TL;DR Version:
Minato and Aoba work through their painful breakup. Aoba doesn’t want to break up and Minato never felt loved. Eventually Aoba gets Minato to understand she loved him, but also understands that the relationship is over. Afterwards, Sakura admits he feels guilty, but happy that they all met again, and he wants to be more open moving forward.
Recap:
After the futsal game, Aoba and Minato stay behind, hanging up uniforms to dry and talking about old times. Minato admits he threw away a note she wrote to Sakura that he found and that he himself had a crush on her.
Aoba wants to talk about now, not then, because she wants them to stay together. Minato finally expresses his feelings, and his fear of Sakura showing up again. He thinks if they break up now, they can still all be friends. She cries and hits him with the uniform.
Next morning, she calls him in a falsely cheerful tone and says she’ll get her stuff from his place. Meanwhile, Minato has texted Sakura not to worry, that he broke up with Aoba. Sakura’s sister talks to Aoba’s brother and tells her mother that he’s blaming Sakura. The mother says that it’s hardest when it’s no one’s fault, which is so very true.
Sakura goes to the coach, feeling guilty. The coach reminds him that he broke up with Aoba even more cruelly, but also that he hasn’t been around for 8 years and can’t assume he knows what’s going on. The older adults are very wise today.
At Minato’s, Aoba is the one talking about the past now, and her own side of things and wanting Minato to see her as a woman. Minato comments on one-sided love, that it was fun and she wouldn’t know. But Aoba argues that she knows now, and it’s not fun. She’s still struggling to believe they’re breaking up.
A conversation about carrying her stuff back to her place becomes a metaphor for carrying the burden. Minato first offers to help, then jokingly coldly refuses, then asks her to carry it on her own, which she does.
In her sign language class, Aoba wants to learn the sign for one-sided love. It’s one hand dipping down before connecting with the other. The sign language teacher accidentally lets Minato’s name slip, tries to cover, but ultimately reveals he knows Minato. He says Minato seemed to think she didn’t love him, but that the way she talks about Minato sounds like she did. Aoba says that they could talk normally with their voices, but she couldn’t get through to Minato.
Someone is talking to Sakura’s mom, maybe an older sister, about the younger sister. The mom is a little harsh about her giving away Sakura’s secret, but the older sister comments that they’re the only ones talking, implying that Sakura and the mom aren’t.
Sakura hasn’t been able to reach Aoba, so he tracks her down to work. She’s reluctant to talk, and he keeps pushing. She tells him to text because talking to him face-to-face is painful. He sends a text saying he will be waiting for her at the cafe tomorrow.
Aoba’s brother asks after Minato because he’s the one most in love. Aoba is making hamburgers, which is what she always ate with Minato. While she’s cooking, Minato calls, and the brother forces her to talk by putting the phone on speaker.
Minato is calling about a hair clip he found, which Aoba tells him to toss. Aoba talks about how he never had an opinion about things. That she felt like he was a little brother, but she was comfortable with him, and never felt like she had to be anyone else. She cries, saying she really loved him. And that he didn’t know.
He says he didn’t, and she says it’s in the past now. There’s no mutual or one-sided love. He admits the hair clip was an excuse and tells her that Sakura likes ponytails and wishes her luck.
He goes to sleep, and we’re transported back to their first morning together. He was surprised she was there, and they talked about doing their best. Aoba also remembers this moment.
This new next morning, Minato has thrown the hair clip out and Aoba pulls her hair into a ponytail, before shaking her head at herself and pulling it out.
She goes to meet Sakura, who thought she wouldn’t show up because she didn’t want to see his face. She says she can now. He has written his thoughts down for her on a notepad. He’s written that he feels guilty and responsible, and apologizes. She starts to protest, but there are more pages. He also wrote that signing with her, and playing futsal with Minato made him really happy. He feels terrible, but he’s glad they’re all together.
He wants to open up to her because she’s earnest. And she agrees.
The first thing she wants to tell him is that she’s hungry and wants to eat together. After first saying she’ll eat anything, she changes her mind. She doesn’t want to eat hamburgers.
Thoughts:
What a satisfying episode. After feeling so annoyed with Minato, and maybe letting Aoba off a little easier, I feel like this episode was perfect. I feel like they really, truly talked about their feelings and why the relationship wasn’t going to move forward. During that flashback, when they said they’d try their best, I was left with the feeling that they really had truly tried their best. I bet every couple that breaks up for good reasons wishes they could work through it this way.
The continued emphasis on communication in this show is so well done. One of my favorite, if painful, moments in this episode was Aoba commenting to the sign language teacher that she and Minato could both talk, and yet she couldn’t get through to him. There’s also the comment from the older sister (?) about Sakura and his mom being the ones not talking. Communication is one of my favorite themes in romantic dramas. Because it’s so possible to love someone and be with them and even communicate well, and yet there are these places where it feels like everyone is trying but still understanding isn’t happening.
The interesting thing about this show is that for all Sakura has been a major part of it, his screen time has definitely been smaller than Aoba or Minato. I’m really looking forward to seeing him and getting to know him past just his part in Aoba and Minato’s relationship, both past and present.