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The show knows its audience would riot if we didn’t get at least another scene or two of Sumi before closing out the season, and lookie here, we get a whole episode of her being awesome as always! Sumi is and always has been RAG’s Bestest Girl by dint of her caring nature, her emotional intelligence, and above all her selflessness.
She may have feelings for Kazuya, but accepts that they’re not requited, and instead does everything she can for him and for Chizuru, whom she considers her dear friends. When Kazuya books her for a fleet 30-minute date and tells her about Granny Sayuri passing, she knows those dear friends are in pain, and takes immediate steps to alleviate that pain.
Kazuya is in a bit of a bemused daze in the early parts of the episode, as at the end of their date Sumi leads him to Shinjuku in order to board a train to the beach. They’re no longer on the clock at this point; Sumi verbally tells him they’re going as friends, and Kazuya, moron that he is, is astonished she considers her a friend. Of course she’s your friend, ya dope!
After a quick trip to the beach, Sumi is on the move, walking with speed and purpose up the stairs to an observation tower above the hill where they can get an even better view of the ocean. In the process, simply by being herself, Sumi attracts the attention of all the other guys there, and makes all of their dates jealous.
But Sumi isn’t just a cuteness WMD; there’s a method to her madness. When they return to the beach, off come her shoes and socks and she wades into the surf to do the splashies. Kazuya can’t help but join her, and when he trips on a sand castle and gets soaked, he starts to finally let loose and embrace the youthful calming energy of the sea.
This is what Sumi wanted: to reset Kazuya’s stressed-out brain and give him a place to lay down his worries. She also communicates to him, mostly by “texting” in the sand, that while she can’t know what’s in Chizuru’s head, she knows that she, Sumi, would want to be cheered up by him if she was in pain. She ends up making a great case by cheering Kazuya up thoroughly.
Even Ruka, who is a lot more emotionally intelligent than her clingy behavior would suggest, basically concurs with Sumi that under these circumstances, what Chizuru needs is to be cheered up by a friend. While she tosses out a lot of lip service about Kazuya never being able to “bridge the gap” between himself and Chizuru, that’s just wishful thinking on her part; a last-ditch defense mechanism.
On some level, she probably knows her days as Kazuya’s boyfriend may be numbered. But like Sumi, she’s too good a person to give Kazuya anything but the correct guidance. As for how to cheer Chizuru up, that’s up to him. He throws himself into his work, taking every open shift he can to save up so he can rent Chizuru for an entire day.
The two haven’t spoken or seen one another since her grandmother’s wake, but that she accepts his ambitious appointment says a lot. At this point in her and Kazuya’s relationship, she can probably gather why he booked an entire day at great expense. He’s not doing it for him. He’s doing it for her. She’s worked and struggled and grieved so hard. She deserves the best date ever, arranged by the guy she’s grown fond of. He’d better not screw this up!
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