Thirty-seven-year-old Watanabe hears 'Norwegian Wood' on a plane and is overwhelmed by a powerful wave of memory.

Watanabe moves to Tokyo for university, determined to forget his painful past in Kobe and start over.

Watanabe runs into Naoko on a Tokyo train after more than a year apart and they spend the day walking together.

On her 20th birthday, Naoko breaks down sobbing and Watanabe has sex with her for the first time.

Watanabe visits Naoko's apartment only to find she has moved out without leaving him any word.

Watanabe meets Midori in drama class and is immediately struck by her bold, outspoken personality.

A letter from Naoko arrives explaining she has left school and is staying at a mountain treatment center called Ami Hostel.

Watanabe travels by train and bus deep into the mountains to reach Ami Hostel, where Naoko's roommate Reiko greets him.

Midori tells Watanabe her father is dying of a brain tumor and takes him to visit the man in hospital.

Midori calls Watanabe to say her father has died and then vanishes from his life for weeks.

At Ami Hostel a second time, Naoko warns Watanabe she may never fully recover or be able to have sex with him.

Reiko writes to Watanabe to tell him Naoko has relapsed badly and may soon be moved to a different institution.

Midori confesses her love to Watanabe on a rain-soaked rooftop; he admits he loves her but cannot act on it yet.

Naoko hangs herself in the forest outside Ami Hostel.

Watanabe calls Midori and declares he wants to be with her; when she asks where he is, he cannot answer.

Watanabe leaves Kobe for a Tokyo university after the suicide of his best friend Kizuki, hoping to outrun his past. He reconnects with Naoko, Kizuki's girlfriend, and their quiet bond deepens until a grief-stricken night of sex ends with her vanishing into a mountain treatment center called Ami Hostel. While waiting for Naoko to recover, Watanabe falls for the vivacious Midori, whose own losses draw him toward the world of the living. He remains torn between both women as Naoko's condition deteriorates and the dream of a shared life with her slowly collapses. Naoko's death plunges Watanabe into weeks of aimless wandering before a friend's departure gives him the courage to reach out to Midori. The novel ends with Watanabe suspended between past and present, unable to say where he stands.

The core romances and losses that define Watanabe's youth.

Kizuki, Watanabe's best friend and Naoko's boyfriend, kills himself in his garage with a car exhaust hose, leaving no note.

Watanabe befriends the dorm legend Nagasawa after the older student spots him reading The Great Gatsby in the dining hall.

Watanabe and Naoko exchange Christmas gifts and share a quiet dinner together on New Year's Eve.

Student protesters shut the university down and Watanabe takes a physically grueling job at a trucking company.

Watanabe releases the firefly Storm Trooper gave him from the dormitory rooftop and watches its faint glow disappear into the night.

Watanabe visits Midori's family bookstore on a Sunday and is astonished by the elaborate lunch she has cooked for him.

Naoko slips away from Reiko to meet Watanabe alone for a brief private moment when he first arrives at Ami Hostel.

In the night, Naoko comes to Watanabe, removes her nightgown, and sits naked beside him before quietly returning to bed.

Naoko tells Watanabe he had been the link connecting her and Kizuki to the outside world and apologizes for using him.

Nagasawa's Foreign Ministry celebration dinner with his girlfriend Hatsumi turns tense when his casual womanizing is discussed openly.

While playing pool with Hatsumi, Watanabe suddenly realizes he has not played since the afternoon of Kizuki's death.

Watanabe moves into a small backyard cottage and begins fixing it up, intending for Naoko to eventually move in with him.

After Naoko's death, Watanabe quietly abandons Tokyo and wanders from town to town, barely eating or sleeping, for weeks.

Reiko arrives at Watanabe's Tokyo apartment dressed head to toe in Naoko's clothes, having finally left Ami Hostel.

Watanabe and Reiko stage a private funeral for Naoko, drinking wine and playing through fifty-one of her favorite songs.

Watanabe's story is haunted from the start by the unexplained suicide of his childhood friend Kizuki, whose absence warps every relationship that follows. At university, he forges a guarded friendship with the charismatic Nagasawa while quietly sustaining his bond with Naoko through shared, unspoken grief. Small gestures carry enormous weight: a gifted firefly released into the dark, a home-cooked Sunday lunch, a game of pool that unlocks a buried memory. His visits to Ami Hostel reveal the depths of Naoko's inner world through intimate scenes invisible to the main plot's outline. After Naoko's suicide, Watanabe wanders in silence before Reiko arrives in Tokyo wearing Naoko's clothes, and the two mark her passing with wine and music.

The friendships, gestures, and quieter moments that shape Watanabe's world.

Watanabe and Naoko begin taking long Sunday walks through Tokyo together, speaking little and never once mentioning Kizuki.

Watanabe begins accompanying Nagasawa on evenings out to pick up women, often returning to the dorm feeling empty and ashamed.

After their night together, Watanabe asks Naoko why she never had sex with Kizuki; his question sends her into tears again.

The university reopens after the protests with nothing changed, confirming to Watanabe that education is completely meaningless.

On her rooftop while watching a nearby building burn, Midori tells Watanabe she wants 'perfect selfishness' from a lover.

Reiko explains that Ami Hostel's healing philosophy rests on total honesty and peaceful routine rather than traditional psychiatric treatment.

Naoko breaks down telling Watanabe she does not know how to love anyone now that Kizuki is gone.

Reiko tells Watanabe how her piano career ended when her finger stopped working and she suffered two successive mental breakdowns.

On a mountain walk, Naoko reveals that her older sister hanged herself in her bedroom and that Naoko was the one who found her body.

Naoko confesses she sometimes hears Kizuki calling her to join him in death and asks Watanabe if he will wait for her.

Reiko reveals that a charming 13-year-old piano student seduced her and then falsely accused her of assault, triggering her worst breakdown.

After a pornographic film, Midori drags Watanabe to a disco and then her apartment, where he holds her until she falls asleep.

Midori sends Watanabe a letter saying she is tired of being ignored and no longer wants to see him.

A fisherman shares sake with the grieving, wandering Watanabe on a beach, prompting him to resolve to return to Tokyo.

Reiko leaves Watanabe's apartment for a new life as a music teacher, telling him to claim the happiness she and Naoko could not.

From the outset, Watanabe and Naoko's relationship is built on silence—Sunday walks taken without ever naming the friend they have both lost. Key revelations crack this silence open: the truth about Naoko's inability to be intimate with Kizuki, her family's history of suicide, and Reiko's harrowing story of betrayal and breakdown at the hands of a dishonest student. Midori forces her way into Watanabe's carefully guarded world with honesty and vitality, showing him a different way to face grief. Letters and ultimatums compel Watanabe to acknowledge his feelings, but guilt and loss keep pulling him back. Only after Naoko's death, an unexpected act of kindness on a beach, and Reiko's farewell does Watanabe begin to understand what it truly means to choose life.

The discoveries and turning points that shift Watanabe's understanding of love and loss.