Ayumi Yamagishi and Katsuo Ebihara have been a couple since their university days and have lived together for about six years. Katsuo, who holds a patriarchal belief that cooking is a woman's duty, enjoys the daily elaborate home-cooked meals Ayumi prepares while she consistently prioritizes his needs and comfort, often at the expense of her own identity. Confident in the stability of their relationship, Katsuo proposes marriage, fully expecting her acceptance. To his shock, Ayumi refuses, leading directly to their breakup.

Following the separation, Katsuo is forced to confront the domestic void left by Ayumi's absence. His journey of self-reconstruction begins in the kitchen, where he starts learning to cook for himself, an act that makes him reexamine the daily labor and sacrifices he had previously taken for granted. The narrative follows his struggle as a perfectionist facing an unexpected setback, trying to understand where his assumptions about relationships went wrong.

Simultaneously, Ayumi embarks on her own path of self-discovery. Having spent years molding herself to fit Katsuo's expectations, she begins to explore her own preferences and desires. She meets Minato, a younger, charming clerk at a liquor store who shows a genuine and aggressive interest in her. Unlike her previous relationship, Minato encourages her to speak her mind and acknowledges her needs, such as enjoying strong drinks and expressing dislike for sweets, forcing her to reconsider the passive role she once accepted.

The manga explores the parallel growth of both protagonists after their rupture. Key narrative arcs include Katsuo's humbling journey from a man who criticized homemade lunches as "defrosted bento" to someone who must create his own meals from scratch. Another arc follows Ayumi as she attempts to form a new relationship with Minato, struggling to break her habit of self-effacement and learning to communicate her true feelings instead of suppressing them to please her partner. The story uses the intimate act of cooking and eating together as a lens to examine gendered expectations, the hidden labor in domestic partnerships, and the difficult process of redefining oneself after a long-term relationship ends. The manga is written by Natsuko Taniguchi.