Mayama is surprised to find Morita and Takemoto sleeping in his room and questions Morita why he is doing this again. He gives a lame excuse saying that they won't freeze to death if they share a blanket. In addition, Mayama finds out that Takemoto was being dragged here by force and pities him for being manipulated by Morita. Mayama asks Morita why he has not bathed for days and is wearing his clothes again despite Mayama making an outdoor bath for him but Morita grumbles that it is too cold to bathe in the open and refuses to use it. Takemoto laments at being caught between the constant battle between Mayama and Morita.At school, Yamada notices that Morita is wearing Mayama's clothes again and the latter retalliates by saying that Yamada knows Mayama so well that she can identify his clothes just by looking. This makes Yamada extremely embarrassed and she beats Morita again.
Yamada asks Takemoto why Mayama is still staying at that apartment despite earning a reasonable salary and it seems that Mayama has the intention to buy something. Yamada has no idea what Mayama is after but admires him for being able to pursue his goal through taking concrete steps. Just then, Hagu enters the office and shows them her photo during her Coming-Of-Age ceremony. However, they misunderstand that the photo was taken when Hagu was a child and decide not to say this for fear of hurting Hagu's feelings. When Morita sees the photo, he points out the fact that Hagu has not grown much since her childhood days and she chases after him for embarrassing her in that way.
Yamada and Takemoto are surprised to see Hanamoto back in Japan earlier than expected and it seems that he did write a letter to inform them beforehand but the delivery of the mail was delayed. When Hagu sees Hanamoto, she is so happy that she hugs him in tears.
At the welcome party, the students laugh at Hanamoto's pining for Hagu while he was in Mongolia. Hanamoto brings back a traditional Mongolian musical instrument and Morita is able to play it very well much to the surprise of the group. Actually, he had learnt to play this during junior high so this is nothing difficult to him. Hanamoto nags at Morita to submit his graduation project promptly or he would be retained again. After the end of the party, Takemoto, Mayama and Morita then start to imagine how they would be like 10 years down the road after seeing how Hanamoto is behaving.
As Hanamoto is busy with the consolidating of the data from his trip, he is unable to accompany Hagu to buy some art materials. Takemoto is also engaged as he has to help Hanamoto. Just then, Morita offers to go with Hagu to buy the supplies and Takemoto looks on with mixed feelings as they go out alone.
On the shopping trip, Hagu tries very hard to keep up with Morita's walking speed and almost trips but Morita manages to hold her in time. However, Morita remains silent all the time and this makes Hagu extremely nervous. She even comes back empty-handed and loses her appetite when they go for drinks on the way back.
That night, Hagu goes back to Hanamoto's office in tears and says that it was not enjoyable to go out with Morita. She complains about having to run after him all the time and was so nervous that she couldn't eat her favourite pudding or ask for time to go to the ladies'. She even couldn't remember what she wanted to buy and didn't know how to talk to Morita. Hanamoto consoles Hagu who is sobbing bitterly and says that he will accompany her to buy the supplies when he's free.
Morita is really a fascinating figure and this is the Nth time I'm saying how much I like him. He's been giving mixed signals with regards to Hagu. On one hand, he seems to like Hagu very much and even hugged her before she fell but during their shopping trip, it appears as if he's impatient with her or dislikes Hagu, at least on the surface. Frankly speaking, he doesn't need to volunteer to go to the shop with Hagu but I think he reacted before he could rationalise. My guess is that he's just not sure how he should behave in front of Hagu despite getting a chance to be alone with her. He might have been very happy to spend time with her alone but given the fact that he's been so used to hiding his true feelings and always uses his carefree attitude to conceal his thoughts, he might find it difficult to behave normally or be more friendly towards Hagu. It's no wonder that she's finding it a chore to be with him. Anyway, given Hagu's inexperience in love, she would not realise that being nervous in front of the person you love is perfectly normal. Being in love doesn't mean experiencing joy only. You may feel worried, scared, nervous and unable to behave normally but to Hagu, she might be thinking that loving someone would mean happiness only. It's just too complicated for her to understand the apprehensiveness when you are unsure how the person you love would feel about you.
On the other hand, Takemoto knows that he's not comfortable with the idea of Morita going out with Hagu but he's powerless to change anything. First of all, knowing that Hagu is in love with Morita makes him lose confidence in changing Hagu's feelings. Besides that, I guess he also feels inferior to Morita especially whenever he sees how talented Morita is despite him being a repeat student or fooling around all the time. In addition, as what Takemoto told Mayama on the cruise, he doesn't like to fight with others for things so it's probably in his nature to give up without a struggle. As such, all he can do is to despair and hide his feelings to himself.
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