Kafuku leads a quiet life, working as an actor six days a week with no friends and a strict routine. He loves driving his SAAB, but his theater requires him to a hire a driver after a minor accident leads him to discover a bit of glaucoma in his eye, creating a blindspot on his right side. Though Kafuku is rather suspicious of female drivers, his mechanic suggests Misaki, a homely, strong and quiet woman and excellent driver.

Kafuku hires Misaki and their working relationship goes smoothly, talking little as he prefers. Sitting in the passenger seat he thinks of his dead wife who used to drive with him, a beautiful actress and superb lifelong partner. The one thing Kafuku can't stop thinking about, though, is the string of affairs she conducted during their marriage. He doesn't understand why she needed to see other men given how satisfying their relationship was.

Misaki breaks the silence one day to ask him why he became an actor and why he has no friends. Kafuku tells her he hasn't felt a need for friends since marriage, and the only friend he's had since his wife's passing was one of her lovers, an actor named Takatsuki. He initiated the friendship because he wanted to understand why his wife would sleep with him, but as they continued meeting up and talking about her he found the opportunity to conjoin sorrows for catharsis. Eventually, realizing what a heavy drinker this Takatsuki was, he tried to get his defenses low enough to confess to the affair. He was hoping to uncover some flaw or drama to destroy Takatsuki's reputation, as punishment for the affair. But he didn't and eventually he broke off the friendship, his rage having died down. He never did find out why his wife fell for the man - but then, Misaki suggested, maybe she slept with him precisely because she hadn't fallen for him. Women can be like that, she says.