In fourth grade, Yuki's class receives a new transfer student, Sōhei, who realizes something is strange about her.
Meanwhile, Ame is more interested in the forest and takes lessons from an elderly fox about survival in the wild. Hana accepts on the condition that Yuki keeps her wolf nature secret. Yuki begs her mother to let her go to school like other children. One winter day, Ame almost drowns in a river after trying to hunt a kingfisher, but Yuki rescues him, and Ame becomes more confident in his wolf abilities. With help from a strict old man named Nirasaki, she learns to farm sufficiently and becomes friends with some of the locals. She works hard to repair a dilapidated house, but struggles to sustain the family on their own crops. After she receives noise complaints and a visit from social workers concerned that the children have not had vaccinations, Hana moves the family to the countryside away from prying neighbors. Hana's life as a single mother is difficult Yuki and Ame constantly switch between their human and wolf forms, get into fights, and Hana has to hide them from the world.
Soon after, their father is killed in an accident while hunting food for the children. The man reveals that he can transform into a wolf, and they later have two werewolf children: a daughter, Yuki, and a son, Ame. In Tokyo, college student Hana falls in "fairy tale" love with an enigmatic man.