With Takashi, Rin, and the others not expected back from the sea until late at night, Yuzuki and Haruto attend the Summer Festival together, just the two of them. They have fun, but while watching the fireworks from the pond, Yuzuki confesses that she still loves him, but tosses her necklace away, promising she’ll never “hinder his happiness” again. He jumps into the water and retrieves it, telling her not to go anywhere. Just then, Asuka calls, asking where Haruto is. He lies, saying he’s home, and ends the conversation, saying he’s busy. He tells Yuzuki to give him some more time to form a proper answer for her. When he and Yuzuki return to his place, Asuka is there, waiting for him, and calls him a liar.
More than once this week while he’s with Yuzuki, Haruto asks himself: “What am I doing?” He has a perfectly good girlfriend who loves him, after all; he really shouldn’t be on dates with his ex, but it’s as if he can’t help himself. It’s as if his bond with Yuzuki is simply winning out over his loyalty to Asuka, the girl who fell in love with him even as he was fetting over the girl he could no longer have because of Kazama. That the series wants us to believe that Asuka is simply an unfortunate but inevitable victim of the winds of fate. Haruto counts four major points in his life when he’s encountered Yuzuki, starting with when they were tots, then when she moved in with him, and then when she insisted he give up on her.
In this fourth and latest encounter, she tells him she loves him, but not about to let that ruin what he has with Asuka. But Asuka and Haruto are apart at this crucial time, and the distance doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Haruto has an abrupt and heartbreaking conversation with Asuka, essentially brushing her off with yet another callous lie; a lie he’s thankfully caught in. Was Asuka always doomed to be a placeholder to be discarded once those winds of fate blew Yuzuki and Haruto back together? Or will Haruto atone and stay by Asuka’s side (if she’ll have him)? Haruto’s in a most unenviable position mostly of his own making, but judging from his conduct thus far, things don’t bode well for poor Asuka.
Rating:7 (Very Good)
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