This week’s quest was went from what was supposed to be going out for a bite to a mission to find Shuji a birthday present!
It all started off with Takahiro, one of the guys from Shuji’s circle suddenly approaching Fumiya to tell him the way he handled Erika the other day was pretty awesome, and he wanted to let Fumiya know that he got people like him on his side.
I don’t know about anyone else, but when he said that I thought, “…..This feels dodgy.” Sorry man, but call me a skeptic, but that sounds almost too nice to be true. And so because of that, I found myself feeling pretty nervous for Fumiya today. Maybe Takahiro really is a nice person, like how the other girls have proven to be. But right now there’s too little information on him, so I can’t bring myself to trust Takahiro just yet. I can’t shake the feeling he seems to have ulterior motives for approaching Fumiya.
Of course it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s maliciously driven. After-all there are many reasons why people would try to get close to others, either for selfish reasons such as such taking advantage of their connections/networking, maybe they own something fun to play with, maybe they are friends with someone they like, etc… That’s why he left me with the impression that there’s more to it than just being impressed with how Fumiya dealt with Erika’s bullshit. Right now there’s too little to work with since we only got to see the Takahiro interact with Fumiya for a total of two, maybe three times if we include using him as a model to demonstrate the hair products they were looking at. (That was pretty cute though!) But hey if he’s a super nice guy, then that’s a great thing!
That being said, the gift mission triggered a lot of speculations after Yuzu told him how there are rumors that Aoi and Takahiro are dating. While he wanted to ask Aoi about the rumors, unfortunately he couldn’t bring himself to do so. We didn’t actually see the two interact too much, but Fumiya certainly caught a couple of curious cues that may indicate that Hiro has feelings for Aoi. If that’s the case, it would partially explain why he asked him to go out for a bite with Aoi and another girl of Fumiya’s choice. We also got to see how he knows about Aoi’s love for cheese, and sought out a place to eat where she would enjoy the food. (Although it later led to discussion about suggesting a place to go that isn’t necessarily a good one, to which brought about the arts of being persuasive).
Apart from that, it was quite fun to see Yuzu and Fumiya becoming great friends thanks to Tackfam. In order to complete one of his missions, Fumiya ended up inadvertently changing the outing from a bite to a shopping date to find Shuji a birthday present. He ended up doing this because he was trying to figure out how he could invite Yuzu out after she had initially declined. It turns out it was because she didn’t want to risk Shuji and Fumiya to get into a fight since she considers them to be her good friends. (Aye, congratulations Fumiya, she considers you a friend!) But it was pretty funny how Fumiya ended up resorting to that because all I could think of was, “You guys aren’t even friends yet!”.
It will be interesting to see how this birthday gift thing is going to pan out considering Shuji considers him to be a Tackfam Rival he really wants to beat. I suspect we will some some awkward air between them since Shuji definitely isn’t expecting a present from him. But hey, who knows– might this might end up being the icebreaker they need to go beyond Shuji’s one-sided rivalry.
In the end, Fumiya was only able to complete one of the two missions. But honestly I think he did a good job for his first group outing. Takahiro had qutie a grip on the flow, so it was tricky for Fumiya to interject with his own suggestions. Of course there’s also the fact Fumiya doesn’t know Shuji that well either, so he can’t really recommend anything since he needs to work off the basics he gathered just by observing him. Funny enough Yuzu found herself having a difficult time too, but Fumiya’s pragmatic advice and observation points ended up helping her out find a gift she thought Shuji would like (hair wax).
Since Shuji’s birthday is said to be a month away, it looks like we may be seeing a different event play out until then. The episode ended with Aoi and Mimimi seeking to run for Student Council. I am curious to see how this will play out given Aoi’s calculative approach to making herself an appealing person to others, whereas Mimimi is more like a free-spirit who has the energy to draw people in.
Until then, see you next time!
PS: Amazingly, Yuzu is somehow still in Erika’s circle. I thought for sure she’d be kicked out…
Aoi knows her student very well. Tomozaki thought it was a trash game to come up with a worse idea just to be listened to, and she convinced him to see it as a game of negotiation with a bunch of snazzy game analogies.
I think the rumour about Aoi and Takahiro dating could be real judging by much Takahiro knows about Aoi and how Takahiro was completely not threatened at all by Fumiya and Aoi being chummy. He didn’t seem to even consider the possibility of Fumiya being interested in Aoi. I also think Fumiya is starting to fall for Aoi given that in the previous episode he said he thought that what he felt was primal joy but kind of indicated that that was only what he thought at the time, which suggested that what Fumiya felt was something else and that he is into Aoi, and that’s why he asked her out on a movie. Fumiya being affected significantly by the rumour about Aoi and Takahiro lends credence to this interpretation.
As for Aoi and Mimimi competing in running for Student Council, I think I’d prefer for Mimimi to win since Aoi’s whole persona is just so calculating and unreal. I don’t want that to be rewarded but given that she is the main heroine, Aoi will probably win.