Yuuta maintains that a stepsister is a stranger who lives in your home. It wasn’t their choice to meet and live together, but their parents, who sought each other and married. But while that seems a simple enough definition, defining his relationship with Saki is a lot tougher.
Suffice it to say, it’s a little easier to define this week, at least: this week, he’s her modern lit tutor, and she his student. She’s in a bind due to her profound inability to connect with characters in novels like Sanshiro. Her complete lack of romantic experience isn’t the culprit, since Yuuta is in the same boat and “got” the novel just fine.
Drawing on her other academic strengths, Yuuta gets Saki to look at the novel from a less emotional and more analytical angle, relying on her solid history chops to contextualize the material. It works like a charm, and Saki is able to take the basic concepts Yuuta laid out and apply them, acing the sample test he gives her.
When Saki asks him if he really thinks she can pass the retest, he realizes that she doesn’t need a logical or pragmatic response in that moment. She needs to be told not that she can, but she will succeed. Yuuta tells her he knows she will, which is what she needs to hear.
At school, Maaya notices Yuuta lost in thought, and strikes up a chat. Yuuta learns she’s at the top of her class, and tells her about how he’s trying to help Saki study. Maaya recognizes the Saki he describes: someone smart enough to figure things out on her own once you point her in the right direction.
It’s when Yuuta says he wants to find another way to help her that touches Maaya. He can tell this kind kid is giving his all for his stepsister. She recommends that Saki listen to background music while she studies, though she admits to letting the app algorithm pick the specific type of music, and has no recommendations of her own.
That ends up coming from the other woman in his life, his co-worker and senpai Shiori, who is enjoying observing Yuuta as he adjusts to life with a stepsister. She also tells Yuuta that he’s the only one who knows “every part” of her, the good and the bad. She’s hidden her true colors from everyone else, in part to protect herself from their scorn.
Shiori points him in the direction of some lofi hip-hop of the kind you’d hear on the Lofi Girl YouTube channel. It’s the perfect music to relax/study to, and as the track plays, we’re treated to a super chill and soothing montage of Yuuta heading home in the rain. Eventually, the sound of the music shifts as it transitions from our ears to Saki’s.
Saki loves the musical pick, and will try studying while listening to it. Yuuta admits to believing Saki has “given him so much” in this last month that he felt the need to give back in some small way. In reality, the two have found a pretty even equilibrium.
Even if he can’t define exactly what he and Saki are, he feels compelled to help her out, and is moved by her desire to help him out in turn. They are finding that their lives are a little brighter with each other in them.
