Aoi Hinata sits on a bench as a young girl, clutching a broken record, while a mysterious boy named Riku Hasegawa appears and promises to fix it. Cut to the present, where university student Aoi Hinata jolts awake in the middle of class, the memory of the summer before her study abroad to London still echoing in her mind. The film follows her and a tight-knit group of friends—Naoya Naoya Matsuda, Tetsuta Nakamura, and her childhood confidant Riku Hasegawa—as they rehearse in a band, dream of a big show, and navigate the playful ache of unspoken feelings.
From the outset there’s a quiet tension: Aoi senses a cool distance from Riku Hasegawa, yet she clings to the hope of staying friends through the summer. The band’s practice runs smoothly until Riku suddenly has other plans, leaving his friends puzzled about his priorities. As they plan for a concert on Sunday, July 31, the crew posters and paints its citywide presence, while Aoi and Rina Sagara—not officially part of the band but always around for the practices—watch as Riku keeps others at arm’s length. The tension thickens when Naoya tries to confess his own feelings for Aoi in front of everyone, only to stumble through the moment, leaving Aoi caught between her lingering affection for Riku and a growing bond with Naoya.
The trio of friends—Naoya, Tetsuta Nakamura, and Riku—continues their day, the crew sharing casual banter and shared dreams, even as Aoi wrestles with a creeping sense that something fundamental is shifting between her and Riku. During a quiet moment, Aoi and Riku work on a new song at Riku’s house; she discovers a mysterious record and a player tucked away in his closet. Riku admonishes her not to touch the record, hinting that some things should stay unseen. They finish the song, their hands brushing in the process, and a troubling line about “if I ever disappear, you should be happy with Naoya” nudges Aoi toward a crushing doubt. The day of the concert arrives, and Aoi’s unsettled focus sabotages what could be a breakthrough performance. She storms out in tears, still clutching a fragment of their lyrics, and, as she chases it into the street, a truck blurs into view and everything goes dark.
When Aoi wakes, she’s back in that same classroom, but nothing feels the same. The day loops again—practice, more signs of Riku’s reserved behavior, and a growing realization that Rina’s affection for Naoya has shifted the dynamic in unexpected ways. Aoi insists there’s a paradox she’s trapped in, and the world around her grows increasingly brittle with repetition. A memory surfaces—Riku’s casual remark about needing to be alone—and Aoi confronts him. He meets her gaze, and in a further twist of fate, reveals a truth that sounds almost unbelievable: he has a way to travel back in time, using the record player of life to rewind the day. He demonstrates by guiding Aoi’s hand to the needle, and she wakes again, this time aware that she has already lived through the same events.
The revelation uncorks a cascade of backstory. The boy who appeared on the bench as a child—Riku Hasegawa—was indeed tampering with time, and his earliest act had nothing romantic at all: he used the record to gift a future where Aoi wouldn’t let heartbreak derail her. He recalls the moment when young Aoi broke her late father’s record and sought help to fix it; his uncle’s shop became the stage for a desperate, time-bending intervention that allowed him to play the guitar and serenade her, solidifying his quiet, enduring devotion. He confesses that his feelings for Aoi have always been real, and that his ability to rewind isn’t simply about avoiding pain—it’s a way to defend the moment when she feels most seen. Yet even with the ability to return to the past, he admits it hasn’t truly changed the core fate they face.
As Aoi’s memories fracture and reform, she learns something crucial from Goro Oishi (the actor behind the unnamed University Professor): time travel can alter surface details, but it cannot truly rewrite a life’s essential arc without cost. The pair grows closer, and a tender montage follows their public embrace at the summer festival, their friends cheering as their relationship blossoms and the couple begins to finally acknowledge the depth of their connection. The two of them become a symbol of hope and possibility, even as the world continues to threaten their fragile happiness. The summer soon moves toward holidays, gifts, and a necklace that Riku Hasegawa quietly places around Aoi’s neck, signaling that their bond has become something worth fighting for.
Yet the cruel truth dawns as the timeline fractures again: the day before a second crucial concert, Riku’s unease grows. Aoi, still planning to study in London, cannot ignore the sense that time itself is pressing in on them. During the performance, the band achieves a triumph, but the joy is hollow for Riku as he notices Aoi’s absence and the ambulance’s distant wail. In this moment, the truth of their loop tightens around them: Aoi dies, and the world resets. The time loops reveal that Riku’s “fixes” have not saved her life; they have merely dragged Aoi into an endless sequence of replays, with Riku repeatedly replaying the moment of her death to try to alter the outcome.
Aoi awakens again in class, and this time the truth about Riku’s time-skipping becomes undeniable. She learns—through a careful, painful investigation—that Riku has revisited the day of her death countless times. He has even discussed time with a professor and exposed himself to the same questions and doubts again and again. As Aoi’s suspicion shifts toward anger and heartbreak, Riku sits with his uncle and speaks of the cost of changing the present. The uncle reveals a parallel story: his own wife faced cancer and felt distant, yet he could not stop time from bending to his will; in the end, he realizes that time travel cannot heal what truly matters. What changes fate, the uncle implies, is choosing what to hold dear in the present.
Moved by these revelations, Riku makes a quiet resolve: he will stop trying to fix the unfixable and instead focus on living in the moment with Aoi. He apologizes to Naoya and Tetta for lashing out, then seeks out the resources—fireworks, friends, and a new song—to give Aoi one last, unbroken chance at happiness. He races to the fireworks man, begs for a final, perfect moment, and meets Aoi on a hill, where she admits she fears the day she must say goodbye. Riku reassures her that they will face the uncertainties together, and they decide to finish their song not as a re-done past but as a new present. They hurry back to the festival, and with the crowd cheering, they premiere a brand-new song that finally contains a line they had long dreamed of singing aloud.
When the final chorus fades and the fireworks bloom, Aoi gazes at the night sky and realizes this is the moment she has always wanted—the moment in which life, love, and time align. The film shifts to a quiet, haunting epilogue: Aoi’s voice plays once more through a final message to Riku, recorded on a record that circulates through the shop. In a mix of sorrow and sweetness, Aoi’s message encourages him to live a full life and to keep loving—the gift she leaves him on what could be his 100th birthday. The aftertaste is bittersweet: Aoi, having touched so many lives, has passed away, but her words breathe a new life into Riku. In the closing scenes, he returns to his classroom, sits with his friends, runs the record shop, and plays in the band, each action a small, bright testament to the memory of the love that carried him through the hardest days. He clutches the memory of the bench by the ocean where they once dreamed aloud, and as the screen fades to black, the bench remains empty, facing the vast sea, a quiet reminder that some stories end not with a single conclusion but with the ongoing rhythm of living well after goodbye.
