“Would you go out with me?”
– Kotarou Azumi, the fucking madman.
Kotarou, what?! The ending caught me completely off guard, but I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. This poor boy can barely talk to her in person without a dry throat but he asks her out anyway! Hira couldn’t even do it! My man Kotarou literally channeled his inner Ali and punched his way into love. I now get why Kotarou does air punches in his room, and that’s because he has a poster of Muhammed Ali in his room I didn’t notice. So Kotarou is now officially the coolest kid around.
“At the very least, I don’t believe romance comes down to chance. I believe it comes down to volition.” And Kotarou took that quote to heart. Romance and asking people out was the theme of this episode. It kept getting brought up as the kids took their midterm exams and Akane prepared herself for her track meet. The kids’ school trip is also coming up, and lots of kids are asking each other out so they’ll get to hang out during the school trip. Kotarou appears to have his mind on other things, but his eyes and ears are open for all the romance talk around him. He continues to talk with Akane through LINE and it’s all normal talk, but he wonders whether there’s a boy she likes and was about to ask before he deleted the message. His mind is wandering but he promises her that he’ll pray for her on the Sunday of her track meet.
Akane has some stress her own, both when it comes to her track meet and romance. When it comes to track, she wants to beat her personal best at the meet which weighs on her mind as she squeezes her potato. Another thing is that her track friends won’t give her a break when it comes to Hira. Apparently a girl had asked him out and he turned her down because he already has someone he likes, which is obviously Akane. The girls even point out it’s Akane, but that just makes Akane even more embarrassed. When asked whether she would want a boyfriend, she said not really.
This makes me wonder just what her response will be to Kotarou. They share sweet conversations with each other through text, Akane telling Kotarou that he’s fine the way he is when he asked advice about feeling down. His words made her really happy. She always has a smile on her face when they text, and she was especially worried about texting him back after her track meet, and looked very upset when her battery died. She went out of her way to head to the shrine to maybe find him there, which is super sweet. The thing is though, that they can barely talk to each other in person. There’s always an awkward silence between them, and they can’t even interact with each other at school. I understand, though, that communicating through text and chatrooms is a lot easier than in person. She seems to enjoy talking with Kotarou, she looks at him in class, but I really do wonder what she’ll say to his confession.
These are awkward kids that maybe don’t know what they want yet. Maybe right now, Akane’s not ready for romance. Or, maybe she would want to spend more time with Kotarou? I don’t know, but I’m dying to see what’ll happen next!
It’s nice to see how LINE plays a part in their relationship, being the only medium in which they can really talk. Sometimes, I feel that social media platforms tend to remove the human experience; people don’t really communicate with one another anymore, but I suppose it’s a benefit here rather than being a burden.