Kaori Kishitani

Inako Natsui is a quiet, modern girl working in a laboratory and living a closed and somewhat monotonous life in a small town. From time to time she goes to nearby to visit her lonely mother Wakayama who has been a widow for the past seventeen years. The girl's relatives, particularly Aunt Sadako and Uncle Shuhei, the local mayor's deputy, plan to introduce her to a suitable young man, but Inako has no real desire to get married. She is more interested in the hot mineral springs from where she takes her laboratory specimens. This all changes when she meets Mr Tamamiza, a young divorced man who's been left with a little boy. Her relatives are decidedly against the match. The girl falls in love with the man without realizing that she will encounter a painful conflict between her family and providence, as unexpectedly as the spring which gushes out from the geological fold, driven to the surface by mysterious subterranean forces.

塩野陽平は東京の大学生。ロックバンドを組み、ボーカルとして活躍していたが、実家の寺を継ぐために弟の郁生と田舎の禅寺・明軽寺に入ることになる。しかし彼を待ち構えていたのは厳しい修行の日々であった。個性あふれる先輩坊主たちに囲まれながら毎日を送る陽平の元に、かつてのバンド仲間のアツシがやって来る。そして陽平の恋人だった真朱がつきあい始めたと聞かされる。不安に陥る陽平の前に、真朱が現れる。