Quite disappointed the words she worked so hard to say to Kondou didn’t give her the response she wanted, Akira becomes so preoccupied by Kondou and her feelings for him she seems to float above everything else with little interest.
She reconsiders asking her classmates for advice, and we kinda see them through her eyes. She knows how they’d respond if she mentions someone she likes, and especially if she tells them his age. So she doesn’t bother. When two track kohais lure her back to the track to watch and offer tips, it feels like a gross imposition, and an insensitive one at that.
Upon watching one set a new personal record, she regrets having been lured. When she goes, the girls consider going to her restaurant, she snaps: “DON’T!” That place is her world. Hers…and the manager’s.
As if mimicking Akira’s darkened mood, the heavens open up and a steady rain falls. Akira has no umbrella or coat, so she get soaked. She doesn’t care; she’s too lost in thought.
This rain reminds her of the day she injured her ankle, having felt something but simply taped it up and practiced in the rain anyway. We see everything from the injury, the doctor visit, and the isolation she felt upon being knocked out of action…and it’s frikkin’ heartbreaking!
Mind you, all of that ends with her getting a free cup of joe from Kondou and BOOM, it’s gone from the rain to…After the Rain. Great title, that. When she arrives at the restaurant in the present, soaked head to toe, she meets Kondou there, having a smoke.
He beckons to her to get inside, but she isn’t there for a shift. She’s there to repeat her words, and phrase it so there’s no mistake: I like you. Then she leaves. Kondou, bless him, gets the message, and it causes him to space out at a green light. Was Akira’s confession just a dream; a mirage in the rain?
After it rattles around his aged cranium, Kondou determines that it is not a dream, but a prank Akira and the other young staff members are pulling on him, because there’s no way she’d seriously be into him. He’s SO SURE of that he curses himself for almost falling for the prank!
But as he’s an adult, he doesn’t make a big deal of it. Kids will be kids, and sometimes kids are awful, both to each other and to their elders. He shrugs it off, though not because he isn’t irritated. Those punks!
Akira’s behavior upon returning to work seems to back up his theory, at least for a time. But when her casual talk immediately turns to I’ve told you how I feel; what’s your response, all hope that this was something “shrug-off-able” disintegrates.
Kondou is very careful with how he proceeds. He offers Akira a ride home, since it’s still wet out and she’s still recovering from her ankle tweak. He’s direct about his response: he can’t give her a proper one, because he’s 45 and she’s 17.
Akira immediately disputes the relevance of their age gap, and when Kondou persists, she repeats her confession so loudly and strongly he puts the car in a skid. This isn’t something he can shoo away with what he thought was common sense and social conventions. She’s resolute!
Sensing both of them could use some air (and that continuing to operate a motor vehicle could be hazardous at the moment), the two go to a park. Kondou follows a respectable distance behind Akira, who surely wishes he’d walk beside her. They come to a tree where there’s shelter from the stray raindrops that linger.
He asks her why she likes him, of all people. We already know she has plenty of reasons, and isn’t just interested in him because he “saved” her when she was at her lowest—when the proverbial rain was at its harshest. She’s come to like him even more since getting to know him more. He’s hard-working, honest, kind, fair, and a good father.
And he makes her laugh; indeed, when he insists she reconsider, as he’s a 45-year-old boy with no hopes or dreams, that right there makes her smile and laugh in a way he’d never seen, because she’s hearing him talk in a way she’s never heard him talk before.
Akira doesn’t care that he’s 45, or that she’s 17, or how low an opinion he may have of himself, and she doesn’t list any of the reasons I mentioned above. Instead, she questions the very notion of liking someone requiring a reason at all. And she’s right; you can cherry-pick whatever reasons you happen to brainstorm when explaining why you like or love someone.
But the reality is perhaps closer to Akira’s particular philosophy at this time: that love is ultimately a mystery. You may never know for sure why you feel it for someone; but you can never let that lack of answers frustrate or discourage you.
Being pursued in this way is a strange feeling for Kondou, and a nostalgic one, since it’s been decades since he’s felt it. But he has felt it, so he knows what it’s like better than most. He remembers being Akira’s age, and for a second, we see him like that.
When Kondou jokingly challenges Akira to go on a date him, and find out just how short a time it would take until she finds it creepy, Akira takes it to mean We’re going on a date? We’re going on a date! Kondou dare not correct her, at least not then and there. So, at least for now, on a date they shall go.
RABUJOI - An Anime Blog 