Honey Lemon Soda

Episode 3

For all that Uka says that she's falling in love with Kai, I don't know that she's seeing him as an actual person – at least, not yet. That makes sense; up to this point, all of the people her age she's ever interacted with have treated her as decidedly less than, and although she doesn't consciously think of herself as not being human, the way she reacts to things indicates that may be the case. Some of her actions in this week's episode help to highlight that, like when Kai asks her to wake him up before class starts and she sits there, watching him like a faithful pet. This aligns with how he described her in episode two, as a stray he took in, and again this week, when he said he was socializing her. While that sounds awful to us, to Uka, it's still a lot more humanizing than any of the treatment she's gotten at the hands of past classmates. It helps to highlight not only the degree of trauma she went through but also that no matter how much she idolizes him, Kai is still just a teenage boy.

That disconnect between what we as the audience know and what Uka as the protagonist knows makes this episode work. For every honey-flavored view Uka expresses, Kai has a lemon-scented counterpart. He stands up for her, but also snaps back at people who assume they're a couple; he tells her his shameful bedhead secret, then grabs her to stop her from revealing it to others. It's like the side of him that Uka practically worships is at war with his very normal teenage concerns about how he appears to others. If it's not precisely endearing, it grounds his character, because he's not the paragon Uka seems to believe he is. He cares, he absolutely does, but there's still a lot of baggage for him around that.

Some of that baggage may be carrying his dating history. I said last week that he seems like the kind of kid who could have been involved in the whole middle school dating scene without really “getting” it, and comments from both Satoru and a random classmate indicate that yes, he has dated someone before. Kai's reluctance to talk about it is interesting, and I have to question whether his experience is behind the way he seems to blow hot and cold with Uka. Still, I maintain that the most important role he's playing in her life now is that he's not prince charming; he's more like the fairy godmother, seeing her and allowing her to see herself through a different set of eyes.

That's a hard thing to do, especially when you've experienced what Uka has. Ayumi, the girl in Kai's group of friends, has never really seen the sort of thing Uka went through, but she's quickly learning what it means for her new friend. It throws her both times she sees it, although interestingly enough she's more visibly upset by the second instance, when she asks Uka to eat with her on the class trip and realizes that Uka's already prepared to eat alone, under a tree out of the way. (You learn early on how to find those out-of-the-way places where it's safe to exist.) That's likely because of the first case when Uka musters up her courage to ask Ayumi to be her friend, and a flustered Ayumi exclaims that she thought they already were friends. Ayumi isn't hurt by Uka's question, but it drives home what someone else – presumably Kai or Takamine – told her about needing to spell things like that out for Uka. But then she did say it aloud and Uka still thought she needed to eat alone. That moment, more than any other this week drives home to Ayumi and viewers how deep Uka's wounds are. A few people being nice to her won't heal her right up, and it will take time before she fully understands that she will be okay.

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