Yuta Takemoto, Takumi Mayama, and Shinobu Morita are three students sharing an apartment while attending the same art college in Tokyo. Their everyday routines are disrupted when they meet Hagumi Hanamoto, a relative of art professor Shuji Hanamoto, who has come to live with him and enroll at the same college. Yuta and Shinobu both quickly develop feelings for Hagu, but while Yuta tries to keep his affection hidden and remain her friend, Shinobu expresses his love so openly that he sometimes frightens her. Also part of their circle is Ayumi Yamada, a ceramics student known as the “Iron Lady,” who soon becomes close to Hagu and works part-time at her family’s sake shop. Though popular with men, Ayumi is in love with Takumi, who sees her only as a friend. Takumi, in turn, is drawn to Rika Harada, a widow and friend of Professor Hanamoto who is many years his senior and runs the architectural studio she founded with her late husband. The story follows the characters through their overlapping love triangles, unrequited feelings, graduation, job hunting, and the search for their own paths in life.
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