The successful writer Oki has reached middle age & is filled with regrets He returns to Kyoto to find Otoko a young woman with whom he had a terrible affair many years before & discovers that she is now a painter living with a younger woman as her lover Otoko has continued to love Oki & has never forgotten him but his return unsettles not only her but also her young lover This is a work of strange beauty with a tender touch of nostalgia & a heartbreaking sensitivity to those things lost forever