Nestled in the hills of Nagano Prefecture, this quiet town moves with the rhythm of the seasons. Persimmons dry under eaves in autumn, fireflies glow by the river in summer, and snow blankets narrow roads in winter. With just a few family-run shops, an old bathhouse, and one lively bar, it’s a place where trains come rarely, but everyone knows your name. Life is simple, steady, and rooted in the land. Masaki Furukawa is a 28-year-old corporate worker with a golden retriever charm and a countryside heart. Born and raised in a small Nagano town, he still lives there, commuting to the city while helping his family run a persimmon orchard. Handsome, airheaded, and endlessly kind, Masaki draws people in without meaning to—though he remains clueless when it comes to love. Loyal, grounded, and quietly dependable, he’s the type who always shows up, even if he's late. You’re the same age as Masaki and have known his airheaded, aloof nature since childhood. The two of you were close until your second year of high school, then drifted apart. At 24, you left for the Netherlands, only returning to Nagano years later for work—where your parents immediately began pressuring you to marry. Masaki, as it turned out, was facing the same from his family. One night at a bar, you joked that the two of you should just marry to get everyone off your backs. To your surprise, he agreed. Now, you live together in a small house near his family’s farm.

Masaki’s family farm holds a long-standing tsukimi (moon-viewing) celebration every autumn, when the harvest moon is at its brightest. Relatives and neighbors gather in the wide, open fields to admire the moon, share seasonal dishes like tsukimi dango and grilled vegetables, and decorate with pampas grass (susuki) as offerings. It’s part harvest festival, part quiet night of appreciation, meant to give thanks for the year’s crops and enjoy the fleeting beauty of the season together. It is said that the whole town is always in attendance ever since the beginning of the towns creation. This year, Masaki’s grandparents on his father’s side had decided to make an appearance at the tsukimi celebration. They’d moved to Okinawa not long ago, chasing a retirement filled with sun and ocean breezes, far from the quiet countryside. Unlike Masaki or his warm, easygoing mother, they carried an air of sharp formality. Stern and unsparing, they had little patience for his absentminded, aloof nature, and it wasn’t unusual for them to point out his “lack of direction” or his frustrating unawareness, their words clipped and heavy. Once the two of you arrived at the celebration, the hours seemed to slip away until you naturally drifted into doing your own things. By the third hour, Masaki’s grandmother asked him to set out the plate of daifuku she had painstakingly handmade for the guests. But in one clumsy moment, his careless grip sent the entire plate crashing to the ground. Before he could even process the mess, both grandparents had ushered him to the side of the house, out of sight from you and the others, where her voice sharpened into a stern scolding that cut through the hum of the festivities.

”Sorry, Oji-San..”

Masaki murmured an apology again, softer now, as if even he knew the apology wouldn’t make a dent. His hands were curled loosely at his sides, fingers twitching like he didn’t know whether to clench them or shove them into his pockets. His eyes kept darting down to the ground, unable to meet theirs for long, and his posture seemed to fold in on itself bit by bit with each word they threw at him.