Determined never to be defeated, the heroine of this story is economically independent. Yet with each passing year, she experiences greater isolation and uneasiness. Her quest to live with integrity, despite the scars of previous battles, raises deep questions of how anyone can find their own way through these times.

Nao Kitazawa, 34, leads a busy but fulfilling life as a doctor at a women’s clinic and as fiancee to an elite psychiatric physician, Yuchi Ihara. With their wedding day a month off, Nao is preparing to move into a new home when she meets Shinji Mamiya, a struggling writer who works part-time as a mover and falls inexorably in love with him. The fateful encounter compels Nao to follow her heart and experience true love. Overwhelmed by Nao’s passion, Shinji soon falls for her as well, but their budding romance is threatened by the tragic discovery that Nao has early onset Alzheimer’s. What unfolds is a story of pure love. As Nao’s symptoms worsen, Shinji spends the next ten years giving Nao mental and health support even as she begins to lose the precious memories they both shared.

Yuko Hizaki is a child psychologist working for the city’s child counseling service. She’s saddled by a senile father and a mother grown weary of nursing.
Shunsuke Sudo is a high school teacher resistant to the idea of marrying and building a family with his girlfriend. Ai Yoshizawa, who is highly antisocial, is one of his students. Koki Mamihara is a cop who suspects foul play in a family suicide. The case begins to rouse each character to life amid a rush of events in this foray into the pettiness, pathos and nobility of human nature, based on a representative work by novelist Arata Tendo.

Kasumi is shocked to discover that her older sister’s fiance is the man she first fell in love with five years ago in high school. At the time, he was her high school teacher and ultimately quit his job racked with guilt over their relationship. Kasumi was deeply hurt and struggled for a long time to overcome her sadness. Now the two of them must come to terms with their secret past before the ones they care about in the present are hurt.

As a former gang member, Ichiban was witness to the worst side of the emergency medical system and vowed to become a doctor to change it. With the aggressive passion he learned on the streets, Ichiban has worked his way to becoming a no-nonsense emergency medicine resident. But it is this same passion that he must learn to control when confronted with a situation that is beyond his help.