

While Miu leaves for Athens to contact the Japanese embassy and Sumire's parents, K finds Sumire's computer and a floppy disk containing two documents. K assures her that Sumire isn't the type to do such a thing. After that, Sumire disappeared, and Miu thinks she may have committed suicide. Miu tells K that Sumire tried to engage her sexually, and Miu turned her down. K travels to Greece the next day to try to help his friend. Later, his call is returned by Miu who tells him that something has happened to Sumire.

Sumire's last letter explains that she won't be home as soon as expected because they're vacationing on a Greek island.Īfter a while of no contact with Sumire, K becomes concerned. Sumire stays in contact with K mostly through letters and phone calls. Miu hires Sumire to do some work for her, and the two begin traveling around Europe. As her friendship with Sumire develops, Sumire begins dressing in nicer, more feminine clothes, quits smoking and develops writer's block. Miu is a rich woman who owns her own wine import business and is accustomed to a finer way of life. Even though she's 17 years older than her, Sumire finds herself sexually attracted to her in a way that she hasn't been attracted to anyone before. As the story begins, Sumire has met a Korean woman named Miu at a wedding. Narrator K is a 25-year-old schoolteacher who's unrequited love for Sumire, an aspiring writer, is at the center of the story. Kodansha first published the novel in Japanese in 1999 and then an English version in 2001. Sputnik Sweetheart is a Japanese novel that follows the narrator "K" as his love interest falls in love with someone else and disappears under mysterious, perhaps magical, circumstances.
