As expected a horrible misunderstanding unfolded this week. What Ryo did was absolutely despicable. She twisted everything to make it look like she and Tamahiko were having an affair. But the worst part of it was how she had the audacity to claim he had given her the bookmark after he had explained to her how important it is to him.
We saw that Ryo has her own unfortunate circumstances of being stuck with an alcoholic father who puts her up to robbing people and beats her and her siblings when she argues to save the money for the rest of them. But that doesn’t change the fact what she did was just awful. She is jealous of Yuzuki, who was bought bride, being loved and cared for by someone. When she returned to their house, she went with the malicious intent to hurt Yuzuki and hurt her. It didn’t help that she had the nerve to blackmail Tamahiko when honestly, he could have reported her for theft to begin with. He complied to teaching her brothers, and this is what she does in return?
But the consequences of this conflict could have been avoided altogether had Tamahiko explained to Yuzuki what had happened in the first place. Instead, burdened by his guilty conscious of having her precious gift stolen from him, he decided to keep quiet and couldn’t bring himself to face her. And while Tamahiko was caught up in his own head and refused to be upfront about it, Yuzuki was unfairly left with no explanation and became uneasy and lost confidence about how much he cared about her. How cruel it was to be put in a position where a young woman comes in to taunt about becoming his mistress and flaunt about having lewd affairs the day before. Can you really blame Yuzuki for tearing up his bookmark after that? Man that was hard to watch. It really hurt to see that his first gift he has ever received was stolen by a thief and later be destroyed by the one who made it for him because of a misunderstanding.
Thankfully the misunderstanding was resolved when Tamahiko took the initiative to restore the bookmark. He was motivated to fix it no matter when after Tamako had explained to him the sentiment tied to Yuzuki’s gift. The bellflowers she had pressed in flower language means “Unchanging Love”, which was her way of pledging to love him forever.
And must say I really loved this conversation because it was just nice to see Tamako not chide him for having it stolen– because it honestly could have gone that way. So I appreciated that she simply explained how Yuzuki had been hurt. It was also really important and helpful because he was troubled and unsure what to do when Yuzuki resumed her usual routine/behavior after she tore it up and said the matter was done with.
Next week, Tamahiko will continue to teach Ryo’s siblings. Honestly it’s not a complete surprise considering both Yuzuki and Tamahiko are truly kind characters. But now that the air is clear between them, Yuzuki should be feeling confident and will hopefully be able to deal with whatever bullshit Ryo throws at her.
