Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a cellist in an orchestra in Tokyo, loses his job because of the dissolution of the orchestra. After quitting as a professional cellist he decides to sell his cello (which had cost him 18 million yen), and to move back to his old hometown, Sakata, Yamagata, with his wife (with whom he had chosen not to discuss the cost of his instrument). She passively but sweetly accepts both his deception and his wish to sell the cello and move.
Once back in his old hometown, Daigo finds a classified advertisement for "Assisting departures" for an "NK Agency." He goes to the job interview, still uncertain of the job's nature but desperate for a job. The word "departures" in the ad has him thinking that perhaps it is for a job at a travel agency. Instead, after being unceremoniously hired on the spot after only one question ("Will you work hard?") and being handed a large sum of money in an "advance," he discovers that NK is an abbreviation for "encoffinment" (納棺, nōkan?) and that the job involves assisting the "departed" by ceremonially preparing the dead in front of mourners before their bodies are placed in a coffin. The salary is 500,000 yen per month, a large sum of money to Daigo. With the cash in hand, and being assured by his new boss that this is "fate," Daigo more fails to decline rather than accepts the job offer. He comes home to his wife with an expensive bag of meat as a celebration, but he finds himself unable to admit the type of work he will be doing; he dissembles, saying that he is to be employed performing some sort of ceremony, which his wife guesses might include weddings, but which he avoids further describing.
