Keiko Kuromura, born into the Hojo family, emerges as a pivotal figure shaped by intricate familial bonds and the ravages of war. Widowed and returning to her childhood home in Kure with her daughter Harumi, she grapples with the aftermath of her son Hisao’s custody being retained by her late husband’s family—a legal severance that fuels simmering resentment and sorrow. Once a 1920s "modern girl" embracing progressive ideals and urban flair, her postwar existence starkly contrasts this past, as she navigates rigid societal norms alone.

Her initial antagonism toward Suzu arises from perceiving her as a conventional interloper threatening fragile family equilibriums, intensified by bitterness over her own diminished autonomy following widowhood. Tragedy compounds these tensions when a delayed-action bomb kills Harumi and injures Suzu during an air raid, prompting Keiko to direct fleeting blame toward her sister-in-law. This loss deepens her estrangement from Hisao and amplifies the weight of wartime privations. Yet, as survival demands collaboration, shared trials—rationing, relentless bombings—slowly erode her defenses.

Early interactions, marked by critiques of Suzu’s domestic ineptitude, mirror Keiko’s unhealed wounds. However, the relentless crucible of war forges unexpected alliances. Through scavenging resources and enduring chaos side by side, their relationship evolves from friction to fragile camaraderie. By the narrative’s end, Keiko tacitly acknowledges Suzu’s indispensable role in preserving their fractured household.

Her story unfolds against the backdrop of Kure’s naval base, food shortages, and Allied bombings, grounding her pragmatic resilience in historical immediacy. The war’s external pressures reshape her once-unyielding demeanor, charting a path from guarded isolation to tenuous solidarity—a testament to adaptation amidst collapse, where collective survival gradually mends fractured bonds.