When she gets there, she sees a boy her age reading it. "Is this your book?" he says, and Suzuku nods. "There you go...Tsukishima Shizuku." When she asks how he knew her name, he replies that it was on the card. He also thinks she should give up on "Concrete Road", upsetting Shizuku, who mutters "jerk" under her breath all the way home.

Later that night, Shizuku’s older sister Shiho comes home, and admonishes Shizuku for leaving the apartment in such a mess when their parents are out. Between the two of them, they straighten things up and prepare dinner.

The girls are all having lunch together in Kousaka-sensei’s office and are chiding Shizuku over the possibility she finally has met her "Prince of Books" - the boy she seems to share the same literary interests in. When pressed, Shizuku will not reveal his name, only commenting that she wondered what kind of boy he was. They ask Yuko, but she is unable to remember his name. Shizuku deflects the topic of the conversation by presenting her draft of "Country Road" to the group, and they give it a test singing.

After class, Shizuku is happy to see that the skies have cleared and the sun is out. Yuko asks Shizuku to come with her to the Chorus Club to work on the lyric translation, but Shizuku replies that she has to go to the library. Sugimura appears, and asks Yuko is she has a minute...

Meanwhile, Shizuku has gone back to the store she visited the other day, only to find it closed. She sees a sign on the side, presenting the shop as Atelier Chikyuuya - The Studio Earth Shop and Shirou Nishi as the proprietor. She turns around and goes home.

At home, Shiho yells for Shizuku, informing her that she has a phone call from Yuko. She meets her outside and Yuko tells her that a friend of Sugimura was the boy who wrote her the love letter and that he asked Sugimura to get an answer from her. Next is a flashback of Yuko exclaiming how Sugimura could say such a thing, with Sugimura looking confused over the situation.

Shizuku remarks that Sugimura may be thick, but that he also does not know how Yuko feels about him. Yuko says she will apologize to him for her words, but that she is too distressed to go to school tomorrow, even though it means missing an exam.

The next morning, Shizuku is running in the rain, late for school. Sugimura meets her and exhorts her to run faster, but she tells him to run on ahead. When she gets to class, she is relieved to see that the first hour is unsupervised self-study, so there are no teachers to catch her tardiness. Yuko remarks that Shizuku was seen with walking with Seiji last night and that it has been going around that the two of them look like a couple. Sugimura comes up to Yuko and apologizes to her regarding the matter with his friend, and Yuko also apologizes for her actions towards him.

Once class is dismissed, Seiji appears at the doorway and asks to see Shizuku. The class immediately erupts into chants of "Boyfriend! Boyfriend!" Shizuku is upset at them, but Seiji takes her upstairs to the roof where he excitedly tells her that his parents have allowed him to go to Italy to study as an apprentice for two months at studio that a friend of his grandfather’s introduced him to. This way, the master can see if Seiji has the talent to be a violinmaker and Seiji can see if he has the self-confidence to see him through. If it does not work out, then he comes home and goes to high school. Shizuku asks when he leaves, and Seiji replies as soon as his passport and visas are secured, and that his father and he are talking with the school about it later that day.

As Shizuku and Seiji talk, the rest of the class creeps up the stairway to the door to listen to them. However, the crush from below gets too much and the door crashes open and they all spill out onto the roof, earning them the Ire of Tsukishima.

After dinner, Shizuku goes over to Yuko’s house. In Yuko’s room, Shizuku says that if Seiji is accepted to the school, he will be living in Italy until his early-twenties. For her part, Yuko feels that Shizuku should be encouraging him, but Shizuku says she cannot encourage someone who has been striving more than her for so long. Yuko asks Shizuku if she has not decided on what she wants to do with her life, does it also mean she cannot fall in love? She tells Shizuku that she has real talent, and that the chorus club really likes her "Country Road" translation.

Shizuku mentions that Seiji told her he was going to Italy to make sure he has talent. And if that is the case, so shall she. She decides then and there that she is going to write a story and she thanks Yuko and heads for home. As she walks home, she sees Moon walking from a house. A little girl calls after him, referring to him as "Muta".

At home, Shizuku takes out a piece of paper and starts to write her story, titled "If You Listen Closely" (Note: Though the "official" English title for this film is "Whisper of the Heart", the actual translation of "Mimi wo Sumaseba" is "If You Listen Closely").

Shizuku’s concentration on the story is starting to affect both her schoolwork and home life. She is staying up till early morning each night writing, marking off the days until Seiji returns and her story is complete. As her grades start to slip, she and Shiho get into a fight over Shizuku’s future. Their father and mother sit Shizuku down and ask her what she is doing. Shizuku replies that she has to finish her project in the next three weeks, and her parents decide to indulge her.

That night, Shiho tells Shizuku that she will be moving out soon, and that Shizuku needs to shape up to help their mother as she finishes her Masters thesis since Shiho will not be home anymore.

Shizuku dreams of walking along a path of gemstones in a dark woods while the voice of the Baron urges her to hurry and choose the genuine stone. Shizuku makes her selection, and is repulsed at finding a dead chick in her hands.

At Chikyuuya, Nishi-san dreams of his Louise, only to be awakened by the arrival of Shizuku, who delivers the completed manuscript of "If You Listen Closely". She asks him to read it immediately, so he closes the shop and settles down by the fire, while Shizuku goes down to the workshop. She sees Seiji’s work desk empty, and goes outside to watch the sun set over the city.

Hours later, Nishi-san appears on the porch and tells her it was very good. Shizuku calls him a liar, and starts to point out the flaws she feels the book has. He replies that it is indeed rough and unfinished, like a freshly quarried stone. But he tells her that he can see the gem inside, and as she works to polish the story, the gem will come to the surface. Shizuku admits that she knows that just writing is no good and that she has to study more, but that she felt that Seiji was always going on ahead of her, that she would finish the story no matter what.

Nishi-san notes that Shizuku obviously likes Seiji and takes her inside and prepares a dinner of ramen for them. After dinner, Nishi relates to Shizuku the story of how he acquired the statue of the Baron. He had found the doll in a local café when he was studying abroad in Germany, and offered to buy it from the proprietor. However, the proprietor replied that the doll was part of a set, and the noblewoman doll was out for repairs and he could not separate the two lovers.

Shizuku remarks that it is just like her story, and Nishi-san agrees with the similarities. He continues, saying a woman who was with him offered a proposal. Nishi-san could take the Baron doll with him back to Japan, and the woman would claim the noblewoman statue when it was repaired and then they could reunite both the dolls and each other. The proprietor agreed and Nishi-san left Germany with the Baron. However, World War II started shortly thereafter and he was unable to return to Germany until the war’s end. When he did, he could not find the woman. He hands over the beryl stone to Shizuku, and tells her to do a solid job of finishing the writing of her own story.

Shizuku returns home and promises her mother that she will return to studying and improving her grades to get into a good high school.

As the end credits finish, we see Sugimura and Yuko walk by hand in hand...