Synopsis

Based on the novel by Maruya Saiichi.
 
At the age of 45, Hamada Shokichi lives a quiet and uneventful life as an assistant section chief at a private university having buried the painful memories of his past. But when he receives news of the death of Yuki Akiko, the woman he once loved, long-suppressed memories come flooding back.
 
During the war, 20 year-old Hamada had committed the crime of draft evasion by ignoring his conscription order and disappearing without a trace. Fleeing from military police and slipping through networks of informants, he wandered across Japan in constant fear for his life.
Amid those extreme circumstances, he encountered an older woman named Yuki Akiko. The two fell in love and began traveling together on a perilous journey, never knowing what the next day might bring.
 
Twenty years later, amid Japan’s rapid economic growth, Hamada Shokichi has buried his wartime past and built a peaceful life with his wife, Yoko, while working at a private university. But after winning a promotion battle against his rival, Nishi, a right-wing magazine suddenly exposes Hamada’s history as a draft evader – a scandal orchestrated by Nishi himself.
 
As pressure and suspicion spread throughout the university, Hamada is forced to confront both his hidden past and the question that has haunted him since youth: was he a courageous anti-war dissenter, or simply a traitor who ran away?
As his carefully constructed life begins to unravel, Hamada must finally face the man he once was and uncover the truth he has been searching for since his youth.