We pick right back up with Marin and Wakana’s shopping date, as she suggests they cool of in a chill manga café. At first Wakana is anything but chill as their private little room is tiny and he and Marin are very close together. He calms down when Marin gives him one of her favorite a 4-panel slice-of-life manga, perfect for relaxing.
That manga is the rather abominably titled I’m a Mega-Best-Selling High-School-Student Light Novel Author that Has a Succubus Thirsting for Me Every Night and I Don’t Know What to Do, or SuccIDK for short. Marin loves the succubus character Liz-kyun, but doesn’t think she can pull off half pigtails. As he did with Shinju, Wakana tells her if she loves the character she should be the character. He thinks she’d look great.
Fast-forward a bit, and the cosplay is complete. Marin reserves a “studio” that looks just like the manga MC’s bedroom and is only ~6,000 yen to reserve, but it turns out to be…in a love hotel. When Wakana points out how it’s wrong for minors to be in such a place and she says “only for normies,” he replies, quite correctly, “We ARE normies!”
However, they are there, and he can relate to Marin’s desire not to waste money, so they do the shoot there anyway. While waiting for Marin to change, Wakana has nothing to do but look around at how mature everything is in this room specifically designed for lovemaking. Then he watches some porn…with the volume down!
After praising him for all the details he came up with on his own (the manga being very simply drawn), Wakana helps her with her hair and makeup, and she once again becomes another character, in this case, Liz-Kyun.
We learn that Marin is also embarrassed, but the two get super into the shoot, with Wakana having bookmarked dozens of scenes from the manga he wants Marin to recreate, and Marin delighted to do them. When Wakana determines the only way to get the desired POV shot of Liz-kyun is for her to sit on his stomach, she does so. They’re having so much fun, they don’t realize how compromising a position they find themselves in.
That’s when they hear sex noises from the adjacent room, all the lights in the room are accidentally switched off, and it all comes together. The noises next door combined the proximity of Marin’s body to his results in an erection, and in a panic to get her off him he only ends up grabbing her tighter and closer to him.
The two linger in this position, blushing and breathing heavily, for what seems like several minutes. Gradually the two simply take in the position they’re in and even relax their limbs a bit. Marin lowers her hands from her mouth, which is just inches from Wakana’s. They get closer…closer…only for the room phone to ring reporting that their time is up! Their first truly intimate moment together, ended in an instant like a ripped-off band-aid.
Needless to say, both Marin and Wakana walk away from this incident feeling both awkward and unfulfilled, like dumb luck prevented something from happening, be it their first kiss or something more—but also terrified that something like that snuck up on the both of them so suddenly.
On their way out, Marin moves out of the way of a couple heading to their room, and the woman notes how Marin and Wakana look like high schoolers, deeming it cute to be exploring their sexual curiosity. I think that’s a perfectly healthy way of thinking about it, even if it’s not—or wasn’t supposed to be—what it looks like.
But seeing the older woman walk past with her man only makes Marin feel more awkward and insecure. That intense, dizzying blend of excitement, frustration, and apprehension about crossing a line that can’t be un-crossed is a lot for any young person to bear.
Add to that the fact she really loves Wakana and no doubt wants any potential first time to be special. With only one more episode (of the first cour) left, will we get any progress on Wakana realizing his feelings for her…or realizing he’s more than “good enough” for her?