After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, convinced by the discourse of an adoption association, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a baby boy. A few years later, their parenthood is shaken by a threatening unknown girl, Hikari, who pretends to be the child's biological mother. Satoko decides to confront Hikari directly.
It is the 1950’s, and the protagonist, identified only as ‘I,’ has come from Tokyo to study, burdened by the high expectations of his poor family in northeastern Japan. He meets a young woman named Shino who works in a small restaurant in the Komagome area of Tokyo. They fall in love, and he takes her to his family home through the heavy snow for their wedding. He introduces Shino to his elderly parents and his sister; they spend their wedding night together listening to bells ringing on sleighs gliding past across the moonlit snow. The next morning, wrapped in their small world of happiness, they go to a hot spring in the mountains to begin their honeymoon.
