Shiroi Haru

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get into this drama at all, but episode 7 just made me cry. Abe Hiroshi's acting is so good in this one T___T.

The story is about a yakuza member, Sakura Haruo, who wants to quit in order to find a good job to take care of his sick girlfriend, but when the gang does not allow him to leave, he is given a chance to earn $8 million yen for her medical fees if he kills a boss from a rival gang. In the assassination attempt, he hurts his knee, succeeds in killing the target, and ends up going to jail. After nine years, he comes out to find that the woman he loved is dead when the money he killed for should have saved her.

He sets out to look for the man he thinks is responsible for her death, but discovers that he is an honest-working baker, and on top of that, the man has been raising his daughter, Sachi, for the past eight years. Though the baker tries to get Haruo to leave, but a twist of fate lands him a job at the very same bakery. He gets to see his daughter more and more, but is pained that he was not there to see her grow up all these years. And with his girlfriend dead, he feels as though he's wasted the last nine years of his life, but there is nothing he can do to change it.

As he works at the bakery, he watches how the baker interacts with his "daughter" and ends up giving the man pointers on how to raise Sachi better. Because Haruo cannot tell Sachi that he is actually her father, he can only be fatherly through these means. Meanwhile, Sachi grows closer to Haruo than with the man who raised her and this makes the baker very nervous and jealous. Haruo complies with all the baker's wishes, but he still wants to do all he can for his daughter, and everytime he sees a moment where her affections should have been directed towards him, but instead are given to her "father," he feels pained and very sad.

The story is pretty heart-breaking in a poignant way. Haruo only killed someone, because he wanted to do it for his girlfriend, Mariko, and when Mariko discovered that she was pregnant, she wanted to give birth to the baby regardless if it killed her or not because she loved Haruo so much. Kanako, Mariko's younger sister, and Murakami, the baker, both really love and care about Sachi very much, always wanting the best for her to the point where they treat Haruo badly because of his past crime and abandoning Mariko when she was pregnant -- though he didn't know it at the time. Haruo also wants the best for Sachi, so that's why even though they're so close to each other, he doesn't tell her that he's her real father because his hands are dirty.

My heart really breaks with some of these moments. It's just so sad T___T, but it's so good too. I really didn't know how sucked in I would get, but I'm definitely sucked in now T__T