The series starts with the funeral of Subaru's parents, with him at his lowest.
Also doubles as a Heartwarming Moment, but episode 3 revolves around Subaru coming to terms with his parents' death and their love for him. This was after Haru starts jumping wildly around and accidentally knocking over a few things relating to his parents which draws Subaru's attention towards them, including a photo album of all of his parents trips his mother's notes within leads to the realization that all of parents' efforts to try and get him to go on their trips was because they chose those spots for him to enjoy.. Once we get to Haru's perspective it turns out she was jumping around because she was seeing the ghosts of Subaru's parents, who thank the cat for helping their son move on before they fade away from the Earth.
Episode 6 goes into detail about Haru’s background; She and her four siblings were placed in a box in an abandoned lot and immediately upon approaching a human, thinking he had food on him, they were yelled at. Eventually, they all were taken in by a stray tabby cat named Tora and a black cat with one eye named Kuro and over time, Tora taught Haru how to find food for her siblings and how to defend them. While foraging for food in a park, two of her younger siblings were adopted by a family, leaving Haru to care for Hachi and their other sibling. They were unfortunately separated from Tora and Kuro during an attack from a couple of crows and Haru was left to fend and take off her remaining siblings by herself. When she came back from hunting for food, Hachi had ran away and their other sibling was found dead surrounded by feathers, implying the crows had killed it.
In episode 11, it's implied that his parents' trip to Tokushima was planned because of him specifically, his parents wanted to get some of Tokushima's famous blue dye to reverse the fading on Subaru's favourite blue sweater. This leads to Subaru breaking down in tears as he realizes how little he appreciated his parents.
