WAAHHHH, WE GOT A LOVE TRIANGLE GOING ON!!!!!! I wasn’t sure how serious Koiwai was about Moriko, but after this episode, I do believe Koiwai is truly smitten by her and is interested in dating her. However while he is going on the offensive to pursue her, he has also been teasing Sakurai, challenging him to to confront his own feelings, since he knows the guy likes her a lot and despite having been shot down once, is willing to give him a window of opportunity to give him a chance to fight for her.
And Sakurai is truly in a tough spot. He is desperately trying to conceal his crush towards Moriko, afraid it might spook her or make it difficult for him to maintain their online friendship (which is already proving to be a challenge for him). Furthermore, he got a punch in the gut when he had helped Koiwai by talking about him, which reassured her that Koiwai is a nice guy, and she doesn’t have to be too guarded around him by giving her an encouraging push. But it can’t be helped that Sakurai feeling so strongly about her. He really likes her, and he knows she’s a good person, both online and offline. Sakurai has proven to be an incredibly sweet guy who will look out for those he cares about. Afraid of her being misunderstanding of being stood up, hurries out to find her to let her know, tells her she is absolutely adorable and should have more confidence in herself (DID YOU SEE HIS RED EARS, SO CUTE), afraid his friend might follow through with the stupid comment he sent him, runs over to his place like a mad man to make sure she is safe. However by the end of the episode, Sakurai tells Koiwai he will not compete with him for her affection.
Surprisingly, Sakurai is actually two years younger than Moriko (28) and Koiwai is two years older (32), which puts her right in in between the two of them (30). The sad part is that Moriko thinks she is already an old maid, but MY GOD, SHE IS GORGEOUS!!!!! SHE COULD BE A MODEL BECAUSE SHE’S SO CUTE! Heck, now that I think about it, her new hair cut makes her look youthful compared to wrapping her hair into a bun like she had for work.
We did get a little bit more information in regards to the reason why Moriko had quit her job. It seems it was a difficult environment for her to be in, and she for most part felt alone. She was envious of Sakurai and Koiwai having the co-worker friendship they have, and wonders if perhaps if she had something like that in her department, she would have stuck with her job after all.
After six episodes mainly taking place in the online world, it was nice to see a change of scenery and address real life activities in the offline world. In whole, this episode was a bittersweet one, starting off with humorous and sweet interactions and finishing on a more sober note, especially for Sakurai. It will be interesting to see how ‘dating’ Koiwai (should Moriko agree to continue meeting him) will change Sakura’s dynamic with Moriko online, especially since he is the only one at this time who knows who she is. However it will only be a matter of time before Moriko puts the pieces of the puzzle together as well since she has already caught how familiar both Sakurai and Lily-chan are (giving her the same advice). But more importantly, how will this change their relationship when she finds out? Moriko likes Sakurai as well, she finds him sweet and charming too, so I can’t wait to see how this will unfold!
