Apparently, Makio and Emiri’s mother are lunching, so Asa tries to invite Emiri over to hang out. Unfortunately, her friend continue to brush her off. Emiri is likely busy spending time with her girlfriend. It’s the classic scenario where you’re in the honeymoon period of a relationship, so everyone else in your life just fades away from existence. But at the same time, Asa hasn’t exactly been the bestest of friends. She has taken and taken and taken — and understandably so due to recent tragedy in her life — but this can drain the people you care about, the people who are trying their best to support you. So sometimes, two friends need to put some space between them so that the friendship can breathe again. I hope that when this is all said and done, Asa and Emiri will at least hash out where things currently stand for them. Even if it ultimately leads to the dissolution of their friendship, they should at least try to understand each other.

We get a lot of loose, seemingly disconnected scenes at the start of the episode. A guy checks in on Chiyo, the girl who was apoplectic about the medical school scandal. Apparently, she’s given up on school ever since she found out about it. Can’t blame her. It must be disheartening to know that you can’t succeed just because you don’t have the right parts between your legs. But sometimes, you just gotta fight through it. Do what you want to do. You might not have those opportunities here and now, but you can always find them elsewhere. Emiri continues to not care about the popular guy and his love life, but her friend — not Asa this time — expects her to. Why? Should all girls be into hetero romances? A bunch of reckless boys run through the hallways and nearly knock Asa over. Unfortunately, they refuse to even apologize. A microcosm of the times? After all, a lot of people will write this behavior off as “boys will be boys.” We then see another kid quit the baseball team due to toxic, bullying behavior. His coach, however, thinks he should just tough it out. If you want to be a part of the team, you gotta take it. Again, “boys will be boys.” In the background, a baseball player gets kicked by a man who appears to be one of the coaches. As a result, the victim has to bow to his aggressor, because he’s expected to.

This week’s episode opens with Shingo complaining about his father’s rudeness. He and Makio muse over breaking the curse. The curse of what? Makio says, “Well, you learn to pass down the good and get rid of the bad.” Going by her own words, they seem to be talking about disinheriting their parents’ worst traits. But if that’s the case, isn’t Shingo already in the clear? He seems positively delightful as a person. I can’t imagine him being rude to a nurse like his father. Naturally, Asa overhears the conversation as she always does in this tiny apartment. She must be wondering what curse she must have inherited from her parents. Well, we know her mother was a strict, judgmental woman, and her father was an emotionally distant and selfish man. As you can tell, this episode is all about curses. We are all cursed — cursed by family, society, and ourselves.

After posing as a runaway girl in last week’s episode, it’s back to school for Asa. She tells her clubmates that she got a nasty cold. In her absence, another girl has been chosen to play with the band, so she mutters under her breath, “It’s not fair.” Does Asa need more time off from school or does she need some semblance of normalcy? The latter hasn’t really been working out. The school finally has her speaking to a counselor, but Asa isn’t very receptive to the idea. It’s actually pretty surprising to me that this is the first time we see her receive any sort of mental help, and I’m a little wary of the fact that it’s linked to the school. To be fair, the counselor seems nice enough from what we can see. Even so, and maybe this is just my cynicism speaking, I would always wonder if they have my best interests at heart or the school’s. It’s like with HR, y’know? Are you here for me or for the company?

After everything that happened at the end of last week’s episode, Asa decides to go even further this week. And at such a precarious time, too. Her aunt has a deadline coming up, so she needs to focus. As a result, Makio starts neglecting her niece. She doesn’t say hi to Asa when the kid returns home from school. She doesn’t eat dinner with the girl either. How much can it hurt to just say hello? How much can it hurt to just share a 20-minute meal together? But a hello can turn into small talk, which can then turn into anything — a conversation, a full blown argument, debate, etc. Makio needs to keep her train of thought going, and we already know how she isn’t the most organized person on the planet. If her attention wavers even for just a moment, it might take her forever to get back on track. This excuse doesn’t really fly when you’re a parent, but as Makio has reminded us over and over, she’s simply Asa’s guardian and nothing more. The look Asa gives her aunt as the woman is pattering away at her laptop feels almost disdainful. She then does what a lot of teenagers in her position are wont to do: she starts acting up by skipping class. I mean, if she’s going to be invisible to the people around her, she might as well not fulfill her obligations, right?