Tsukuru Tazaki feels definable by only two characteristics: his love of train stations and the fact that his 4 friends all abruptly cut ties with him in his 2nd year of university. His friends since high school, 4 'colorful' people with colors in their names, gave him a phone call that announced that they did not want to see or speak to him ever again, with no explanation. Following a period when he was overcome with intense feelings of depression and wanting to die, he befriends a man whose name means 'gray' who also abruptly leaves him. When telling his girlfriend about his past experiences with abandonment, she advises him to seek his friends to be freed from the weight of his resulting feelings. He travels and finds his friends 16 years after their abandonment and learns that one of his friends was murdered and that she accused him of assaulting her which led to his getting cut off. Eventually going all the way to Finland to speak to one of his friends, he learns more about his abandonment and how 'colorless' he really was.