Kotonoha no Niwa

On a rainy Tokyo morning, Takao Akizuki skips school and retreats to a quiet garden where he can sketch the shoes he hopes to make someday. There he meets Yukari Yukino, an older woman who spends rainy mornings alone and answers ordinary questions with strangely poetic evasions. They know little about one another, yet meeting whenever it rains soon becomes a ritual both quietly anticipate.

Takao offers to make Yukari a pair of shoes, and through measurements and small conversations the wounds that drove each of them away from ordinary life begin to surface. The rainy season cannot last forever, however, and the garden cannot remain a world separate from everything outside it. When the sky finally clears, Takao and Yukari must face the problems the rain allowed them to postpone.