After spending sixteen years in prison for a crime of the heart, Shiro Kikutani is released into a world he no longer recognizes. He must readjust to the bright stimulus of Tokyo while fending off his own dark memories. he navigates his way through the unsuspected traumas of freedom - finding a job, finding a home, coping with the purchase and use of unfamiliar possessions. The numbing repetition of his daily life is comforting - until he is inexorably drawn back to the scene of his crime.