A novel centered on Kuma-tsume, a hunter living with a dog in a mountain hut, where the distance between humans and beasts and the density of solitude are closely rendered.

Mountain solitude brings the distance from the beast into sharp relief.

University students dragged into a dawn baseball game at the Kyoto Imperial Palace as collateral for a debt get swept into an uncanny match in the Kyoto summer.

In August Kyoto, one impossible pitch sets the story in motion.