[About the Book]

What does it truly mean “to heal”?
Is it simply to remove symptoms? To provide the right answers?
Or is it-to quietly stand beside another person’s life?

This is the story of a young man aspiring to become an acupuncturist, as he continues his search for what true medicine really is.

Without a clear sense of his future, Takurō Kaji enrolls in a vocational school for acupuncture and moxibustion. Through study, clinical training, and encounters with fellow students, he gradually comes to understand the weight of facing the human body-and the lives behind it.

Amid conversations and conflicts with his peers, Kaji finds himself confronting a fundamental question: what does he believe in when he treats others?

A turning point comes with his meeting a blind acupuncturist, Kōdō Hanashima, whose presence greatly broadens Kaji’s perspective. Embodying the idea that “medicine is love,” Hanashima approaches healing not merely as technique or theory, but as a deeply human act-an attitude that begins to transform Kaji from within.

Accessible even to readers unfamiliar with acupuncture or Eastern medicine, this book is a story of mentorship and growth. While exploring the essence and history of acupuncture, it reflects on universal questions: What does it mean to heal? What does it mean to truly stand beside another person?

A quiet yet profound work that asks what it truly means to care for and heal others.


[About the Author]
Mitsuru Inae

Born in 1948 in Kagoshima Prefecture.
Graduated from the Faculty of Law, Hosei University.
After graduating from Kagoshima Acupuncture and Moxibustion Vocational School, opened an acupuncture and moxibustion clinic in Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture. Licensed acupuncturist.