Junpei’s hidden motivations are finally revealed, while Tsukasa sacrifices his pride for Tsukushi’s sake and takes a royal beating to save her from Junpei’s goons. Recuperating from their ordeal, the two do their usual dance of two steps forward, three steps back. But then his formidable mother steps into the fray with powerful weapons at her disposal, including an arranged marriage with a spunky forthright fiancée. And ‘thus begins a three-sided war between the three most headstrong people you’ve ever seen!’ [from the back cover]. Yeah, that sounds about right *grin*.

Volume 15

Tsukushi finds herself bound and gagged in an old gymnasium. Turns out that the whole thing was plotted by Junpei (was there anyone who didn’t know something was up with him?). A hank of her long hair gets chopped off and sent to Tsukasa as proof. She doesn’t believe Tsukasa will come, and mocks her captors; on the rare occasions I get frustrated with her, I remember the incredible will-power in her eyes here and it makes me love her all over again *smile*. It’s Junpei’s betrayal that she is most hurt by and she tried to head-butt him, despite her pinioned arms. Her mouthiness earns her a slapping from her other captors, but Junpei restrains them. They’re a bunch of louts out for simple payback; he’s the one with the drive and focus, and fortunately for her he has control over them. We get more of his backstory here and his reasons for doing this: Tsukasa kicked a boy he worshipped like an elder brother and ruptured his intestines a few years before, basically ruining his life. (It’s interesting to see middle school flashbacks of the F4 here: Soujirou and Rui with longer hair, Akira and Tsukasa with shorter.) It’s an important reminder that Tsukasa was indeed a total bastard until very recently, and means that I can’t help but like Junpei, even though he’s doing something awful himself.

Of course, Tsukasa does come, and he gets the hell thumped out of him, with broken ribs, bloody head and damaged hand (the rendition of the beating is well done in every incarnation, I have to say; you wince with every blow in the manga, anime, tw-drama and j-drama alike. I want to see the k-drama beating now! Is that wrong of me? *grin*). And to see someone with such a towering pride restraining himself from fighting back and allowing himself to be beaten is quite something. Tsukushi takes the final blow for him and the louts back off; Junpei is visibly distressed by her actions and decides enough is enough. She wonders why Tsukasa did so much for her, and he manages to croak out ‘how stupid are you? If I fought back… it would have been my loss. This was the only way to protect you.’

When she wakes up in the hospital the next day, the F4 play a trick on her and make her believe Tsukasa has died from his injuries (thus proving they’re not as grown up as they think they are). Little rats! But it makes me laugh as well. As does her sobbing line to the ‘body’: ‘Maybe you were a fool… maybe you were cruel and arrogant… maybe lots of people did want to see you dead… but not me…’. Ha! Junpei arrives, and Tsukushi goes into protective mode. We see a flash of genuine contrition from Tsukasa, who inquires about the whereabouts of the boy he hurt so badly; he says later than he’d intended to thump Junpei but now feels ‘deflated’, which is growth of a kind. Junpei apologises not to Tsukasa but to Tsukushi, and while she won’t accept it for now and their friendship is null and void, she thinks to herself that someday she’ll forgive him: ‘this was one of the three worst experiences of my life, but… Tsukasa’s done things that were twice as bad. Actually, I think I can understand a little of how you feel.’

Kazuya and Sakurako come to visit them in hospital; their interactions are rare but funny, as neither one of them minces words around each other (for her he’s not worth trying to impress, and he’s got eyes for Tsukushi only). Sakurako swoons over seeing Junpei in person (tee hee) and they ill-advisedly discuss Tsukushi’s bra size at top volume right outside the hospital room (Tsukushi is irate at this and Tsukasa is terribly amused). He hands his friends a list of the perpetrators; how typical is it that he remembers exactly how many times each of them hit and kicked him? The F4 obligingly go out and beat up Junpei’s cadre (none of whom had as complex and compelling a motive as he did) and shave their hair off. Much merriment is had by all *grin*. Soujirou and Akira wax lyrical about Tsukasa to Tsukushi. Feeling cornered, she blurts that he’s ‘sort of… like a dog’ (plunging him into depression; I love the dogs running madly around the page behind him as he reels from the shock). The F2, recognising what a tough nut to crack she is, recommend that ‘he’ll just have to be patient and corner her slowly’. She herself dithers over the whole thing, to the point of holding a conversation with the devil and angel on her shoulders - while her mother gives her the world’s worst haircut to even out her lopped hair. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I know that some people find her prevarication about entering a relationship with Tsukasa annoying, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable (until she realises her own feelings, anyway). She may be genuinely touched by the rescue and the beating he took for her sake – but she’s also quite clear that he had that one coming and she doesn’t feel obligated to him.

He tells her about his forthcoming birthday party and asks her to bring him a present; she thinks sourly that ‘a normal human wouldn’t ask for presents’. She goes to the party in her Mum’s old dress, and Tsukushi and the F3 insist she change into something ritzier because (as the boys chorus, with conviction steaming from their every pore *grin*) ‘Tsukasa’s mother is really scary!’ The party is a high-society affair and he is receiving horrendously expensive gifts from all and sundry, so she wimps out on giving him her crappy homemade cookies. And then she has a great (by which I mean ‘worst possible’) introduction to his mother: she inadvertently causes a scene and lands spread-eagled on a table, with food flying everywhere. His mother Kaede is tall, beautiful and regal – and not impressed with the little commoner girl hanging around her son. Especially not after he announces ‘this girl is precious to me’ in front of the assembled guests!

Volume 16

The F3 lie for all they’re worth and claim that Tsukushi is a CEO’s daughter, the upshot of which is that she gets dragged to the piano and made to play. Kaede is not above taking a certain cat-like enjoyment in this, but to me it feels mostly as if she’s testing the girl’s worth as much as she’s embarrassing her. Tsukasa is as pleased at punch at Tsukushi’s ‘playing’(aka the sort of cacophony only a rank amateur can produce *grin*) – and winds up getting slapped by his mother for his infatuation. They make their escape in his brand new car, and his driving is… scary (though not as scary as Rui’s will be near the end of the series; you have been warned!).

They do a bit of cruising on the bay, and he wants to have a heart to heart with her (‘it’s time for us to expose ourselves’ he declares, to her horror; ‘you’d better mean reveal ourselves!’ she says fiercely. Heh. Good translation. If I recall correctly, I think he says ‘open-knee’ talk rather than ‘open-guts’ talk in the original Japanese). He talks about his family’s living arrangements, and she thinks that growing up essentially in a family of strangers (with the exception of Tsubaki) explains ‘that attitude of [his]’; he indignantly denies having any ‘attitude’ (heh). They compare families: ‘You’re dirt poor, you have a good for nothing Dad… You live in a home the size of our bathroom… I wouldn’t be caught dead living your life,’ he muses idly. ‘Should I hit you?’ she barks, with a popping vein. Then he continues ‘but somehow… it sounds like fun.’ It’s not the first time that she’ll be caught afresh by something he says, which makes her re-evaluate her opinion of him. I do have to wonder, though, given that he knows full well what his mother is like, exactly how he expected her react to Tsukushi?

They share a blanket in the cold air above deck and their arms inadvertently touch; even though there are ‘all sorts of things [he wants] to do’, she’s skittish as a colt where anything vaguely sexual is concerned and warns him off. Then she gets serious and wonders why he likes her, when there are plenty of beautiful girls in his own class he could go for. First he jokes that he’s probably insane, and then he says, half-seroiusly, that ‘I’ve got the status, money, and beauty… so you can stay as you are’ (only he could make such an egotistical statement sound romantic).  Then there’s the famous cookie scene – awwww. Because she’s strapped for money, as per usual, she made him little burnt cookies shaped like his face; he’s touched to the core, and she’s stricken by his laughing, delighted face.

The next morning he goes to gloat to Rui about his great night out with her; I have to giggle when the sleep-deprived Rui bites into one of his friend’s precious cookies. Serves you right, Tsukasa, for waking up the sleep addict! Akira and Soujirou rib Tsukasa about his lack of ‘progress’, especially given his golden opportunity the night before, and instruct him to practise getting a bra off with one hand. Heh. Meanwhile, Kaede arrives at Tsukushi’s house, looking completely composed, untouchable and out-of-place in their humble abode. She offers them a huge amount of money if Tsukushi will ‘give Tsukasa up’; it will take her quite a while to realise that 1) Tsukushi isn’t the one doing the pursuing, and 2) she isn’t a gold-digger. Her parents are quite unabashedly gold-digging, of course, but they turn down Kaede’s offer and pour salt over her head. Tsukushi is moved to tears at their inspirational example – until she realises they’re holding out for the whole fortune and not just a little slice. Then she starts flinging crockery and utensils…

Not to be deterred, Tsukasa’s mother sets another plan in motion immediately. Tsukushi receives an invitation to the Maple Hotel, the hotel chain Kaede manages and which is named after her (kaede = maple). Tsukushi’s irritation meter rises steeply at the imperious invitation, but as she looks up and up at the imposing façade of the hotel, it droops wimpishly *grin*. Tsukasa has been dragged there as well, and they’re just in time for the arrival of a bolshy young woman named Shigeru – Tsukasa’s fiancée. In a fit of panicked rage, Tsukasa dives out of the room, meaning to take Tsukushi with him but accidentally grabbing the other girl instead (baka). Shigeru ends up being rather taken with him, and grapples with him like a monkey. Tsukushi is furious and humiliated about this, and her bout of self-denial and self-deception really starts here (now this I do find a bit annoying, but she’s allowed to be imperfect, I think). ‘I don’t appreciate being used as some kind of premarital plaything,’ she seethes at him the next day, and refuses to listen to his explanation. Shigeru arrives and announces her determination to tame Tsukasa, even going so far as to bop him in the face. His mother seems to have figured out the sort of girl he goes for, and has obligingly found him one of a similar type but in his own class! Of course, his feelings have progressed far beyond the point where one woman is interchangeable with another. And Shigeru herself will defy any sort of simple categorisation; for somebody who is basically an OTP-interferer, she’s extremely likable.

Side notes:
-I remember mentally resisting Tsukushi’s short hair for a few volumes when I first read this, but it’s okay once it grows out a bit. Rui offers to trim her hair for her properly, glinting cheerfully (‘what’s he doing walking around with a box cutter, anyway?’ she worries), and he makes her look presentable, at least. But still, she looks scarily like her mother with this haircut!
-Tsubaki and Tsukasa obviously take after their mother in terms of looks, including the fabulously arched eyebrows. (The curls must come from the never-seen father, I guess). Some pictorial evidence:

Nice Tsukasa pic

Tsubaki

Kaede

See, Yoko Kamio can draw sexy women as well as sexy men!