ACT 3, SCENE 7 - YUKA
Yuka's in a car, carsick. She's on the way to a contest. Her mum keeps telling Yuka that this will be her last contest, due to her currently-incurable weak heart. Apparently, even playing the piano can cause it to act up. Indeed, the contest will be a piano one; presumably the one she met Tsukasa at. The nerves brought on by a stage performance will be dangerous for her, though. Yuka plans to die in a rather romantic fashion, collapsing after giving a splendid performance. If it's not in this competition, maybe the next - she's determined to not give it all up, since she's been long in training for this. After arriving, out heroine slips out of a waiting room to calm her nerves outside. She sees a boy sitting on a bench, staring at a water fountain. It's all rather comforting, helped by the peaceful music playing. Which honestly really isn't all that melancholy.
Yuka sees that the boy, who's rather scruffy-loking, is dressed in formal clothes and deduces that he most be a contestant. She starts chatting him up cheerfully, mentioning her various plans to die spectacularly during her performance - he answers sullenly. He's pretty much displaying No Social Skills. Realizing it's almost time for the show, the boy who is obviously Tsuka starts walking off. Unfortunately he has a fall, soiling his shirt. He can't perform like this, of course, and gets rather annoyed as Yuka starts wondering about the possible options. And then...
"Isn't it natural? I can't perform in these clothes. Don't you want to lend me your clothes?"
Yuka says that he should, you know, maybe borrow a boy's clothes. The strange boy becomes stranger as he mentions that the pianos have commanded him to participate in the contest to further the cause of music, or something. He really, really doesn't understand why Yuka wouldn't sacrifice her clothes to allow him to play. He's rather mad.
Incidentally, he notices Yuka's ear-twiddling habit.
Amusingly, Yuka actually takes Tsukasa's suggestion seriously. They change clothes in the bathroom; Tsukasa's now wearing a skirt. We're shown a CG. He's really cute. Yuka is not.
Yuka's rather interested in this strange, rude boy. She asks his name. Unsurprisingly, it's Amako Tsukasa. Yuka listens to Tsukasa's performance on the toilet, since she can hardly walk around in her current state.
Tsukasa's performance is fucking amazing, to the point where all of Yuka's dreams die as he owns her. She decides not to perform, and rides home with her mum in despair. She realizes she's not got that super talent, that extra, that a true piano god needs. Her life falls apart, and for the first time, she's scared of her heart condition. She numbs herself to protect herself from self-pity.
She's continued this for the rest of her life, becoming a boring person. Even after seeing everyone suffer and stuff after the earthquake, she doesn't feel anything about it.
Hey look, a Yamato Nadeshiko deconstruction? Interesting.
Yuka's not quite sure if she likes Amako-san, but she thinks so. He is the most important person to her, though. She actually understands Tsuka's frustrations with the piano - he just isn't as good as he was, he just doesn't have the superhuman skill any more.
Well, this has all been rather revealing. And surprising. I think part of the interesting stuff in this VN is that it really tries to play everything realistically (though Yuka still not being preggers feels a bit suspicious to me, to be honest).
Scene switch, and it's night. Some fairly unimportant stuff happens involving Yuka looking at Aroe's notebook and being unable to finish Aroe's big sister's plea to anyone finding it on how to treat Aroe right, given her autism. Oh, and she's now keeping both Hiba's and Aroe's spots for herself, their possessions still intact.
Spirits are not high at the school. Food is pretty damn scarce. Koike-san (that's Nozomi if you forgot) goes off on a rant about how the vigilantes aren't getting enough food for their rather tough jobs and stuff. Since she's the leader's woman, she actually manages to strong-arm the others to add some more food to the vigilantes' rations. She's not well-liked, and not everyone's very pleased with Kuwagata-san, either.
"Everyone is an amazing person who works hard to live, unlike me."
Yuka's in charge of feeding the animals now, though she's rather skeptic of how tame they really are, and the whole domestication concept it seems. She notices the dogs aren't very hungry today, and eventually sees that they've been fed meat - human meat. A hostage tried to escape last night. they were unsuccessful. Yuka begins to freak out, giving her heart problems, but manages to calm herself using some mouth-spray medicine and her general calm nature. Hmm, I wonder how many charges are left in that thing.
As Yuka hears Kuwagata-san yelling orders, a boy crying, she wonders how long this all will last.
Well, even the story agrees that Yuka's a bit boring... And so, we fade to white again. It's time for Tsukasa.
