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 Administrator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Age: 41
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Previous Entries: Part 1 - Part 2
Here's a challenge to you while reading the third part of the summary:
Spoiler for The "Are you better at reading women than Yoshiyuki?" Challenge!:
As you can probably expect, this part of the summary deals with the aftermath of the scene that ended the last part. The thing Yoshiyuki, and by proxy, you, the reader, are trying to figure out is -- why does Yume seem so upset and distant? It seemed obvious, but she changed her tune right at the end... what's really going on here? Over the course of this part, she and the story will start explaining the reason why (though some pieces still remain unsaid at this point), but the challenge is -- can you figure out the real reason(s) before the end of the story? Or maybe you've already figured it out... (If you came into these summaries with some pre-existing knowledge about Yume, you're probably way further ahead than you should be...  )
I have to admit, it took me a while to figure it out myself, not because it was in Japanese, but because this is all about understanding a woman's feelings... a much tougher language for most men (myself included) to decipher!
Once again, please be aware that some screenshots may be NSFW, though none are explicit.
Spoiler for Yume Plot Summary - Part 3 of 5:
It's been over a week, and Yume has still been avoiding both Yoshiyuki and Otome, staying mostly in her room. School's back in session for the new year, but Yume woke up really early in order to avoid them both. Otome's worried that it's her fault, but obviously it really isn't.
 | Back at school, the girls are all reminiscing about their ski trip. To keep building on the experience, Nanaka suggests that they all go out to karaoke after school, and Yoshiyuki is invited. As they head out, though, Yoshiyuki sees Yume, and invites her to come along... but before he can finish asking, she's already gone. The other girls wonder what happened over the winter break and, figuring he has nothing to lose, Yoshiyuki decides to confide in the four of them. He's hoping that, as women, they might have some good ideas to offer. Even though they understand that what happened couldn't be helped, they figure that Yume must still have felt very lonely. They recommend that Yoshiyuki be a man and apologize to her. | |
So, later that night, he went over to give it a shot, but... it wasn't very successful. He couldn't seem to find the words to say. Nevertheless, in a moment of weakness, he caught Yume smiling before she, in turn, caught herself and returned to her usual distant self. She excused herself, so, defeated, he went back home. There he continued to think back on the situation, and the advice he received, in an attempt to figure out how he could make it up to her.
As he's thinking about it, Sakura shows up, and he explains the situation to her. She wisely concludes that the reason Yume's mad at him is because he doesn't understand why she's upset. In other words, she's upset because he thinks he knows what the problem is, but doesn't get it. (Although I've lived around enough women in my life to know exactly what this means, I can't blame Yoshiyuki for being confused. ) |  |
 | The next day, as the girls are teasing Yoshiyuki and each other over lunch as usual, Otome comes to see him. She lets him know that she's going to be leaving with Junichi and Sakura on a trip for about a week, though she's a bit cryptic on the reasons why. Even though she knows that Yume's still upset at him, she doesn't want to leave her all by herself, and has no one else to turn to. So she asks if he'll take care of her and, of course, he agrees.
When he returns to the class, the girls ask him what that was all about, and when he explains, Akane and Anzu immediately realize that he and Yume will be all alone together, and that means... ^^; He assures him that they're siblings so nothing will happen, but they obviously have their doubts. |
That night, he welcomes Yume home, and of course she's more than a little surprised when he announces why he's there. Apparently, they didn't tell her about the trip. When he says that he's there because he was worried about her being alone, she seems a bit touched by his apparent concern for her. But as she probes deeper about why he thought of her, he mentions that Otome was worried about her, and that sours the mood. She now realizes that he's only there because Otome asked him to be, and goes back to avoiding him.
Later that night, as Yoshiyuki was sleeping on the couch, he heard some rustling in the kitchen. Worried it might be a robber, he attempted to surprise the suspect by suddenly turning on the light. But, instead, he found Yume, bowl in hand, trying to grab some food without him knowing it. The food wasn't going to be very good, though, since it had gotten cold, so Yoshiyuki offered to heat it up for her. Caught in the act, she agrees. |  |
The next day, the trio remain worried about Yoshiyuki, who was eating his lunch alone. Akane and Anzu force him to go with them to the cafeteria, where they get him to give an update on the status of the Yume situation. They're still not giving him the straight advice he's hoping for though. The problem, they say, is that he's too thickheaded to see the problem, but they refuse to tell him what to do because that'd be too easy. At this point, he's getting frustrated that everyone but him has figured it out. ^^;
(See, what the average man needs in these situations is someone with the emotional insight of the typical woman, but the practical, problem-solving approach of the typical male. "So how do I fix it?" "That's the whole problem!" "So what should I do?" "You should be able to figure it out." "What?!" )
Dreams to the rescue? Yoshiyuki dreams of a scene from his and Yume's childhood, where Yume had a bad dream and couldn't get back to sleep, so she asked if she could sleep next to him so she wouldn't be afraid. At the end of the dream, she asks a hypothetical question: if they found themselves far apart some day, what would he do?
 | That next morning, he encounters a very tired-seeming Yume as she heads out to school. He tries to thank her, and noticing that she seems a bit out of sorts, tries to show he's worried about her... but she's not having any of it. She says that she's just fine, and that he doesn't need to worry about her, as heads off to school. Yoshiyuki still doesn't get it.
At the end of the school day, Yoshiyuki goes to head home when he catches a glimpse of Yume talking to Minatsu. Minatsu's worried that Yume really doesn't look very good, and Yume says that she's catching a bit of a cold. When Minatsu suggests that maybe they should call Yoshiyuki to take her home, she refuses since she doesn't want to rely on him. Minatsu says that's fine, but wonders what changed all of a sudden. Yume clarifies that they didn't have a fight, but she realized that they might be forced apart. Because she realizes that she and Yoshiyuki won't be together forever, she decided that she needs to stop relying on him. Minatsu was still worried about Yume's health, so she walked her home. |
As Yoshiyuki walked through town later that night, Yume's words rang through his head. He still doesn't understand what he's supposed to do and is getting pretty frustrated.
As he arrives home, though, he finds Yume collapsed on the floor. He hurries to her side, but she tells him not to worry because she's fine... Of course, realizing how feverish she is, he'll have nothing of it, and he stays by her bedside to monitor her condition.
Sometime later, Yume wakes up. He once again takes the opportunity to apologize for the birthday party, but she says it's fine because she really isn't mad at him. She knew that it wasn't his fault from the beginning, and it's okay for him to forget about it. If that's the case, though, Yoshiyuki asked why she acted so distant from Otome and him. "That's because I'm weak," she said. Yume seemed to be falling back asleep, so he bid her goodnight; he'd be sleeping on the sofa, so she should just call for him if she needs anything. But before he could go, Yume quietly asked "you're leaving...?" before she caught herself and said it was nothing. |  |
 | Yoshiyuki wakes up, and goes to check on his patient. Seems she's up and about, so he decides to check her temperature using the time-honoured tradition passed down from Junichi & Nemu. *SMACK* Seems she's still a bit feverish, so he thinks she should stay home and rest. Of course, Yume's freaking out about the way he took her temperature, and says that he should at least have given her some warning! Yoshiyuki tries to brush it off as no big deal -- just a bit of skinship between siblings. But if she was hoping for a kiss... to which she yells at him to "just get out" and starts throwing things. "Nii-san no baka!!" Seems his relationship with Yume is back to normal.  |
Later that day, Yoshiyuki goes to bring her some food. Like a stubborn child, she says she's not hungry, but he eventually convinces her to eat some. Despite her initial protests, he spoon-feeds her to make sure she eats properly.
After going out to pick up some supplies, Yoshiyuki returns home to check on his patient. He opens the door to find that... he picked a pretty bad time not to knock. ^^;; He finds Yume sitting on her bed half-naked, washing herself with the water from a basin. He tries to act casual and carry on like it's normal, but suffice it to say... Yume doesn't take it very well.
As he heads back, he finds himself started to feel a bit weird himself. He lays down on the couch, and sees a dream. In the dream, he and Yume are out grabbing some crepes together at the park. They're sharing each other's crepes so they can try the various flavours and see which they like best. You might have considered it a normal date...
When he wakes up from the dream the next morning, he briefly remembers what happened yesterday. But when he tries to get up, he doesn't seem to have the energy, and falls back asleep. |  |
 | The girls are grilling Yoshiyuki again over lunch the next day to find out what happened between him and Yume. He acts evasive at first, but eventually confesses that he thinks the fight's over now. As he explains what happened, the girls realize something, but it gets cut off by the bell. This time, though, Anzu takes him aside later to explain. She says that he must have realized that there's a deeper reason to all that's happened than the simple, surface reasons. She asks if he's realized it yet, but of course he hasn't. The reason is the feelings Yume and Yoshiyuki have for each other. The rationale being that, if Yume was never mad to begin with about him being late for the date, then the reason for her becoming distant from him must have occurred to her before then. She realizes that it's easy to see now after the fact (hindsight is 20/20), but the misunderstanding was probably unavoidable due to Yoshiyuki's thick-headedness. |
As he's walking home, Yoshiyuki keeps thinking about what Anzu said. But he starts sneezing, and notices that it's getting harder for him to focus. He forces himself to walk home, but it isn't easy. As he's almost there, Yume notices him outside, and chides him for not having called her given the state he was in. He's burning up, so she leads him to his room. She offers to take care of him, and he tries to put on a brave face, saying that it'll be okay...
But not long after, he's in the dream world. There, he saw Yume, standing back to a gate overlooking a sunset, talking to him.
"I gave up on it long ago.
My feelings never changed.
Giving up was inevitable once I realized that.
It's the same for you, right?
Even though you put on a brave face all this time, you knew the lie.
I know that you can't be happy without knowing regret.
It's... painful.
So, this is goodbye, Nii-san."
Yoshiyuki awoke to find Yume sleeping by the side of his bed. The words of the dream mixed with Anzu's words -- that Yume already knew her feelings before she got mad at him -- and he finally realized his own true feelings.
He loved Yume -- not as a sister, but as a woman.
Spoiler for rf's commentary (at 3/5 of the way through...):
At this point, I imagine some may be finding some parts of the story bit tough to follow, what with the near-constant dream scenes, cryptic hints from the characters, and so on. You should rightfully be asking yourself at this point "what does this all mean?" Even if you figured out the "challenge" above (which, I should mention, is not completely clear yet, but getting much closer), the story itself is almost like a puzzle where you can only see the complete picture when all the pieces are place. This is why I couldn't come up with a way of summarizing the story in a truly compact form and preserving the impact the story has. So many of these seemingly-innocuous scenes have near-glaring symbolism and double-meanings once you understand what's going on and see what's to come. I hope that, if I've done my job right, you'll be able to read through the story again once you know the ending, and all the little things from earlier will suddenly fall into place in your mind (though they may be starting to fall into place already). That's what I love about this story, and hopefully I can convey that in spite of my inadequate Japanese. (And again, if there's anyone out there reading this who spots any errors, please let me know!)
And finally... To Part 4 of 5...
Last edited by relentlessflame; 2008-06-29 at 23:29.
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