No one is feeding anyone else and everyone is talking about sex but no one is having any. This sounds like a lot of fun.
It all starts when Hagiwara accidentally emails a stranger
Hagiwara lives with his girlfriend, Kaori, who doesn’t want sex. They sleep in separate beds that were once pushed together but moved apart until he could no longer reach her. Now he lays alone in bed, sends an email, and thinks about enduring rain alone.
Elsewhere, Nakarai Sei gets an email apologizing for an earlier miss-sent email. He’s also alone in a twin bed with another one a few feet away. That empty twin bed belongs to Fujisawa Kazuaki, Nakarai’s “it’s complicated”.
Fujisawa comes and touches Nakarai’s face before saying goodnight. Nakarai grabs his hand, but Fujisawa makes him let go. Nakarai thinks about how the rain can’t reach them.
To Hagiwara’s surprise, he gets a reply to his apology email
It says not to worry.
Our male-male dysfunctional pair discuss Fujiwara having an interview at home, implying Nakarai will need to leave. Luckily, Nakarai has a work event, even though he usually doesn’t go to them. Nakarai lays in bed and wonders what he is to Fujiwara, masturbating and imagining him.
Meanwhile, our male-female dysfunctional pair discuss how broken nails only have a fracture on the surface. It’s a metaphor for their relationship. Fujiwara tries to kiss Kaori and she pretends he’s being an inappropriate customer. So he masturbates in the shower.
As Nakarai washes his hands, he gets an email notification. The mysterious emailer is amused he replied.
And from there the emailing continues
Neither knows anything about each other, but they establish they’re both guys. Kaori isn’t jealous, though Hagiwara wishes she were.
Fujiwara acts jealous. He doesn’t want Nakarai to meet the emailer and thinks he’s ridiculous for responding. But when Nakarai asks him if he wants him to stop, Fujiwara says to do whatever he wants.
Hagiwara starts a provocative topic when he answers his own question about dividing women into two groups. For him, there are women we can fuck, and women we can’t fuck.
Our end-of-episode-reveal is they work at the same company, where Hagiwara is intimidated by Nakarai’s stern attitude. They stand near each other and both look at that last email, neither realizing their mysterious email friend stands nearby.
Nakarai fights sexism
He texts that it’s the same with men, there are men you can fuck and men you can’t fuck.
Hagiwara gets scientific about gender roles in the animal kingdom, but Nakarai points out people are more complicated. Hagiwara agrees but still feels women have the final say. Nakarai is surprised to read this from a person in a happy relationship.
At work, they pass each other without a word.
Hagiwara wants to know how Narakai would divide men, and he says men who seize opportunities to have sex and those who don’t. Hagiwara almost asks if he means himself but doesn’t.
At work, Hagiwara fears the person he sends brazen emails
He tries to avoid Narakai, but Narakai sees him. Hagiwara thinks Narakai seems like a guy who doesn’t have any sexual desire. Then he berates himself for thinking about sex so much.
Later, Hagiwara is stunned to discover a friend is getting married, I know that feeling. His friends joke about him marrying Kaori only after she gets pregnant. They’d have to have sex for that.
Nakarai smiles over dinner when he remembers how Hagiwara was scared of him. Fujiwara thinks he may seem inaccessible to some, but he likes him as he is.
Hagiwara writes back that he’s surprised some men don’t seize the opportunity to have sex. He reveals that he’s lived with his girlfriend for two years and plans to get married, but it’s been a year since they had sex. He wants it, she doesn’t, and her refusals are always indirect. So he doesn’t want to push
They get a smidge closer in the real world
At the work event, Hagiwara takes the chance to hang out with Nakarai. He uses a phrase he wrote in the emails, but while Nakarai notices I don’t think he makes the connection.
Afterward, Hagiwara sees Nakarai standing in the rain and runs over with his umbrella. But Nakarai has an umbrella, he just wants to experience the rain. He can’t hear it well in his apartment. Hagiwara says the rain sound can bother him so much he can’t sleep.
At home, Nakarai annoys Fujiwara by talking about Hagiwara. Fujiwara hates pretty much anything loud or colorful. And sex.
Nakarai soaks in the tub, remembering how after his parents died Fujiwara was there for him. He promised to be with him forever but can’t give him the relationship he wants. He kept his promise but won’t hold Narakai, not even his hands.
Narakai gets out of the bath and collapses. Fujiwara takes care of him, and Nakarai cries as he thinks he’ll be with him forever, gently rejected forever. He tries to get Fujiwara to have sex with him, any kind of sex. But Fujiwara flees, telling him to go to bed.
Nakarai calls himself stupid.
At least everyone is miserable
I wonder how happy Kaori and Fujiwara are in relationships with people who want something they won’t give. Unless they’re getting off on that? I doubt it for Kaori, maybe for Fujiwara.
Never mind them. Hagiwara is the most generic guy I’ve seen in a BL. He’s in sales and has a live-in girlfriend he’s planning to marry probably because he’s nice, she’s nice, and that’s the next step. Since his girlfriend isn’t communicating, he has no idea what to do except talk about the animal kingdom.
For him, the rain is his sex drive that won’t go away, keeping him awake at night with ceaseless thoughts of sex.
Meanwhile, poor Nakarai is desperate to hear the rain, like he’s desperate for anything from his relationship with a noiseless, colorless, sexless person.
Emailing so personally with a stranger is the act of desperate people. They’re terrified to talk to their partners, they don’t feel they can reveal this to friends, but a stranger is safe.
I can see why someone loud and opinionated like Hagiwara could work for Nakarai. Nakarai’s appeal for Hagiwara I don’t see yet, but Nakarai’s next email response may have the answer.
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