Opens with a journalist reporting on the 1997 Kobe earthquake, as he remembers a trip made as a young boy. Then, he and family took a boat trip from Awaji to Beppu in order to bury the ashes of his elder brother, killed in the just-ended WWII. The lad spends much of the trip trying to talk his elder brother out of running away. They encounter an array of characters on the journey. Most prominent among them a black marketeer who, like the elder brother, feels that the "new ways" can only benefit him, and work against the boys' father, who is strict and traditional.