Ayane's had her time with boys, lips and hands and them stammering proclamations of... something. Not love; she's too jaded, too shelled-up tight for that, and they are always too hormone-fueled to even notice.
She's always felt better when she belongs, in that clumsy adolescent way, to a boy.
The boys never really know her, see nothing beyond her cultivated lushness and sly seductive interest. She doesn't let them. It seems irrelevant: the mere acquisition of a boyfriend is the badge of success. She dances from one to another, conscious that she's contributing to a certain stereotype. But she doesn't mind the rumors. She likes fooling around. She's had fun with those boys, all of them. Nothing shameful about that.
But Ayane's ready for a break. That parting blow from her last boyfriend, right on her cheek, only confirms that he isn't worth keeping around.
She'd thought she'd feel unsteady, unfocused. But she's hanging out at the ramen shop. She's teasing Sawako and Kazehaya, reveling in how neither of them realize it. She's fretting about Chizu, Ryuu and Tooru: that tangle of hearts.
It started with Chizu. Her generous laugh, the way every thought finds its quick way out of her mouth. The serendipity of alphabetical order at the school's opening assembly growing into genuine affection.
Ayane is both charmed and frustrated by Chizu's obvious bewilderment when the world conspires against her friends, the sudden way she can shatter into tears. She worries about Chizu in these moments of vulnerability.
And what about Sawako, so convinced that clearing up misunderstandings will solve any difficulty? The faintest show of affection spurs a torrent of gratitude that makes Ayane cringe. But like Chizu's tears, this too is a gift.
Ayane doesn't know what to do with these gifts. She lets them turn her fierce. Not an open flame, not like Chizu. Her rage, when it comes, is ice, unleashed at precisely timed moments.
She's not going to let anyone hurt Chizu or Sawako.
And maybe that's it, there: that's how you receive such a gift, by giving your own.
Maybe it's learning what you want to protect.
Maybe this is where she unfolds. Not with a boy, not with groping and kissing and possessiveness. Maybe there are other things here, now. Sometimes it's awkward. How could it not be, with both Sawako and Chizu? And herself, fumbling as she tries to learn unguardedness.
But their friendship, and the timid yearnings between Sawako and Kazehaya? It's all part of the same thing, a kind of simultaneous blossoming.
And Ayane thinks here, maybe she can be open and herself and loved and seen, all at once.