Two men on opposite sides of a war that will destroy everything they build together. The show takes that premise seriously, stripping away romance tropes to ask what love actually costs when history won't let you keep it. By the final episode, the cicada shell stops being metaphor and becomes the only thing left to hold onto.

During the late Bakumatsu and early Meiji period, two men stand on opposite sides of Japan's political divide. Touma Kusaka belongs to the Choshu Clan but does not share its hostility toward foreigners. Keiichirou Akizuki, a vassal of the Tokugawa family, once helped Kusaka escape the government authorities. When the two meet again, they begin studying English together in secret. Their meetings are hidden from their feuding families, and romance slowly grows between them. With war approaching between their clans, their duties and bloodlines threaten any hope of a world where they could be together. The result is a three-episode drama and romance of friendship, love, separation and sacrifice.