Quote:
Originally Posted by hyperborealis
Now, now. Taichi doesn't ask Chihaya out as a point of honor--just as Arata never responds to Chihaya's many texts and emails, so too Taichi holds back. As he puts it, "Somehow, / somewhere along the way, / we began to think that Chihaya 'belongs to both of us'" (#14, p. 7). For Taichi, he and Arata share Chihaya through karuta, through the important memory of their grade-school team--and that precludes either one of them from making a confession, and taking Chihaya exclusively for himself.
I appreciate Taichi's sense of honor, but not his presumption that Chihaya "belongs" to anyone. Perhaps the negative connotations I am getting are due to the translation? Really I think Taichi must be trying to say that he and Arata share a special relationship with Chihaya (which is true, especially since Chihaya feels the same way toward the two of them) and that he doesn't feel free to allow his personal feelings to interfere with that shared, special relationship.
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I remember something similar in Kimi ni Todoke. At one point a group of girls decide that the popular Kazehaya is "everyone's Kazehaya". I suspect this is a Japanese concept that doesn't translate too well in cultural terms. It may be an example of putting group harmony above personal desires. Agreeing that somebody belongs to everyone implies that nobody can have exclusive rights over that person, thus neutralising disturbances caused by competition and jealousy. I don't think it's supposed to be a permanent solution.