An Autumn Afternoon

Long widowed middle aged Shuhei Hirayama is professionally successful as an executive at a factory. He has a different relationship with each of his three adult offspring. The eldest, Koichi Hirayama, married to Akiko and living on their own, is the spoiled one who is not averse to asking his father for money, which Shuhei is more than willing to give, instead of spending the money he himself makes which does not sit well with Akiko. The latest such request by Koichi is money to replace their refrigerator, while asking for a little more than the price of refrigerator so that he can buy a nice set of used golf clubs from a friend. The only daughter, twenty-four year old Michiko Hirayama, still lives at home to take care of her father and her younger brother, Kazuo Hirayama, a role all of the Hirayama men expect of her especially at this moment in time in neither Shuhei or Kazuo having any other female in their life to take care of them. Michiko also has this own expectation of herself in not seeing her father or younger brother being able to care for themselves; she figures she can and will eke out her own personal life away from them when and if the situation changes to be able to do so. While never having thought about it before, Shuhei, due to things going on around him, begins to believe that it may be time for Michiko to have that life of her own by getting married. Many of the young women at Shuhei's office of Michiko's age are getting married. One of Shuhei's close friends from school, equally successful Kawai, knows a young man who he believes would be suitable husband material for Machiko. But arguably the biggest factor in Shuhei's change of heart is he, Kawai and a third school chum, Professor Horie, reuniting with one of their teachers, Sakuma, nicknamed the Gourd, who, long widowed, has ended up a sad, lonely old man in only having a life with his own daughter, she equally sad in never having married to take care of her father. Shuhei also sees that Horie has remarried, and among the three friends is outwardly the most demonstrative in his emotions arguably in being the happiest. Michiko may have her own thoughts about her father's want for her to marry.