365 Days to the Wedding

Episode 11

You could cut the sexual tension in this room with a knife, which is interesting since there wasn't a lot of overt physical contact or sexual themes being shown. When I say sexual tension, I'm talking about occupational physical intimacy. Sharing a space with somebody can, in a lot of ways, be just as if not more intimate than having sex with them because it's a much more consistent and detailed invasion of each other's spaces. Everyone has different routines and different boundaries. I'm not a big fan of how this show got our two leads to share a space. If anything, I am downright annoyed at the potential red herring that last week's cliffhanger was. This whole situation may be orchestrated by their boss to give Rika and Takuya a chance to prove themselves. Either she is creating a situation using their company name or there happens to be a convenient company project on the books that would allow her to do that.

It's clunky and one of my least favorite narrative tricks the show has implemented. However, even if it was just a few hours, I like what we see from this cohabitation. Rika seems to be making an honest effort to ensure that she is not being invasive. She's trying to be aware of things like comfort levels and even trying to make sure that Takuya's cat is fully comfortable with her being there, which was probably one of my favorite moments of the episode. This is probably the first instance of both our leads genuinely taking charge to be in each other's lives, because this is already past the degree of effort that most people would probably do for the sake of a façade. There is a genuine desire on both of their parts to make this work. Even if they were forced into this situation, they still want it to be a good experience for each other.

My favorite part about the episode was towards the end where they're trying to get sleep, but can't because of how overly aware they are of each other. There seems to be a little bit of boldness on both of their parts in inviting the other to sleep next to them. Still, that gets counterbalanced by the fact that it's very clear neither of these two have any real experience with physical intimacy. That longing and fear are both very believable emotions given the circumstances, and I think that's what the show excels at. We've scratched the surface of this development and I'm curious where this season is going to end because not much has happened practically, even though there were still a lot of really great moments.

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