Gunma Prefecture is the setting of the family inn that determines Daisuké Taniguchi’s place in his family and the rupture that drives him away from it. Though he later builds a life far from home, his refusal to reconcile with his relatives remains consequential after his death, when a letter to Gunma brings his brother Kyoichi to Miyazaki.

The family inn and inheritance

Daisuké was the younger son of the owners of an inn in Ikaho Onsen, a hot-springs town in Gunma Prefecture. His elder brother, the expected heir, had drifted through school and become a troublesome middle-school student, but later attended a private university in Tokyo, studied in America, and returned to the capital to run a restaurant with friends. His parents loved him and spent years urging him to come home; when that failed, they reluctantly looked to Daisuké, whose education and less adventurous temperament made him seem a safer choice to carry on the family business.

Daisuké worked diligently at his father’s company, hoping to console his disappointed parents and earn their confidence. The succession shifted again when his brother’s restaurant failed and he returned burdened by a large debt. Their father agreed to pay it only if the brother took over the inn; their mother supported the arrangement. The parents promised the brothers a division of authority, with the elder son as managing director and Daisuké as vice president. Daisuké’s father was overjoyed, thanked him—the only time he would do so—and Daisuké’s brother promised him the entire inheritance in the future.

The transplant crisis and departure

The family settlement became bound up with the father’s cancer and a proposed transplant. Daisuké wavered over consenting to the procedure, but the cancer progressed faster than expected, and by the time he was ready it was too late. His father died with an expression of intense irritation, almost hatred. The three surviving family members mourned together, but neither his brother nor his mother offered Daisuké comfort for having reached a resolution that could no longer help.

Daisuké later told Rié that he had felt relieved: he had wanted to save his father, yet the more he learned about the operation, the more frightened he became. After the death, he felt that something in him had broken beyond repair. He cut off contact with his family and left town, determined to get as far away as he could and never see them again. He ended his account by saying it would be the last time he spoke about his family.

A place that remains after departure

Gunma persists in Daisuké’s life as a boundary he insists Rié must respect. Because his forestry work was dangerous, they had discussed the possibility of his death. He told her that, even if he died, she must not contact his family in Gunma or associate with them. Rié honored that request through the first anniversary of his death, despite having no place to inter his ashes and wondering whether she should have urged him to make peace with his relatives before his sudden death left so much unfinished.

After consulting her mother and friends, Rié finally wrote to the family in Gunma, principally to ask what should be done about the grave. Kyoichi Taniguchi flew to Miyazaki as soon as the letter reached him. Rié had known him only from a photograph; when he arrived, his conspicuous clothes and distant, arrogant manner differed from the image of Daisuké’s brother she had expected. His arrival turns the distant family home into an immediate presence in Rié’s life: the place Daisuké had left behind answers his widow’s practical question, while reopening the family connection he had forbidden her to make.