No Medicine for Falling in Love

"No Medicine for Falling in Love" takes place five years after the first volume of the trilogy. Tomoko has left her husband and living on her own she is now working for Yumiko who in turn has become CEO of a lifestyle company. While Tomoko is flirting with Yumiko’s new female secretary, Yumiko herself is initiating a steamy office romance with one of her young male employees. Unfortunately, professional headwinds are blowing her way because she stood her ground against an influential but sexist politician, Mr. Kuroda, hellbent on harassing her after being rejected. Hoping to get some help in her brush with Kuroda, she reconnects with her old yakuza friend, Shoko, who has advanced to the powerful position of senior advisor to her clan boss. This proves to be no trivial matter, and Shoko learns just how dangerous powerful men can be when they feel slighted. A new character, Linda, is introduced. She is a middle-aged Danish high school teacher who is having a midlife crisis after her children left the nest, leaving her and her husband to experiment with an open relationship to save their failing marriage. She decides to visit Tokyo on a working holiday with the hidden agenda of experiencing the erotic underworld of the megacity firsthand to infuse her life with new passion. She gets employed as a hostess at an upscale Roppongi bar called The Library where she encounters several high-ranking Japanese VIP club members, one of whom is the Foreign Ministry Press Secretary, Tanaka. Surprising even herself, she gradually falls in love with him, and her erotic agenda turns into a classic romance with Linda baring her soul and being almost transformed by the other-worldly power of true love. In a bit of a cliff-hanger, she leaves Tokyo in the end but promises Tanaka to return.