PERIOD 2

“Maybe.” Irritating guy. He is so full of himself and so smug. I feel like slapping the smugness off that face… Erm, no, I meant I feel like kissing it off his face.. muahahahhahahaah..

Episode 2 starts off with Aki witnessing a player being carried off in a stretcher with blood and in a lot of pain during a game and as she watched the game progressed, she grimaced and lowered her eyes each time a player was knocked down by another player. Of course, the pain was more intense for her each time the “victim” was Halu. Finally, Blue Scorpions won the match with a final goal by Halu and he was rewarded with a broken tooth.  At the match celebration at the bar, Halu was interviewed by a reporter from a TV station and he was asked if he had a girlfriend. He looked around for Aki and announced in front of the camera and whole bar that his girlfriend is Aki.  But I don’t really envy Aki at that moment, because the way he introduced her was more embarrassing than romantic.  And he seemed to treat her more like a trophy than a girlfriend.

It was apparent Aki was beginning to care a lot for Halu, when she told him to treat himself with more care after he sent her home that night. Halu was a little surprised and guessed what he gave her.  He gave her his broken tooth, “for her to keep” and because that is his pride. Oh and I nearly fainted when he told her to please look at him play with her eyes fixed on him next time, because it makes him stronger.  Oooooooh …

One day, Aki bumped into Yamato while having lunch and she told Yamato that her relationship with Halu was really a game and nothing else. When Yamato assumed that Aki agreed to be Halu’s girlfriend because he was cool, she said that was not the reason and she started to ponder on the statement that Halu made to her, that he had “never been lonely before, not even once”.  The truth was probably the opposite as later Aki learnt from Yamato that Halu was actually abandoned by his mother when he was in kindergarten. He came back from school one day and she had left with another man and he had kept waiting for her. (Probably one of the reason that drew Halu to Aki was the fact that Aki had been waiting for her boyfriend for 2 years.)   But, Halu probably got his heart really broken by his mum then and since then never had much faith in relationships and was never capable of any relationship other than the “game” type.

There was also more insight to Halu’s character as he paid a visit to Anzai-coach’s wife, Youko.  She is made a widow at such a young age, and quite pitiful now that she has to care for herself and her young son.  However, Halu’s stand was that she should not find another relationship and that she should always keep Anzai-san’s memory in her heart.  That coming from a man who wanted “game” type of relationships is really double standards.  But here, we see the serious side of Halu and possibly the real him, one who yearns to have a solid and everlasting relationship with the woman he loves, his one and only.

And the tension between Halu and his new coach, Hyoudou, gets tighter as he got 3 players to mark Halu during a practice session.  Halu has no respect for this new coach whatsoever and he is not afraid to show it.

It was really funny when Halu and Aki were picking up video for rental.  All the videos he picked were stories of heroines who kept on waiting and he looked like he wanted to dig a hole to hide in when Aki pointed that out to him.  Later he lied to Aki that his parents were still around but that he wouldn’t introduce them to her because they were just playing a game.  Aki treaded on his toes when she tried to tell him that she was not really waiting for her boyfriend, that she had more or less given up hope on him and that she just did not meet someone special after that.  But she wasn’t too truthful with Halu either, when she told him that she decided to choose him because he shone in the ice rink.  That left Halu leaving in a huff, with Aki shouting after him that she was just an ordinary OL who gets lonely at times and wants to have her boyfriend by her side during birthdays and Chrismases, and that she is not the old-fashioned traditional girl he thinks she is.

Episode 2 ends with a match that Aki almost didn’t attend.  Hyoudou-coach's training turned out to be effective as Halu was marked tightly by a 2-man opponent wall.  At break-time, his eyes scanned the crowd with no sign of Aki.  Later Aki rushes past an injured Yamato, telling him a load of things that left him pretty baffled.  She had watched the videos that Halu rented and she realized that when she was waiting for her boyfriend, she was not lonely but was strong and confident and she liked herself that way.  But as the hopes diminished and she gave up, loneliness sets in and she became weak and she hated it.  And she didn’t want to be that weak person who gave in to loneliness but to be someone who’s cheerful and strong and that is her pride.  Upon saying that, she rushed into the rink.  At this moment, Halu was trying desperately to break through the 2-man wall with no success. As he drew nearer to goal and the crowd, he saw Aki then who dropped her eyes again as soon as she saw Halu being crowded by 2 opponents.  Then she remembered what Halu said about looking at him and giving him strength, she raised her eyes and fixed them upon Halu and with the extra strength that she brought, he broke through the guards and scored the winning goal.  And Halu was, I guess, more than pleasantly surprised and a little defeated as Aki held out his tooth in her palm and threw back his  “Maybe” to him.

Meanwhile, there also seems to be budding romances between Yuri and Tomo-kun, the rich playboy and good friend of Halu’s, and Chika and Yamato, who is actually quite poor but got caught up in his little pretence of being richer than he really is.

Whoa, if I was the one who had that kind of power with just my gaze on him ... I would really stack up stocks of eye-drops so that I can fix my gaze on him without blinking ... Not that I would complain if I had to do that .... heh heh ...

- Surf, Jan 21 2004.