass one another on a street it triggers a faint memory and they both think the other is the 100% perfect person for them, but they say nothing and continue on by.