We got some funny and cute moments between Chinatsu and Taiki, a lot of them being self-conscious around each other. It was funny because Taiki honestly didn’t think Chinatsu thought of him as a guy after she simply got changed on the roof, but then later when she saw he had a six-pack (boy is RIPPED), girl was blushing!!! They did have a small argument, well not really, more like a disagreement when Chinatsu’s comment on saying he didn’t need to worry too much about winning nationals since year since he still has next year. The problem is for Taiki, next year isn’t good enough because she won’t be around anymore. Sure it’s not his main goal, but it’s certainly contributing to a large part of his drive at the moment. He wants her to see him win nationals!
And that leads us to the preliminary matches!
It went by pretty quickly, maybe a tad faster than I would have liked it to. I think I kind of expected the match between Kishi and Taiki to be longer, but it probably felt a lot shorter and ending more abruptly because the match closed right at the beginning of the episode.
Taiki found himself facing not only a new rival on the court, by also one who is vying for Chinatsu’s heart. Kishi is someone who considers Haryu as his biggest rival and was looking forward to facing off against him, but unfortunately for him the universe had other ideas. His partner for doubles ended up getting sick so they had to yield that before they got the chance to go up against Haryu and Taiki. So that left it to singles, but Haryu isn’t participating this time since he’s already in the qualifier, so he threw Taiki out to Kishi to chew on. Taiki of course wasn’t all about it, especially since Haryu said he’d put Chinatsu’s phone number on the line as the prize.
Kishi proved to be a challenging opponent, but in the end Taiki managed to edge out a win, and overall managed to finish second, which is still pretty damn good all things considered. The one who beat him ended up being Nishida (another one of the strong performing second years he’s up against).
Chinatsu had an impeccable timing of sending him the invite to the aquarium outing, and Taiki’s reaction was absolutely adorable with the way he just became a fish out of water. That said, I am glad that Kyo was smart enough to make it known that he was the one who asked Chinatsu to take Taiki on an outing together. It would’ve been unfair to Taiki to think she had chosen to do so on her own. Thankfully it was something Chinatsu was up to doing, especially after hearing how Hanyu put her number on the line (without her consent), and Taiki being pissed off about it on her behalf.
The aquarium outing was certainly one that kept Taiki going back and forth in his head about whether or not it could be counted as a date. Taiki’s sensible enough to know that even if he did win nationals today, confessing to her right now isn’t necessarily the best idea. He’s very good at putting himself in other people’s shoes, and understands that if she couldn’t return his feelings, it could potentially make it very uncomfortable to be housemates together. That’s why ideally, it he would feel better about waiting till after she moves out. Of course if it turned out their feelings are mutual, then he’s more open to the prospects of a confession.
As for Chinatsu, she was very cute today! It was nice to see a different side of her outside of her athletic world. We also got to see how she mulls over things that she felt upset someone else for a while, that’s why she had apologized to Taiki (who didn’t realize it had still been plaguing her all this time). Seeing how Chinatsu was hung up over the fact he had gotten upset over the whole ‘there’s always next year for nationals’ comment, Taiki gave her a way to communicate with him whenever there was something she needed to talk to him about. The idea of sending him this specific penguin sticker was really adorable, but also sweet. Though I did chuckle a bit when Chinatsu told Taiki he was a “great housemate”. Friendzoned, Brozoned? Nah. Taiki’s problem is being stuck in the Housemate Zone.
While things are all seemingly sunshine and rainbows between Taiki and Chinatsu, when it rained it sure poured on Hina.
Oof, I really feel for her. She found out about Chinatsu living with Taiki’s family in the worse way possible. It’s always a terrible feeling to find out about something you’ve been left in the dark about. And to add salt to the wounds, it’s undoubtedly double the pain because she’s belatedly coming to terms with the fact she likes him. The ugly side of jealousy unexpectedly crawled out of her heart, to the point she actually taken aback when her teammate asked if she was mad about something. In her head she was rooting for Taiki, but her heart felt very differently about it, and it showed on her face. That’s why she found herself confused why she’s behaving this way.
If she wasn’t considered an open-book about it before, she certainly was today because it seems everyone but Taiki took notice of this. While Hina’s was trying to play as Taiki’s wing-woman by babbling away about how good of guy he is, Chinatsu saw her actions differently. She even almost straight up asked her if Hina had feelings for him! I wonder how the conversation would have proceeded if she had though. Would Chinatsu have come forward to explain to Hina about the fact she’s living with Taiki at the moment? Previously she had assumed it’d be better if she kept it under wraps, but maybe she changed her mind on that. Unfortunately it didn’t pan out, and that led to Hina learning about it the hard way.
As for Kyo, he undoubtedly knows that she has feelings towards Taiki, but I’m a little curious to know if he has any feelings for her. If so, man what a messy quagmire of feelings we got going on here.
I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps Hina’s upcoming tournament may not go as smoothly as she’d like it to. We have yet to see whether this discovering how she’s been left out on a secret and coming to terms with having feelings towards Taiki will impact her overall practice and performance. So far we’ve seen both Taiki and Chinatsu show strong mental fortitude, so I sort of expect nothing less of Hina… but perhaps that might turn out to be her one weakness she has yet to confront and overcome.
