Yuto Claims His Father’s Name
A ManYuto’s attachment to the Taniguchi name reveals his grief for Makoto and develops into a more honest relationship with Rié.
increasing
Bearing strength in each event
decreasing
A Name He Wants to Keep

The Hidden Concern
A quiet refusal
Yuto tells Rié he does not want to stop being called Taniguchi after she announces her return to Takemoto.
More than convenience
The name connects him to the father who raised him. Yuto fears that losing it will reduce Makoto to a temporary husband.
Grief Finally Spoken

The Son’s Confession
A delayed loss
Yuto admits that he still misses his father and comes home with questions he can no longer ask.
A mother listens
Rié recognizes that she cannot dismiss his grief just because he has seemed composed. Their conversation begins to repair an unspoken distance.
Learning the Name Was False

A Family Story Unravels
The revelation
At Burial Mound Park, Rié tells Yuto that his father used Daisuké Taniguchi’s name and that his account of Ikaho Onsen belonged to another man.
A shaken identity
Yuto asks what his own surname means now. His distress comes from fear of losing a father, not merely from the discovery of a lie.
Literature as a Passage

A Private Inner Life
Reading and writing
Yuto turns to Akutagawa and composes a prize-winning haiku about a cicada shell and the voice of the life that left it.
Grief made shareable
His literary interests let Rié glimpse an interior world she cannot reach through ordinary questions. He finds his own means of enduring loss.
Making a Place for Makoto

A Stepson Understands
Compassion replaces suspicion
Yuto reads Makoto’s history and recognizes that his kindness toward him may have come from giving a child what he wished his own father had given him.
A shared decision
He agrees with Rié to place Makoto with Ryo and her father. The family name changes, but Yuto’s bond with his father remains.
Opening ceremony morning, fall 2013
That morning
Late October 2013
The months after the revelation
After reading Kido’s report