Kazuya is constantly on the edge of a nervous breakdown thinking going off alone with Chizuru will be some kind of huge disaster, but Chizuru pushes past the awkwardness on the train and is legit pumped when they arrive at the picturesque off-season ski resort.
That said, she’s as shocked as he is to learn that Mini only booked one room for the two of them, but she accepts this and moves on, citing the need to save money. But also, if Mini is right about her (and I think she is) Chizuru doesn’t actually mind sharing a room with Kazuya.
After some location scouting and test shooting during the day, Kazuya pores over the footage and storyboards as Chizuru returns from her bath, resplendent in her yukata, which she insists she wears whenever she’s at an onsen.
She legit asks Kaz if it wouldn’t be best if he take a breather, but when he says he’ll rest after they film the post-midnight final scene, she’s again reminded of her stalwart late grandfather. It’s under the light of the starry sky that she finally gets around to saying what she struggled and failed to say before.
Kazuya is worried a confession is forthcoming, but I knew better. There was no way Chizuru was going to confess her love to him. That said, she tells him about how her dream of becoming an actor was originally tied to her gramps, and only after she died did she transfer that dream to her gran.
She doesn’t tell Kaz this, but as we know, her gramps was the one who told her to follow her dreams and one day she’d find her pillar of support. And Kaz seems to be that pillar. Before filming her scene, she makes sure he knows how happy it made her when he suggested they make a film, and how grateful she is for everything he’s done since.
They film the scene, and to Kazuya, after hearing those words, Chizuru has never shone brighter to him under those stars. Later in the men’s bath, he contemplates how this is all coming to an end soon, and how they’ll likely grow apart after the film is made.
But rather than stew in despair over that, he embraces how lucky he was to have been able to finish this project with her, even if he never puts as much of himself into anything else.
He returns to their room to find Chizuru already asleep, and unlike the first time they slept in the same room, he finds himself able to doze off almost immediately. Sure, they worked their butts off all day, but no doubt her words gave him comfort.
Ironically, this time it’s Chizuru who is having trouble sleeping, and wasn’t really asleep when Kaz came in. I always love it when we get her inner monologue, and I loved her characterizing this situation as “sucking”. Girl both wants and needs to sleep after such a full day. But something’s keeping her awake and that something is her steadily growing feelings for Kazuya, her pillar.
The next morning, they check out, and when the attendant refers to them as a couple, Chizuru doesn’t freak out or deny it; she’s simply silent. On the bus ride, Kaz tries some small talk about how great the resort was, and Chizuru comments that it would be a great place for him to take his “real” girlfriend.
Talk then turns to Ruka, and to his credit, Kaz actually puts it out there that Ruka isn’t someone he truly loves. Chizuru then asks about Mami, but Kaz assumes she’s already found someone else. We know better, but in any case who cares about Mami?
Through her pointed yet gentle questioning, it’s clear to Kaz that Chizuru actually cares and worries about him. The one thing that continues to hold Kazuya back is his insistence on losing his damn mind whenever Chizuru gets too close, either emotionally for physically. Case in point: when she nods off onto his shoulder while he’s expressing his gratitude to her.
She stays there asleep on his shoulder until they arrive at Iiyama…where to their horror, Ruka has come to put an end to what she deems to have been a night of carnality. Kazuya insists nothing happened, but when he asks Chizuru to back him up, she heads off to the bathroom, apparently disinterested. That said, it’s clear from her reaction upon remembering she woke up on Kazuya’s shoulder that she’s very much interested.
But Ruka remains Kazuya’s “trial” girlfriend until he dumps her, since she has no intention of leaving him. In perhaps one final attempt to maintain her grasp on him, she demands that he promise to do “whatever she desires” on her birthday. While I’m sure a virgin like Kazuya would like nothing more than to fulfill whatever that desire may be, I hope it never comes to that.
Kazuya needs to get real here: even if he still deems Chizru unobtainable and uninterested (and I fail to see how he can still feel that way), he needs to end things with Ruka, before he does something he can’t undo, for the simple reason that he knows full well that he prefers Chizuru.
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