It’s Saki birthday and the two were excited to celebrate it together until Hotaru learned there’s a conflict in schedule. She had forgotten she as supposed to attend her grandfather’s memorial was that day. Saki understood that much and was okay with having to reschedule their plans, but we saw just how lonely he has been since his parents left him. And geez, TO NOBODY’S SURPRISE: ONCE AGAIN THEY AREN’T MAKING TIME TO COME HOME FOR HIS BIRTHDAY! [SEETHES] We can see how his grandma is trying to fill in that gap as much as she can, doting on him like a mother hen and promising a grand feast of a treat. It was also cute to see her understanding that he’d rather spend it with Hotaru, but also was being the endearingly naggy time of “stick to curfews and walk her home” and yadiyadiya.
It was good to see more of Saki’s side of thoughts for an exchange, namely with how it all started out with him once anticipating his parents letters to eventually dreading it to the point he cuts out their patients out of their pictures out of sheer frustration and jealousy. Why does he have to share his parents with others? Why can’t they be at home with him and treat him the way to do with the other children the treat from worlds away? It’s only natural why he has abandonment issues, and why it’s been so important to him for so long to be someone’s number one. But the good knew is that dating Hotaru has changed his thinking about that. He realized that whenever he’s with Hotaru, he cares less about being her number one priority and cares more about making sure she’s happy and seeing her smile. It may not seem much, but it’s a pretty big step forward. It’s super important for him to be at peace with that sort of thing, and a large part of it is probably because he trusts Hotaru. Now his biggest priority is about protecting her so she would never cry again.
But we saw as he’s becoming okay with this, there’s also some guilt weighing him down. Contrary to how Hotaru sees him, he doesn’t hold himself to a high regard. He doesn’t think of himself as a ‘good guy’ because he knows how he is. His possessive side, and desperation to be someone’s number one is hardly anything he’s proud of. Thankfully by letting go of that, it is lifting some weight off his shoulders.
There was also a really nice moment when Keigo called him in hopes to get some advice on their homework. The nicest thing was that he actually remember it was his birthday (thanks to Kyo) and even gave him a lot of credit for not being more possessive like he had initially took him for, and praised him for understanding that Hotaru couldn’t make it. Id’ like to see these two interact more because it’s actually impressive that Keigo wasn’t scared off by him during the New Years get-together.
As for Hotaru’s case. It did surprise me a bit that she still chose to go to her grandfather’s memorial. Unlike her sister, she didn’t really know him, that’s why her mother had told her it’d be alright for her not to go. Yet despite a way out, Hotaru insisted she’d attend. I suppose she felt it’d be disrespectful if she didn’t. The reason why I was surprised was that, I thought had learned from her own experience of her birthday date with Saki of how much it means to be the doted on for an exchange. Thankfully Hotaru did eventually realize that, and was able to strike a good compromise of having attended the memorial and leave early so the two could still celebrate his birthday for the rest of the day. It wasn’t easy of course, being a two-hour train ride, but thankfully it’s because she could take the train she could make it back. If it were a car-ride, then that would’ve been impossible.
