Seventeen-year old Yuko lives with a young stepfather who takes his job as a parent seriously. Despite several changes in her home situation, and being raised by people who are unrelated, Yuko does not consider herself unfortunate since everybody responsible for her welfare has made her happiness their priority. She is pragmatic and emotionally resilient, able to ride out conflict with classmates and friends over a tough final year at school, then successfully launches into society to find meaningful work in the field of her choice and love with the man she finally weds. Along the way she learns important lessons about friendship, what makes family, the effect of music on the heart, and all the different ways there are of showing love, especially through food.
Section One
The first section unfolds over Yuko’s last year of high school and occupies approximately three quarters of the novel. Flashback chapters inserted into the main narrative relate her life history up to that point and supply background to developments in the story.
The novel opens with Yuko attending a study and career-counselling interview just before commencing her final year. She is annoyed because her teacher, Mrs Mukai, urges her to confide her problems, on the assumption that Yuko must be unhappy due to her complicated family history. Yuko, however, rejects the idea she is disadvantaged because of her upbringing. Her surname at birth was Mito, but then became Tanaka, Izumigahara and now Morimiya due to her changing family situation. Morimiya is the surname of the young stepfather Yuko currently lives with. During the interview Yuko tells the teacher she has decided to aim for a college within commuting distance from home where she can qualify as a dietician to work in the food industry.
On the first day of the new school year Morimiya is determined to give Yuko a good start, and gets up early to cook her crumbed deep-fried pork cutlet with eggs on rice for breakfast. Yuko does not like such heavy food first thing in the morning but appreciates the effort anyway. Morimiya tries hard to be a good father but sometimes his efforts are misdirected. She reflects on how families have very different breakfast styles: in the Izumigahara household she had eaten a standard Japanese-style breakfast of miso soup, rice and fish; when she was Yuko Tanaka they made do with bread; and, when she was Yuko Mito she ate leftovers from the night before. Yuko only lived with her birth parents for a very short time as her mother died in a traffic accident before she turned three. However, she is the only one of Yuko’s parental guardians to have died, though the whereabouts of her birth father is currently a mystery.
Hamasaka, a boy in Yuko’s year, tells her that he likes her. Although she is not exceptionally pretty, boys are attracted to her. Yuko attributes this to the influence of her second mother, Rika, who had taught her how to dress and present herself well. Yuko was thrilled when Rika did her hair for her the first time they met. Yuko’s father married Rika when Yuko was in grade three of primary school, and Rika declared she was incredibly lucky to have become Yuko’s mother.
After the ball-sports competition at school, Yuko is impressed when Hamasaka voluntarily undertakes the least glamorous job of tidying up. Though she is ambivalent about him romantically, she recognizes his good points. Then Yuko’s friend Fumina tells her that their other good friend, Moe, likes Hamasaka and wants Yuko to act as a go-between. Though Yuko feels unable to refuse the request outright she also cannot bring herself to tell Hamasaka about Moe. Moe accuses her of betrayal, which leads to a rift developing between Yuko and her friends and spreads to the whole class so that she becomes isolated at school. This is how the first semester ends.
Flashback to the end of grade four in primary school, and Rika is glum at the dinner table because Yuko’s father is being transferred to Brazil. Yuko is forced into deciding if she wants to go to Brazil with her father or stay in Japan with Rika. After much agonizing she elects to remain with Rika because she does not want to part from her friends. Rika and her father divorce and Yuko’s name becomes Yuko Tanaka.
The new high school semester starts and Yuko is still being ostracized. She is taunted for liking men because her stepmother had been married twice, and subjected to insinuation for living with a young stepfather. Her classmates are completely taken aback when Yuko responds by matter-of-factly explaining her family history, as they did not know about it before.
Flashback to primary school: after Yuko’s father departs for Brazil Yuko writes to him every week but never receives a reply. She and Rika live in a small flat, in straitened circumstances since Rika is a compulsive shopper and always running out of money. Rika is nevertheless upbeat and enjoys life. The landlady is fond of Yuko and likes to chat with her whenever she goes to pay the rent, sometimes giving her food. Yuko also likes to take the landlady’s dog for walks, which comforts her when she feels sad thinking about her father. When the landlady moves into a senior citizens home, she insists Yuko take a cash gift of 200,000 yen, advising her to keep it for when she needs to do something really special, and not to tell Rika.
Morimiya is going through a phase of making garlic-laden gyoza everyday for Yuko to cheer her up during the period of trouble with her friends. Yuko has become accustomed to being on her own at school and is pragmatic, believing that time will eventually solve things. Mrs Mukai tries talking with Yuko and is impressed by her resilience. Then Hamasaka asks to meet her after he hears that he was the initial cause of the trouble. He surprises Yuko by observing that she has probably gone through life not learning how to play games with other people because all her guardians haven taken such good care of her.
The annual chorus competition approaches in the second semester. Yuko is chosen as the piano accompanist for her class, and begins practicing on the electronic piano at home. The pianist for Class 5 is a boy called Hayase, whose piano skills are head and shoulders above everybody else. Yuko learned to play piano during junior high and immersed herself thoroughly in learning it for three years.
In grade six of primary school Yuko tells Rika that she wants to play the piano. As Yuko rarely asks for anything, Rika is determined to fulfil her wish. She does this by marrying 47-year old Shigeo Izumigahara, when she was 32, and Rika and Yuko move to a magnificent new home. Izumigahara is a real estate agent who was widowed more than ten years ago. There is a grand piano in the house that belonged to his deceased wife, which he continues to tune himself. He lets Yuko use the piano and engages a teacher for her. Life in this new home is very comfortable; a maid does all the housework and cooking, leaving Rika with nothing to do. Unable to endure the boredom she ends up leaving, while Yuko stays and throws herself into practicing the piano.
While practicing for the choir competition on the electronic piano Yuko lets slip that she would like a real one, and Morimiya replies that he would buy her one if he could. Regretting her rudeness, Yuko tells him that he does quite enough for her as a parent but Morimiya responds by saying it is a parent’s duty to bring children up without having them want for anything. Yuko is moved to tears at how seriously he takes his responsibility. Though she has known Morimiya for only three years he does his utmost to provide a comfortable life for her. Nevertheless, she is sad because she is aware that their relationship is in some ways superficial, due to their not being related by blood.
The awkwardness between Yuko and Morimiya causes her to be absent-minded at school and also affects her piano playing. When Hayase points out that her playing is off Yuko tells him about the friction with Morimiya. He responds by saying that she has been cossetted from reality and friction with parents is perfectly normal. She is the first high school student he has ever met who was unduly upset about something like that. That night, Morimiya shows Yuko his bankbook with savings of 18 million yen (approx. US$160,000). He offers to buy a piano and move to a soundproofed condominium so she can practice, as he is worried that he is not up to par with Yuko’s other parents so far. Yuko declines the offer by telling him that all her parental guardians were different and cannot be compared.
Flashback to middle school years: even after divorcing Izumigahara Rika frequently visits Yuko at the house. She jokes about having to find a new boyfriend and invites Yuko to leave with her, but Yuko rejects the idea. In Yuko’s third and last year of middle school Rika shows Yuko a photograph of a man she is seeing. Yuko is flabbergasted when Rika announces to Izumigahara that she is going to marry this man, Morimiya, and wants to take Yuko with her. Izumigahara tells Yuko he does not have the confidence to be a better parent than Rika. Yuko feels she will go crazy if she starts to think too deeply about the meaning of family, and she must accept whoever takes care of her and wherever she lives.
At the beginning of the new year, and with only a couple of months to go before final exams, Yuko goes to see a movie with her boyfriend, Hamasaka. At the shopping mall they run into Hayase playing the piano in a musical instrument shop, and Yuko is impressed by his performance. When she returns home Morimiya chides her for going out, saying that she should not let up until the exams are over. Being scolded by a parent is a novel experience for Yuko.
Flashback to when Yuko starts senior high and she and Rika begin living with Morimya. Rika had told Yuko that passion had brought her together with Yuko’s father, and Izumigahara’s magnanimity had attracted her to him, but that now they were settled with somebody who was a practical person, because it was important her last father be steady and upright. Yuko however was neither interested nor excited about a new father, and expected nothing of Morimiya. Her birth mother was dead, her birth father overseas, and Rika is running her life. Though everybody has been good to her, she has also had to endure many sad partings. Every time this happens Yuko gets a little stronger and more philosophical about life. When she first met Morimiya he bowed to her as if he were the one being received into a new home, which she found a little strange.
On the morning of Yuko’s final exams Morimiya cooks hot miso soup and ginger-flavoured rice for her breakfast, not the heavy food he served at the start of her final year. He also takes time off work to see Yuko off to school. Yuko sets out in the new coat Morimiya gave her for Christmas. When Yuko receives her results in the mail the first person she wants to tell is Morimiya and goes to meet him after work. She has never seen him with his colleagues before and gets a different impression of him. They go off in search of a good bowl of ramen noodles to celebrate.
Rika had stayed for only two months with Morimiya before moving out. Yuko thought she would visit, as she had when she left the Izumigahara house, but Rika sent divorce papers not long afterwards and informed them that she planned to remarry. Yuko was fifteen at the time and could not understand Rika’s actions; she thinks that maybe Rika did not want her. Yuko plans to stay with Morimiya until she can get a job then find a place of her own to live. Morimiya is surprisingly unfazed by Rika’s departure and the divorce, telling Yuko happily that since she is not there anymore he will be her father. Morimiya is not a blood relative and does not seem very father-like, so Yuko cannot believe he would welcome this turn of events. He reassures her, however, that living with her has made his daily life richer and more full of possibility, and he would not want to lose it. Two years passed and now Yuko is in her third year of high school, the point at which the novel begins. Yuko does not call Morimiya ‘Dad,’ but she is comfortable in her life with him and thinks of this as her home. However, she is determined that the next time she changes her surname it will be by her own choice when she marries.
Section 2
Five years have passed and Yuko is now twenty-two, having graduated from college and started work. She still lives with Morimiya and wants him to meet Hayase, the piano-playing boy from high school who she now wants to marry. Morimiya, however, stubbornly refuses, saying he is in no position to do so as he is not Yuko’s real father and thus cannot sanction the relationship by meeting him.
After graduating from college Yuko found a job with a small business that sells ready-prepared homemade food. It gives her satisfaction to hear customers appreciate the food she is involved in preparing. Hayase had visited the shop by coincidence eight months after she started working there. The moment she shook hands with him, she realized that she had always liked him. Hayase had gone on to study music at university, but then began to think he was more interested in working in the food industry than music, and had quit university to go and learn how to make pizzas in Italy. The year that Yuko started going out with Hayase he announced that he was going to America for three months to learn how to make Hamburger steak. His dream is to open a cosy restaurant where he will also play piano. Morimiya considers Hayase to be a drifter and thinks Yuko should find someone who is more serious about the future. When Hayase comes back from America he proposes to Yuko.
Two weeks after her first attempt to get Morimiya to meet Hayase, Yuko tries again. Morimiya is still adamant about refusing to meet him, so Yuko decides to introduce him to her other parents and obtain their approval first. Her living parents are Morimiya, Izumigahara, Rika, and her birth father Shuhei Mito. However, the whereabouts of Rika, who she has not seen for some time, and her birth father, are a mystery. Yuko and Hayase go to visit Izumigahara. Delighted to see her and hear the news, he orders in sushi and opens sake to celebrate. When Yuko asks where Rika is, Izumigahara reluctantly reveals her location.
Rika, it turns out is in hospital, where Yuko and Hayase go to visit her, and discover when they do that her name is now Rika Izumigahara. She had left the Izumigahara household planning to return and take Yuko to live with her once she had saved up enough money. However, after leaving she had discovered she was ill and therefore thought it best that she retire from being Yuko’s mother. Rika remembered that Yuko had told her how there was nothing more difficult to bear than the death of close family, and did not want to burden Yuko with her own illness and death. Deciding that her former classmate Morimiya would be a more suitable father for Yuko than Izumigahara, she had married him so that she could take Yuko with her. Izumigahara, however, realized that Rika was ill, and had helped her to receive treatment as well as remarried her.
When Yuko leaves the hospital she hands Rika the envelope of money that the landlady had given her so long ago. Rika protests but Yuko believes that this is the right time to use it, for “something special.” After leaving Rika she finds Hayase playing a piano in the hospital lobby. Seeing the people there drawn to his performance, she is struck by the power of his playing to console and reach people’s hearts, and realizes that music is the right career for him, not food.
Yuko then receives a package from Rika containing a stack of unopened letters from her father. Rika writes that she had never given Yuko the letters because she was afraid of Yuko choosing to go back to her father. She also writes that Yuko’s father is remarried with two daughters, and includes his contact details. Yuko cannot hate Rika for what she did, as Rika has always showered her with love. While she is happy to receive the letters and know that her father had always cared for her, she decides not to read them since they were written to her as a young girl, and it would only dredge up regret and bitterness to read them now. She also decides not to contact her father so as not to disturb his life with his second family. Hayase by now is working as a music teacher and pianist.
Yuko goes to meet Hayase’s parents and finds that his mother, who had been against the marriage, is now giving her blessing to it. She shows Yuko a letter from Morimiya, in which he begs Hayase’s mother to change her mind so that he can be released from the campaign Hayase has been conducting to change Morimiya’s mind. Every three days Hayase has been sending letters and recordings of his music to Morimiya. Morimiya sent Hayase’s mother a CD collation of these. She was amazed by how much better they were than when he was studying and playing piano full-time.
Finally the day of the wedding arrives. Rika and Izumigahara are there, along with Yuko’s birth father, Mito. Morimiya had contacted and informed him of the date of Yuko’s wedding after finding and reading the letters. Yuko is happy to see her father again after thirteen years and glad he has come. Morimiya had assumed Mito would walk Yuko down the aisle, but Mito, Rika and Izumigahara all agree it should be Morimiya. Yuko too is thankful to Morimiya, and the two walk down the aisle together, and the baton is passed on to the future.