Seventeen-year-old Kei Miyama comes from a family with strange abilities. Birds flock to his grandfather as if he is the wind that carries them in the air itself. Kei, on the other hand, can talk to cars and prefers their company to humans—especially women. After moving to Iceland, Kei makes a living there as a freelance detective.
Whether it be resolving lovers' quarrels, locating missing people, or recovering lost items, Kei hops from case to case, traveling alone on the empty roads that span the rugged Icelandic landscape. But the secrets of the land of ice and fire are not the only mysteries ahead that Kei must unravel: an encounter with an aloof Icelandic beauty makes him recall local superstitions of ghosts that roam the wild lands at night.
Nothing to do with the Alfred Hitchcock film.
This series provides examples of:
- Accidental Pervert: Kei, especially around Lilja.
- A-Cup Angst: Lilja experiences this after Kei says that he didn't feel her breasts when he grabbed them while demanding his car keys back when he was sick. During their trip to Laki, she's noticeably self-conscious and insecure over her breasts upon seeing female foreign tourists with larger chests than hers.
- Bilingual Bonus: There's a lot of Icelandic used in the manga.
- But Not Too Foreign: Kei and Michitaka are part-French through their grandfather, Jacques, which explains their height and appearance - Kei has blue eyes, while Michitaka has blonde hair.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Kei, who will pass out from a single glass of vodka.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Lilja initially acts cold and aloof toward Kei as a result of him having twice (accidentally) seen her naked. However, she gradually warms up to him as the series progresses. One pivotal point is when Lilja tends to Kei when he's fallen ill after Michitaka's disappearance, helping him sleep by playing him a lullaby on her cello. Another is their journey to the volcanic fissure of Laki with Kei's grandfather, during which she twists her ankle and Kei carries her on his back.Lilja: "Your footsteps."
Kei: "What?"
Lilja: "They sound so much better than the way you talk."
Kei: [confused] "What the hell?"
[Lilja smiles warmly at Kei, though the latter can't see her.]
Lilja: "Why don't you talk more like this?" - Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Michitaka, maybe.
- Inhumanly Beautiful Race: Played with Lilja. Kei, between dreams, thinks Lilja is a ghost of sorts in their first encounter when she breaks into his stranded jeep; in the second encounter, he sees her naked taking a bath at a pond, not unlike an elf... and later admits to Jacques that he thought she wasn't human.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Kei's grandfather, Jacques, comes from a bloodline with mysterious abilities, which also includes Kei and his younger brother Michitaka. Jacques can talk to birds, Kei can talk to machines, and Michitaka appears to be able to slice people internally by touch if he wants to. Lilja appears to have a similar ability and is able to read people based on the sounds they make, and was able to tell something was off with Michitaka as a result.
- Real Men Eat Meat: Kei just loves meat, a lot.
- Silver Fox: Jacques, who is somewhat of a Chivalrous Pervert, and still able to land relationships with women younger than him, such as Lilja's aunt Katla.
- When She Smiles: Early in the series, Lilja's default expressions when in Kei's presence are either icy stoicism or anger. When Kei's friend Kiyoshi sends pictures of Lilja smiling radiantly to Kei's smartphone, he is utterly dumbstruck, as he cannot believe that the "damn cute" girl with such a lovely smile is Lilja, because "she ain't the type to smile like this," as Kei explains to Kiyoshi.
