Episode 6 Recap
The discovery that Horikiri Chiyomi isn’t where she claims has Mikimoto Ami lie to Takagi Riku when asked about whether she’s gotten back to their friend. Instead of telling Takagi Riku that her call to Solo Workshop‘s reception revealed no Horikiri Chiyomi attending the dance workshop, Mikimoto Ami tells him that she’s forgotten to email her and will email their friend again to tell her he’s worried about her. "I hope Horikiri-shi will contact me soon," Takagi Riku says as he rubs the head of his Horikiri Chiyomi figurine with his index finger like she were his pet.
Minami Shunichi shows up right at this moment and requests to be let through. There are other paths he could’ve taken to exit the classroom, but seemingly, it has to be the one where Takagi Riku stands. (We think Minami Shunichi really does not like Takagi Riku with the Horikiri Chiyomi figurine!) Not picking up anything from Minami Shunichi, Takagi Riku apologises and moves aside immediately. Minami Shunichi makes a move to walk through, but not before stopping momentarily to glare down at the Horikiri Chiyomi figurine which Takagi Riku has taken out of his pocket to hold in his hand.
At this moment, as Takagi Riku and Minami Shunichi stand side by side, Horikiri Chiyomi decides to pop up from Minami Shunichi‘s pocket to get a view of her friends, exposing herself to Takagi Riku. As Takagi Riku looks up from gazing.
She and Takagi Riku‘s eyes meet briefly to eye with Takagi Riku as his gaze returned upward from looking down at his Horikiri Chiyomi figurine. The sighting shocks him and he thinks about asking Minami Shunichi about what he saw in his pocket, but stops short after calling out to him. He sits down to his desk, not believing his eyes. "He got a figurine, too… it looked so real," he says to himself.
Horikiri Chiyomi‘s story looks to be starting to be exposed, but the one to expose it is neither Mikimoto Ami nor Takagi Riku. The real threat is her own sister, Horikiri Asuka, who’s very curious over what Minami Shunichi would want with a box of doll’s clothes during his last visit. It leads her to visit his place under the pretense of wanting to see how his grandmother is doing and get help with homework. After visiting his place she comes returns with having seen all the clues to connect to what’s become of her sister: the small bed by Minami Shunichi‘s bed (which she doesn’t know what it is); the container of doll clothes which she’s been curious about under a table; and the most important clue, an email address on his tablet with the username "issun-hime" (One-Inch Princess). Looking at it, she just finds it odd for him to have such a username as an email address. She has yet to connect that this email address is the one her sister uses to send her and her parents the video messages. (It’s only a matter of time she discovers it, though.)
At the hospital Nomura Sayori‘s dad works, Nomura Sayori visits her dad about recommending Minami Shunichi to Takasu Medical University. She learns that he had already made this offer to Minami Shunichi‘s mum, but she turned down. She also learns that her dad wants to get remarried. The news doesn’t settle well with her. Nomura Sayori brings up her mother, asking him whether he’s thought about how her mum felt when she left them and whether he thinks this remarriage will make him happy. Her dad, not wanting the conversation to carry on, tells her to quieten down and to discuss the matter at home. (A couple of nurses—one of them being Minami Emiko—had come around the corner to see what the commotion was all about it seems.) It upsets Nomura Sayori more. She accuses him of worrying more about appearances than her daughter’s feelings before walking out on him.
After the scene at the hospital, Nomura Sayori is invited over for dinner by Minami Emiko. At the dinner, Horikiri Chiyomi is reminded of the similarities between Nomura Sayori and Minami Shunichi‘s family situation, and how it’s possible they can come to like each other.
From the staircase, Horikiri Chiyomi watch the Minami family and Nomura Sayori eat together. She watches a couple of Nomura Sayori‘s tears fall down her cheeks as the experience of eating with family has her think about her family situation and her mother leaving. She expresses how she thought she didn’t care about her mother leaving her since she was attached to her dad. Her mother was often whining and crying. They were traits of her mother that Nomura Sayori did not like. Now, though, she understood why she was like that. It was because her dad left her alone for a long time.
Her dad never came home—not when her dad and mum were still together, and not after her mother left. Nomura Sayori tells how she would cook and wait for her dad to come home to have his dinner, but he never come home and she’d have to eat alone often. Nomura Sayori also reveals that her parents’ marriage was a loveless marriage. Her father only married her mother because she was the daughter of a professor and was obligated. Her father was in fact in love with someone else.
Nomura Sayori and Minami Shunichi are similar kind of people. They understand and empathise with each other’s situations and have similar thoughts and feelings about it.
Upstairs in Minami Shunichi‘s room, Horikiri Chiyomi seems to want to ask about him and Nomura Sayori and whether their similar family situations is the reason they’re together (at least that’s how we’re reading it), but she stops mid-way. Minami Shunichi seems to want her to finish what she’s asking, like he knows what she wants to ask and wants her to finish so he could set it straight (again, that’s how we’re reading it). She doesn’t carry on, telling him to forget what she’s wanting to ask.
Nomura Sayori comes knocking at the door at this point. She’s wanting to talk to Minami Shunichi about his mum turning down her father’s offer to recommend him to Takasu Medical University. Standing a couple feet apart—she sitting on his bed; he standing by the door—he tells her that he’s not the kind of person to work that way before thanking her for the help.
Saying thank you must be something Minami Shunichi says rarely, because the words has Nomura Sayori get up on her feet to hug him. This time, there is no loud sound of his thumping heart. He just stays still with a shocked expression on him. "How long are we going to stay like this?" she asks him—as in how long is he going to continue holding back with her. She releases from the hug to face him. "Do you not… like me?" Minami struggles to form an answer again, causing Nomura Sayori to ask yet again whether it’s because he likes someone else: "Could it be… Horikiri-san?"
A short moment passes by as if he’s thinking over the truth to the question (or perhaps he’s thinking what the best answer is knowing Horikiri Chiyomi is listening to all of this as she stands behind a container of stationery). He walks away from Nomura Sayori, and with his back to her, denies it emphatically with his back to her: "Of course not!"
The denial has Nomura Sayori approach him again and close the distance between them again. "Then… is it okay for me to do something like this?" She turns him around and starts go in for a kiss again. For a moment, he stands still, in shock; but upon recalling a dream he was one-inch tall and she was trying to kiss him with her big lips, he pulls away.
In this dream, she’s holding him by the back of his collar. "So cute," she says, "I feel like eating you." She then brings him towards her big (in comparison to him) glossed-up lips. "Ah… she’s going to eat me!" he dreams himself thinking.
Minami Shunichi apologises and tells Nomura Sayori that he’s not interested in doing that kind of thing—kissing, dating, etc.—because he has things he needs to do now. Nomura Sayori lets it go. After expressing a short sad laugh, calling him a virgin, her expression drops and tells him that her feelings can get hurt. Receiving little response from Minami Shunichi, only saying her name, she leaves his room.
After letting out a few deep breaths, ones which looked like he had been holding, he turns his attention to Horikiri Chiyomi and lets her know it’s okay to come out. Horikiri Chiyomi doesn’t come out though. He hears small sniffs coming from his desk. He heads over to the desk and is surprised to see that she’s sat down hugging her knees against the container of stationery. "Chiyomi?" he calls softly. "Why are you crying?" "I’m okay," she tells him through sobs. "You’re not okay," he continues. Horikiri Chiyomi shouts at him, insisting she is. Not knowing what else to do, Minami Shunichi turns away after several more moment hovering over the desk where she is.
At nightfall, Horikiri Chiyomi is at the tablet updating her online novel again. Her latest entry has her write about the big man, herself and the big woman, and how can’t have such an ambitious dream as to be loved by him. The reason the big man is kind to her is because she is small. The one who is suitable for him is his own kind, the big woman. The big woman can embrace him and comfort him, unlike her who can only dance on his palm. She is nothing but a burden for him she writes.
This latest update is about the situation between her, Minami Shunichi and Nomura Sayori. The dinner, Nomura Sayori‘s story, Minami Shunichi‘s story and the scene in Minami Shunichi‘s bedroom earlier in the night has yet again reminded Horikiri Chiyomi how much Minami Shunichi and Nomura Sayori suit each, not only because of their family situation, but with the way she is, she can’t hope to be with him.
"I have known this from the start," she says sitting on his bed, still sobbing and tearful as she watches the sleeping Minami Shunichi, "but I can’t stop crying." She gets up and moves to give him a small peck on the cheek before heading off to bed.
The next morning, Nomura Sayori is accompanied by Minami Shunichi out the door, but they go their separate ways. Nomura Sayori heads home while Minami Shunichi heads to school. A dream that was dreamt the previous night involving a Nomura Sayori trying to sleep with him in front of a trapped Horikiri Chiyomi has him seek Yabuki to return the R-rated magazine back to him. Seemingly, he’s blaming his latest dreams about Nomura Sayori coming onto him on the magazine. The meeting leads him to being dragged to a Karaoke bar to meet a couple of university-aged girls who look nothing like their picture. Fortunately, he manages to escape, leaving Yabuki to enjoy (rather suffer) the fruits of his work.
He returns home to receiving shocking news from Horikiri Chiyomi. She’s been discovered by his grandmother. It happened after she had returned to the house after going out. The report about the reaction from his grandmother is not what he expected though. Horikiri Chiyomi tells him that Minami Shunichi‘s grandmother was not one bit surprised by her appearance. She talked to her like normal, told her that she’s been looking for her (as in the One Inch Princess we think) for a long time, and even offered her a meal before telling her to return home.
When Minami Shunichi goes downstairs to check on his grandmother after Horikiri Chiyomi alerts him to a burning smell, he finds her watching the shopping channel and paying no attention to the food on the stove. When he goes to alert his grandmother about the burning food, she calls him by his father’s name, Noboru, instead of Shunichi, confusing him. She then goes on to tell him about having had a visit from the One Inch Princess and hoping that she will visit again, which has him flashback to the time he and Horikiri Chiyomi were kids and looking for the One Inch Princess (like he’s just recalled the story about the One Inch Princess).
[Minami Shunichi surprised to see Horikiri crying, Horikiri Chiyomi crying, horikiri typing, horikiri sitting at bed crying x4]
The episode ends with Horikiri Asuka by the computer with one of Horikiri Chiyomi‘s emails opened on the screen. She’s wishing her sister would send emails more often. As she stares at the email, she finally picks up the email address her sister used to send her emails as the same one she saw on Minami Shunichi‘s tablet. She ponders over the meaning of it for the moment: "Does this mean Onee-chan was sending us email from that device?" she asks aloud to herself. "So that means Onii-chan and Onee-chan are…"
We don’t hear Horikiri Asuka finish her thoughts as the scene cut over to Minami Shunichi and Horikiri Chiyomi happily enjoying a store bought pudding on the desk together. It can probably be assumed Horikiri Asuka has it figured out.
Comments
Something’s not right with Minami Shunichi‘s grandmother! She called her grandson Noboru! Minami Shunichi‘s grandmother was mentioned as being unwell during the dinner and she was seen having fallen asleep during Horikiri Asuka‘s visit, we wonder if her being unwell has anything to do with the One Inch Princess. She seems to have a connection/history with her.
The situation between Minami Shunichi, Horikiri Chiyomi and Nomura Sayori, if Minami Shunichi‘s dream are anything to go by, Nomura Sayori is like a nightmare to him when she’s so forceful with him. The first dream, he thought she was going to eat him. The second dream, he wasn’t exactly willing either. Minami Shunichi attributing his recent dreams involving Nomura Sayori to the R-rated magazine Yabuki gave him and then returning is some kind of suggestion, too. He doesn’t like Nomura Sayori in that way.
Horikiri Chiyomi was saying how the big man, i.e. Minami Shunichi, is only nice to her because she’s small, it doesn’t look to be so. The end scene where Horikiri Chiyomi and Minami Shunichi are at the desk sharing a pudding and he suddenly notices caramel on her cheeks, he’s got to like her to notice and then wipe off such a small caramel stain for her!
The whole time she’s been small, we’ve noticed that Minami Shunichi‘s gaze follows her quite a bit. When she walks across his desk to see what he’s doing (like in Episode 2 after he settled down to do homework); he can’t help but send a glance over to her. Last episode, he was the same when Horikiri Chiyomi decided to head outside his window to dance. This week he’s noticing the smallest stains on her face.
Aside from the gazes, there are all those times when he’s running home whenever she’s chosen to stay home or is in trouble; and he seems to only show Horikiri Chiyomi his playful side.
The last couple of shots in the scene where they’re sharing pudding, he is seen teasing Horikiri Chiyomi. Horikiri Chiyomi sees it as being mean, but it definitely comes off as playful in our eyes. "I thought you don’t eat late at night," Minami Shunichi says to her as she enjoys a spoonful of the pudding. "It’s still before 10:00," she shouts. Then, after they both agree on how pudding bought from the convenience store is delicious, after Minami Shunichi helps wipe off the caramel off her cheek, he goes and gobbles up the entire dessert with a happy expression across his face.
Minami Shunichi only being nice to her because she’s small? We don’t think so!
Can’t wait to get to Episode 7! The scene where Horikiri Chiyomi is sitting on his bed and kisses Minami Shunichi on the cheek whilst he lay asleep, it feels so much like the beginning of the end of them being together like the way they have been. With Horikiri Asuka onto her sister and Minami Shunichi and Minami Tomiko discovering Horikiri Chiyomi, it seems to be heading that way. Can’t wait to see whether what Horikiri Chiyomi says about him only being nice to her because she’s small is true!
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