Part 1, Continued

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10) Yumi and Sachiko are in the jeans shop. Yumi hears the rustling of Sachiko’s clothes as she changes, and Yumi goes all “doki-doki”. She begins to imagine Sachiko undressing, then stops herself and blames Sei’s “dirty old man” influence.

Yumi wonders how long the cuffs of the jeans are for Sachiko. For her, there’s enough extra to make a purse – on Sachiko it might only be enough to make a pen case. Yumi then wanders off into a mental rant about how Sachiko’s waist is slender, her legs are long, her bust is bigger than hers, Yumi’s. She complains to God that it’s so unfair. lol

When she sees Sachiko in jeans, Yumi is surprised, because she’s used to seeing her in socks/stockings. She thinks Sachiko’s legs are very grown-up looking and for a brief moment, Yumi understands leg fetishists. (Seriously – that’s what she says!)

11) When Minako questions Tsutako, the photographer covers for Yumi’s first date, not wanting the newspaper club president to know that Yumi and Sachiko are here.

12) Yoshino, in an attempt to make herself feel better, buys herself a book, then orders herself an expensive lunch set (which, if Rei and Chisato ordered, would have blown their whole budget for the date.) She realizes that she just feels lonely without Rei – doing anything with Rei is more fun – even just sitting under the kotatsu reading. Rei fills a hole in her life. With Rei, a breakfast of toast is fine, she doesn’t need fancy food. Without Rei, everything feels empty.

13) We learn that there are several security guards that patrol Lillian during the week but on Sunday, there is only one and the main gate is closed.

To get in to the school, Shizuka tells the guard that they have left books in their classrooms. She tells Shimako that she actually did have that happen once and it get her back onto the grounds, so she’s used it once before to come to the school just to be there when its empty.

Several of Shizuka’s lines in the anime are actually things Shimako thinks, like the line about sudden words being close to the heart.

Shimako resents Shizuka for reaching into the darkness inside her heart and touching it.

14) When Yumi and Sachiko meet up with Yoshino, Sachiko asks Yumi how much money they have left, then asks Yoshino to give Yumi the right amount for the cake set they are going to have at the cafe.

(Let me digress a second again – this is the second time I’ve used the idea of a “set” and I want to explain it briefly. Most Japanese restaurants have price fixed meal choices which they call “sets”. The cake set is probably a choice of one of a limited selection of cake and coffee for a fixed price.)

Yumi is *mortified* at Sachiko for asking Yoshino for money, but Yoshino, while she hands over the money, tells Yumi that she thinks Sachiko is right. It makes her part of the date, and she doesn’t feel as if she’s intruding, or that she should treat, or they should. Yumi, overcome with emotion, rushes over to Sachiko and hugs her arm, then tells her that doing things together with Sachiko today has made her incredibly happy. And it doesn’t bother her one bit that there are people around or that Yoshino is there watching.

Sachiko (have I mentioned how romantic Sachiko is???) reaches down and takes Yumi’s hand in her own and entwines their fingers as they walk. Yoshino, on seeing this mutters “Go! Go!” under her breath. LOL

15) When the three arrive at the café, the woman tells them that it’s so busy that they’ll either have to sit at the counter, or share a larger table with other people. Sachiko had asked Yoshino to join them with “The more the merrier”, which was exceptionally un-Sachiko- like. She now tells the lady to seat them with the strangers – another very un-Sachiko-like thing to do. It shows just how far she’s lightened up.

Of course, the “strangers” are Tsutako and Minako.

In the end, Yumi completely forgot to get the dried cod her mother requested that she buy while out shopping. lol

16) Shizuka’s interfering classmates actually went so far as to create a date schedule book for her and Shimako, with bus schedules, movie times, good places to eat in the area… (these are the same classmates who made her run for Student Council, so they sound like a fun group.)

Shimako thinks that the white card was really her heart and that she hid it to protect it, but was really wishing that someone would find it, and understand it. (Shizuka shows exceptional understanding of Shimako’s heart.)

Shizuka takes her leave of Shimako, and tells her that she can have all the cheesecake they bought for dessert as a reward for having to clean up the mess herself. Shimako grumbles a bit at the cleaning part (of course to herself).

17) The scene with Chisato and Yoshino was hacked to pieces in the anime.

Chisato begins by telling Yoshino that she and Rei met in town, walked a bit, then took in a movie, ate handmade lunches they had brought and parted. Rei claimed a lack of budget for the skimpiness of the date, and needing time to write up the report for not lingering.

Yoshino apologizes, because she realizes that it was Rei’s polite way of rejecting Chisato’s interest.

Chisato says that she picked the movie, knowing it really wouldn’t be Rei’s thing (again, that mixed-up questionnaire! Rei likes romance films, but Chisato doesn’t know that.)

At first Chisato is very prideful, telling Yoshino all of this almost as a boast. She starts to cry a little as she talks. She admits to having seen Yoshino on the pedestrian bridge and taking Rei’s arm on purpose to make her jealous.

Yoshino tells Chisato that she really wanted to hit her when she saw that – Chisato admits that she dislikes Yoshino, and thinks of her as a tragic maiden who keeps requiring her knight Rei to save her over and over again. Yoshino says that Rei never *had* to be by her side – she did it out of love.

Chisato asks Yoshino why she calls her “Rei-chan,” then says that Rei called her “Yoshino” 5 times.

As they stand in the foyer hugging, Yoshino thinks that they look like idiots – and they look like best friends.

Dessert

18) Yuki comes into Yumi’s room as she’s practicing the many versions of her phone greeting (depending on who answers the phone). He tells her that it sounds like Buddhist chanting.

And, when she shows no sign of actually dialing, he grabs the phone and dials. She gets it back before he connects. As we know, the phone rings before she gets a chance to dial. :-) It’s Sachiko – she had fun, we’re all happy, see you tomorrow.

After she gets off the phone, Yumi rolls back and forth across the bed in sheer happiness. LOL

End of Part 1