In Kyoto in the 1970s, a calligrapher delicately writes a greeting on his daughter's face on her birthday. When she becomes a woman, the daughter Nagiko remembers the event with excitement and searches hard to find an ideal calligrapher-lover to use her whole body as his paper. In Hong Kong she meets Jerome, an English translator who convinces her that she should be the pen and not the paper - she should write on his body and he will carry her writing on his skin to a publisher. Based on the book by Sei Shonagon.