A story collection about women standing just before love or parting. Through the quiet time of preparing to cry, affection, solitude, and the ache of memory emerge in Kaori Ekuni’s clear style.

In the stillness before tears, the end of love and the ache of memory begin to take shape.

A volume in the Kosetsu Hyaku Monogatari series set in the Meiji period, where an aged Mataichi confronts the uncanny and human karma. Using the form of ghost tales, it depicts resentment, salvation, and the settling of human affairs through dense narration.

The uncanny becomes a mirror of human karma as the darkness of Meiji slowly unravels before the aged Mataichi.