Medical equipment salesman Kotaro Soyogi is leading an unfulfilling life, chasing sales quotas and doctors' approval, when his hospitalized mother dies suddenly. With no knowledge of funeral procedures, he is directed to Sosuke Shie, the disheveled but deeply devoted owner of Shie Funeral Home. Sosuke, a former detective who now chain-smokes his way through work, guides Kotaro through his first experience as a mourner. The funeral becomes a turning point: Kotaro is so moved by Sosuke's professionalism and compassion that he quits his job and joins the funeral home as an apprentice.

As a new hire, Kotaro—nicknamed Bon—often stumbles through his duties, earning scoldings from Sosuke and patient guidance from the quiet senior employee Fumiko Mori, who handles both accounting and the delicate craft of encoffinment. Together, the three form an unlikely team, taking on a wide variety of cases: the funeral of an elderly man who died alone, a family determined to conduct a DIY funeral, the corporate mournings of a large company, the death of a young athlete from bone cancer, and other stories that explore grief, debt, and unresolved family ties. Each case forces Kotaro to confront his own lingering trauma—his father's death and the unsettling image of his mother eating the cremated bones—and slowly understand that a funeral is not simply a ceremony but a final act of love and closure for the living.

Sosuke, though gruff and often reckless, is a consummate professional who insists that a funeral director must serve both the dead and the bereaved with unwavering sincerity. Under his mentorship, Kotaro learns the practical realities of the trade: the forms, costs, legal boundaries, and the emotional weight of handling a corpse. Despite his own terminal illness, which he tries to hide, Sosuke pushes Kotaro to take on independent responsibilities, culminating in the funeral of a friend's grandmother—an event that forces Kotaro to step up and prove his worth. Through tears, anger, and stumbling, Kotaro grows from a lost office worker into a man who can hold a family's last goodbye. As the final volume closes, the apprentice has begun to stand on his own, and Sosuke's legacy of compassion is carried forward.