KAIRI YOU AWESOME…
WAIT, WAT…?!
WHAT IS HAPPENI-…
KAIRI~
WTF?!!!!
KAIRIIIII!!!
…WOW!!
DIDIN’T SEE THAT COMING…

Basically, my reactions through out this episode! I don’t know how but this show keeps out-doing the episodes with each new one and I am all here for it! Forget about the kisses, that is like, 99% of all dramas so basically, it is normal and thus shouldn’t be taken as a negative unless we are considering all other dramas failures.

I expected this conquest to be a long-winded one but apparently that is not the case! Kairi’s game was just too strong that it rendered my musings about Yuri not wanting her last episode, basically, irrelevant! The Teacher’s impact on Yuri’s life, though it will still be there, looks like it is going to be the opposite, not of the good kind! And I am still confused by Yuri’s relationship with Shiho and Tomomi!

Anyway, my mouth was left hanging from the very beginning, then during that climax and again at the end! Three shocks to the system in a single episode is not healthy!!!!

And I am here for it 100%!!!

 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 

“There’s been an awakening. Have you felt it?”
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 

Hahaha OMFG that opening!!! I don’t know what the best scene was, the opening before the title or the climax scene of the episode! Both scenes played with my emotions and I most definitely did not see either scene coming! Such was the state of me through out this whole fourth episode! I don’t believe I saw anything in this episode coming!

So anyway, we open the episode with a sickly Kairi, apparently having caught the cold from Yuri (episode 1) and it is now Yuri’s turn to take care of her! She is cooking her dinner even like they were some kind of married couple or something! Best yet, she is cooking in Kairi’s kitchen! At this rate I can’t even tell anymore whose place they are in because it might as well be one big apartment with two rooms!

Seriously you two, just move in together already, Jesus!

Anyway, Master of the Craft (of women seduction) Kairi shifts into high gear and as she asks Yuri to bring her some honey because it is good for the throat! Yuri be like, you are going to take it as it is? And Kairi be like, yes, it’s more effective that way. And Yuri be like, alright then, I’ll go grab you a spoon or something, but the Master be like, no, use your finger!!!!

Alright to hell with it, enter the bestest scene of the episode, nay, of the series!!!!!!!!

Yuri, with a bit of hesitation but more of curiosity, opens the honey jar up, dips her finger in it, then slowly bring it forward to Kairi’s lips…who, goddamn it Kairi, impossibly more sensual than I expected, wrapped her lips around it, sucked on it, then sucked on it some more, not showing any sign of stopping even as Yuri exhaled her name, all but looked up and my God! That gesture alone made the scene 1000x hotter! She only let go when she wanted to not because Yuri had asked her to, nay, not even Yuri wanted it to end! She only breathed Kairi’s name not to get her to stop but it was more of a revelation!!

Speaking of revelation, the moment Kairi’s lips wrapped around her finger, Yuri both audibly and visibly breathed in deep at the shock she got from the action that there was no way one would miss the impact the situation had on her! And when she breathed out Kairi’s name, totally shook, she swallowed hard again when Kairi looked up at her, all sexy and stuff! And we all know that she found Kairi hot once and that was because she was on top of her, now Kairi was beneath her, sort of, and some people find that hotter than if their partner was on top of them!

Then Kairi, as if she was addicted to the drug, begs for more! She begs for more as she gets on her knees and closer to Yuri. Yuri is all nerves, common sense gone, and just nods. Meanwhile Kairi too is lost to her senses and all she can see, all she can feel is Yuri as she wraps her arms around Yuri’s shoulders, all seductive and somehow her being sickly makes her look all the more sexy, she says she wants more…more…more of Yuri!!!!! Then she leans in and the two Kis——

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

I literally hit the pause button, threw my head back and just screamed! It was all just too much! I was not prepared for such hard hitters as early as the very frikkin opening scene of the episode!!! I thought I was in the phantom zone or dreaming or something!

Like, God, this scene is out there with the bath scene in THE HANDMAIDEN and this is not a movie!!! This is a frikkin drama!!! Like, at this moment I don’t even care where we are going to end up with! This drama has done way more than any other has in the first four episodes and that is much more than enough for me! Hell, they can even kill off Yuri or Kairi or even make one of them end up with a guy and I would not give a tick! This opening scene is out there as the bestest scenes in yuri and that is the truth!!!

And speaking of truth and dreams, turns out that’s what the opening scene was…a dream! But not of whom you all would expect! It was Yuri’s dream!! Yeah, I told you this episode was throwing curve balls from left and right and not only was the scene itself out of the left field, but the reveal of it being Yuri’s dream, Yuri of all people, was in and of itself also another shocker! And speaking of which, I can say with certainty, even before I go to make sure, that the face Yuri wakes up with will be famous within the fan community! I went from unbelievable laughing at the opening scene to happy laughter at Yuri’s face!

Needless to say, this episode had the BEST OPENING EVER!

Ah but we weren’t even done yet! When Yuri walks out to go to college, she of course bumps into Kairi also leaving for work! More hilarity ensues as Yuri, still reeling from her wet dreams, probably her first in a long while, blends them with reality as mistakes what Kairi is saying by turning it into what transpired in her dreams! Kairi is talking about her strict boss and giving examples of how he would react but because she is using words that kind of rhyme with the words that represent her dreams, Yuri is hearing a completely different story from what Kairi is saying! You all will get it when the subs are out (which, as our favourite Reader as of this moment hinted at, soon!).

Basically, in Japanese, the words used for ‘taking things lightly’ or ‘underestimating’ sounds like the words used for ‘eating or licking’ so while Kairi is talking about taking things lightly, Yuri is thinking about eating things! While Kairi is talking about taking things more seriously, Yuri is thinking about more eating/licking! When the two realise they are talking about two completely different things, it’s when we get to the opening credits!

Like, how perfect is that opening!? How perfect is this show?!!!

 
 
 
 

Next scene is at college with Yuri going to lunch break with Shiho and Tomomi! And of course, Yuri is spilling her guts out about the dream, like, girl, don’t you have any boundaries!?! What, are you going to be describing your sex scenes next to your friends once it happens?! Jesus! Then again, I guess that is Yuri for you. She is just too good and probably the thought of keeping a secret is a sin to her! Still, there are some things one should keep to themselves! She is lucky Shiho and Tomomi aren’t ‘bad friends’.

Speaking of friends though, what is going on here?! I am not the only one who had a inkling that she was about to break off not only her friendship with these two but with her boyfriend as well, right? And even if Yuri wasn’t to do it, isn’t their friendship kind of…fractured after what has transpired?! I was under the impression that best friends cheating on each other with their boyfriends was the biggest No in friendship history! And speaking of which, those two have yet to continue to wear their friendship rings!!

But as I was saying, even if it wasn’t Yuri, Shiho and Tomomi aren’t that nice so they could have easily been the ones to end things! If things are true that they went dating Dick behind Yuri’s back and that they said those things about Yuri, that is a big No! There should be some bad energy there even from their side! And even if it is not true, there should still be friction between them but here they are, all happy go lucky like nothing happened! Did Yuri even talk to Dick about what she found out? I doubt it!!

That is the only gripe I have about this show! It is seriously when it needs to so why are they sugar-footing around this issue? Are they just saving it for later when Yuri and Kairi are actively dating and she finds out that Dick is still in the picture for dramatic tension or are the two issues really that irrelevant?

Anyway, Shiho and Tomomi can’t help themselves teasing the daylights out of Yuri about her dreams! There is not denying it any longer! Yuri has the it in her DNA! It’s in her name for crying out loud! Resistance is futile Yuri! Embrace your destiny!!!

Hahaha

 
 
 
 
 

She’s a goner!

 
 

 

Later, Yuri visits Sensei at the hospital but this time she brings Kairi along with! Now, I have to say that while my eyebrows raised a little bit during the first viewing in this scene, it was until I finished the episode then I was like Ooh~ At this moment in time I can just tell when Kairi is having one of her ‘people’ moments! You know, when she is reading a person and you can just see it in her face that she has figured out something about them!

That happened here too but I dismissed it the first time around and I guess not understanding what was being said (my Japanese fails me in none-yuri scenes – the power of Yuri, eh?) did not help either!

And thus it is not that scene that was important at the hospital but rather after they left the room and went to get a drink! On the way Kairi once again hints at something more about Sensei’s relationship with his wife that Yuri adores so much but she doesn’t go farther because Kairi is a person that only goes through something 100% only if she has evidence so I am sure they will be finishing that conversation once she get proof.

For now though, time for another awesome moment out of the many in this episode! Kairi suggest they go buy a drink from the vending machine, which Yuri goes to get but not before asking what Kairi wanted. Kairi picks Honey Lemon and I was like…Oh shi…Here we go!

Never one to disappoint, Yuri’s dreams are triggered by the word ‘honey’, to which she replies that ‘it’s good for the throat, right?’ Taking the worlds right out of her dream Kairi’s mouth! But things escalate when after asking her if she wanted some, Yuri can’t help how dry her throat feels like and how hungry her eyes are as she watches Kairi’s lips, on the bottle, of a honey drink! Her throat visibly moved as she swallowed! I was ready to see her lick her lips! Hahaha

I don’t know about you all but little details like this are very rare! I have only found them in fiction where a writer carefully describes scenes and seeing it here, seeing the way Yuri nervously averts her gaze and lets out a breath after Kairi is done taking a swig because she was so taken watching her…I love it! I love those tiny details! To me they are more impactful and bring out the characters’ emotions better!

You could clearly see that Yuri was thinking about it before even Kairi teased her on it – The fact that they were having an indirect kiss when they shared the bottle! Yeah sure, this is fluff but for crying out loud!! We need more fluff! How much fluff exists in dramas, let alone Japanese dramas? The fluff makes this a standout drama and unlike series’ like FUTARI MONOLOGUE, this delivers in the more mature department as well!

This is a Full Course Meal!

 

 
 
 

“Green-eyed Monster”
 
 
 
 
 

This whole episode coming of as a subversion or turning point so to speak, is more identified in the next few scenes! Sure, the first three episodes were still from Yuri’s POV and mostly about her but in some ways, they were also more about Kairi than they were about Yuri, in terms of where the relationship between these two is concerned! It has been as if Kairi was doing the driving in the progress of their inevitable relationship but this episode, things turned!

Now it is Yuri’s side of the steering wheel that we are on! I think I touched upon it before, wondering if we will get to see Yuri’s side of things on this and it looks like this is it! All the way from the very opening scene in fact, we have been on Yuri’s side of the car and looking more to Kairi’s side from the outside! Now it seems like this is about Yuri pursuing Kairi than it is about Kairi pursuing Yuri.

The next scenes make that view more solid because we finally see Yuri’s other side! Her jealousy! On her way to work, she passes by Kairi’s office and she finds her with her boss outside about to go to one of their mission. The two are having a moment with Kairi being all sweet on him and it is then that Yuri walks onto the scene!

I thank the Lord for the millionth time for giving us Baba Fumika and Kojima Fujiko for these roles because they are competent actors and thus you could see how disturbed Yuri was when she saw how familiar Kairi was being with her boss! Yuri not being a stranger to these types of feelings, seeing Dick has been making her feel them almost every single day, there was no grey areas in what she was feeling! You could tell that she was rubbed the wrong way when she saw Kairi wrap her arm around the Guy’s, or straightened his tie for him, or smiled at him as if all those were hers!

As if she wanted those actions to be directed at her and only her!

Game over man, game over! Yuri is done for! Finally, she lives up to her name!

And then a bit later at work, things get even more complicated, or maybe clearer, when Yuri goes over to Dick and starts railing on him to release her frustrations that she got from seeing Kairi earlier with her boss! Dick goes to hug her to calm her down and while that might have been enough for Yuri before (she was the starved of affection?), that trick did not work this time!

And I love the way that the BGM was used in that scene. I love how it slowly faded into nothingness when Yuri realised that she no longer felt anything, no butterflies that she used to feel when Dich held her in his arms before! And Dick’s reaction…Hahaha

Meanwhile, another plot point picks up steam too while Yuri is on her way back home! The Stalker has been lacking for some time and hasn’t struck since the sex toys gift. But he comes back with a vengeance this time when she all but runs over Yuri on his bike! I must wonder though, the Director made a point in having Yuri stop, turn around, let some time pass, before she was hit. Did she see who hit her?

I mean, I am bringing this up because of who we found out the culprit might be and the way that Yuri almost seemed to be defending her hit and runner to Kairi so I am wondering! Will it be like before? Will she be aware but just let it go and will only admit the reality of things once Kairi breaches the subject later in the series (probably next episode)?

 
 

 

“There is no saving this one!”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This fuckin scene

 
 

 

 

 
 
 
 

Bomb Shell

 
 
 

Sweetness

Enter the climax – The scene that battled the opening dream scene for the best scene of the episode! In fact, I have to say that I am still conflicted as to if I made the right decision! On my consequent watches I still felt the Goosebumps and I was still shocked that what happened, actually did happen!

So anyway, the girls at Yuri (this time) and Kairi is taking care of Yuri’s injuries from the run in with her Stalker! Forgetting the fact that she was defending him saying things like he had the chance to do more but didn’t, stuff like, drugging her, then taking her to some public restrooms and having his way wit her or something, delusions which Kairi called her on, let’s focus on what matters more to us!

By that I mean this new transformation of Yuri’s! When Kairi mentions that she has such strong delusion, of course Yuri can’t help but think of her dreams and thinking of that she can’t help but mention it. Kairi asks her about it and for the first time Yuri doesn’t say what she is thinking and tell Kairi about the dreams.

Of course, the truth comes out eventually but here she keeps things to herself! What she can’t hide is the way she can’t help glancing at Kairi’s lips as she thinks of her dreams! Yuri is a goner! There is no turning back now! Kairi has won and what’s funny she doesn’t know it…well, yet! She soon does, after a few seconds of tomfoolery that made me almost punch a hole in my monitor!

As if clockwork, the serious talk comes after Kairi bandages up Yuri’s hand. I will again just paraphrase, and you have to wait for the subs to get what’s really being said, but Yuri gets some more life lessons from Kairi and this time the subject is marriage and boyfriends vs friendship. It’s about Eternal Love vs Eternal Friendship. Kairi prefers the latter in both cases.

Now, now, before you go breaking your screen, this is not that kind of conversation! We are not going there! But I only found this out after the whole scene went down because like I said, I too almost put a hole in my screen because Kairi fuckin had my heart for dinner! I nearly turned into a psychopath because of how played we were!

So, get this, after the talk Kairi bids her good nights and is ready to leave but Yuri stops her in her tracks!

“No goodnight kiss?” She asks

.

.

.

.

&*D^Y)&D^YHGOD$%D^&D*TSO&DF(GHSIDF&!!

To know how hard I was hit by that question, I saw Kairi being rendered speechless and stupefied for the first time ever in this scene as if she couldn’t believe what had transpired! I have never seen that look on Kairi! Mine was over 9000 times more shook than hers!

Did Yuri just…Did she just frikkin ask that?!!

This is surely some kind of other dream, I was thinking. She is going to burst out laughing and say she was only joking and make fun of Kairi’s face, I was telling myself! But no…Kairi remained shook! The silence remained cutting…Yuri did not say a thing!

Finally finding her senses Kairi replies as expected, ‘…what…’. When Yuri doesn’t say anything to show that she was just messing around, Kairi goes a bit into defensive mode. She laughs nervously and asks Yuri to stop messing with her and not say things like that all serious like she means it.

But Yuri is not playing! She said what she said!!!

Then Kairi takes a face-heel-turn and starts attacking Yuri as if she was doing something wrong. She seems disturbed by Yuri’s intentions and when she finds out about the dreams after Yuri spills the beans in terror and how she hasn’t been herself recently, already breaking out in tears as things seem to have taken an unexpected turn, apologising profusely…

My brain is working hard at sending all the white blood cells to my face to fight off whatever inflection was happening to it because I don’t even want to speak of what I think my face looked like during this very moment!

I was like, No! No!!! They are fukin not! They are not going there!!! I was ready to go to war and declare Kairi as the worst character ever put in story! You all have no idea! Everything was damn serious! I dare anyone who watches this scene and thinks they were playing to come out and say it! You are a plain faced liar if you do!

Like, can you believe going from the best episode to the worst episode in the span of zero episodes?!!!

But THANK THE LORD!

It was all just an act! Goddess Kairi was just messing with Yuri, probably as payback for being caught so off guard and thinking that Yuri was just having a laugh at her. And well, since Yuri wasn’t playing, she might as well grab the chance, right?

Anyway, Goddess Kairi walks over to a devastated Yuri, takes her wet face in her hands, tilts her head up so they could see eye to eye, kisses her softly then looks into her eyes and tells her she was only messing, she tells her she is very happy…

She says ‘I Love You’ to Yuri.

She said it! Not ‘suki’! Not ‘daisuki’! But ‘Aishiteru’!! Yeah sure the first two would get the job done but the last one leaves no areas for discussion! Kairi has finally confessed her love! I have to say I wasn’t expecting it so soon! Heck, this whole episode and what happened in it I wasn’t expecting so soon! I mean, there are 10 episodes, right?!

Okay, yeah sure, there is still somethings we must touch upon, like the fact that while she did say it with her eyes and face, Yuri has yet to say ‘I love you’ back to Kairi. And also, we have yet to learn something more meaningful about Yuri. We have yet to meet her parents despite them being dropped a few times now, which makes me thing we are going there!

Still, there is more than half the story to go so…

Either way, this show is already legendary status! We have not seen anything of this level from Japan before! I am open to be proven wrong but I doubt it! Also judging from how serious this show sometimes gets, I doubt we are going to sail over the repercussions of the two getting together! We might be surprised again seeing as this show looks set on subverting expectations so far but I have the feeling that the sour emotions will be coming soon, and that this episode was a glimpse of that and I thank the showrunners for giving us a sort of vaccine because we now should be able to handle whatever is thrown our way.

That is unless it is too extreme that our girls end up being separated, then we won’t be prepared!

But as if that wasn’t enough shock to the system for this episode, we aren’t done yet! Instead of going to bed like she said she was going to do, Kairi instead pays a visit to the hospital. Yes you guessed it, to Sensei! She did say she would be back during that earlier visit in the episode and she is keeping her promise here by showing up in the middle of the night to visit Sensei.

I was already frowning as you can imagine because I was thinking that the show was about to drop a bomb on us about some secret relationship between Sensei and Kairi but seeing as Sensei was surprised to see her, and thus did not expect her, those thoughts flew out the window. So then, why was Kairi there, at that time of the night?!

Swaggering in with a bouquet of Lilies (Oh Goddess Kairi, I see what you did there!) she is all smiles and casually greets Sensei, who is normally holding his wife’s hand, totally living up to Yuri’s view of him being so in love with her that he never leaves her side aside from going to teach. When he asks where Yuri is Kairi says she is resting because she got injured. She pointedly says that she got run over by a bike. But while you would think that Sensei would be more worried, he just casually lets it go.

I mean okay, maybe the fact that Yuri had not believed him about his wife waking up before made him lose some love for her but still, to be that impassive to hearing that yuri is injured enough to not come visiting is kinda…But then Kairi, out of nowhere, comes dropping little boys all over the place like she was Jean Grey in the climax of Dark Phoenix!

“It’s you isn’t Sensei? You are the Culprit (Stalker)!”

WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

 
 
 

 
 
 
 

WELP

And that’s how the episode ends! Like, talk about a cliff-hanger! Well, technically, the ending is Yuri taking out a honey jar of her own, dipping her finger in it and tasting it and being relevant at how ‘sweet’ it was but you can tell she is double meaning here and she is not just talking about the honey itself but rather, I believe, this new feeling, this new love she is experiencing.

Which actually lit a bulb in my brain in regard to the theme song of the series. It is title ‘Hachimitsu’ which is HONEY in Japanese and the lyrics all but describe Yuri and how she feels about Kairi! ‘You are always sweet to me’ a part of the lyrics says, ‘I wouldn’t mind if you were a bit more hard on me’, the lyrics continue, almost like how Kairi for the first time was a bit mean to Yuri when she made her think that she was straight and disgusted by Yuri thinking of her that way!

I frikkin love this show!!!

Can’t wait for the obligatory onsen episode! Actually, this show reminds me of an anime series! You don’t get this type of story telling in dramas! I am really very thankful to whoever came up with this and those that greenlit it for production!

You are all heroes!

Ja