Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso – 05

It was going to be hard to follow up an episode like last week’s, which moved me so much I invented a World Heritage List for it. This week was further hampered by lacking a musical performance centerpiece (though this show was never going to be able to, not should it, do one a week). But this week followed it’s own theme and comported itself well. That theme began with a flashback to when Kousei, Tsubaki and Ryouta were rugrats: Even if you’re uncertain or afraid, dive in anyway.

I was wondering how the show was going to proceed after leaving Kaori sprawled out unconscious on the stage. We jump forward to when she’s been admitted to the hospital, where she assures her friends it’s “the first time” she’s fainted like that, and it was probably due to baka-Kousei making her work so hard to get him to accompany her, anyway.

Let’s not kid ourselves, shall we? There’s no way that was the first time, and there’s no way there won’t be another. You don’t put a girl in the hospital like that and never put her there again. But let’s leave that aside for now. Seeing her in the hospital only makes Kousei guilty he caused Kaori to be disqualified and wash out of the competition. He doesn’t realize: Kaori knew what she was doing.

Holy crap, was this a gray, cloudy episode! Today, in fact, was just this dark and gray and cloudy! It’s the gray of doubt and uncertainty, following Kaori’s incident, but also in terms of what Kousei thinks it meant to her. Didn’t she just Kousei him for accompaniment? Ryouta is her betrothed after all. Yet when Kousei tells Ryouta to go on ahead, Ryouta tells Kousei not to worry about the percieved mismatch, but to dive in with him. Ryouta saw how Kousei and Kaori played together. He’s not setting aside his friendship because of a girl. This is a fair fight; may the best man win.

Rejection and awkwardness isn’t all Kousei fears, though. While Kaori did lean on him, she also ended up supporting him, by bringing music back into his life as a positive force. He was supported by her just as much as she him, which is what made her collapse on stage so devastating to him. He used to equate obsessive practice and flawless play with his mother recovering from her illness. When she died, he blamed himself. Even if Ryouta is right and Kousei has a chance with Kaori, history could repeat itself, with Kousei being powerless to save someone he loves.

As for Poor Tsubaki, knowing the score between Kousei and Kaori (no pun intended) doesn’t change her feelings for Kaori. Even if she can’t verbalize the positive qualities he possesses other than playin’ the pianny real good, she’s keenly attuned to those qualities, and they draw her to him still. She was once in love with Saito, the hot, dependable baseball captain a year above her, but time passed and so did those feelings. Saito’s late, sudden confession doesn’t move her, because despite the possibility he’s a lost cause, she’s in love with Kousei now.

When Kousei spots a discharged Kaori in the school hallway, he hides, and misses his chance when Ryouta starts flirting with her. But then fate brings the two together on that bridge Tsubaki essentially threw him off years ago. Not coincidentally, the sky is a lot more bright and dazzling, now that Kaori is out of the hospital. Wise beyond their fourteen years, Kaori tells him it’s okay to be afraid.

Everyone is. Afraid of failure, pain, rejection, despair. But you go out on the stage and play your damn heart out anyway…which is the “beautiful lie.” You jump off that bridge, because it could change your life, while staying still won’t change anything. It’s a simple message: as much as you can, while you can, live life to the fullest.