Content Warning: This section of the guide references domestic violence, suicidal ideation, and sexual abuse, including rape, commercial sexual exploitation of children, and child sexual abuse, which feature in the source text.

On the train to Tokyo Station, 30-year-old Natsuko “Natsu” Natsume contemplates how you can always tell whether someone grew up poor by asking them about the number of windows in their home. If they describe having no windows, or only one or two windows with no distinguishing features, then they were poor. Natsu herself was born into poverty and remains poor. Since moving to Tokyo at the age of 20, she’s worked a minimum-wage job to support her struggling writing career.

At Tokyo Station, Natsu awaits the arrival of her older sister, 39-year-old Makiko, and her 12-year-old niece, Midoriko. Natsu and Makiko grew up in a derelict apartment in Osaka. Their father was a lazy and abusive man who contributed nothing to the household and beat them often. When Natsu was seven, he abandoned the family, whereupon they moved in with Natsu’s grandmother Komi.

When Natsu was a teenager, both her mother and Komi died of cancer only years apart.