It’s episode 8, what is Kei doing answering the door to Hiro’s apartment while only wearing a towel? Meanwhile, Kei thinks she’s about to have a ton of time with Hiro by themselves, but that plan ends prematurely, much to Kei’s displeasure. Meanwhile, Chihiro finishes her story, but then collapses from exhaustion. What happens if she sleeps longer than her 13 hour memory limit?

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The highlights of this episode:

• Miyako, sitting in a park at night and distressed that Hiro never answered her calls, throws her cell phone into a nearby fountain. Soon after, Hiro, who went out under the guise of getting good, swings by the park to see if Miyako is still there, but she’s gone.
• Kei decides to take a shower while Hiro is out when the doorbell rings. Kei answers only wearing a towel and sees Miyako there. Miyako asks where Hiro is, and Kei tells her that he’s in bed. Miyako still demands to see him, but Kei refuses Miyako, telling her that “it won’t reach him anymore.”
• Chihiro finishes her story, concluding in the girl “marrying” the boy in the painting she just made. Chihiro also encourages Renji to become a novelist, despite his belief that he isn’t talented enough.
• Meanwhile, Miyako tries to convince herself that everything is OK, since everything is back to “how it was.” However, church girl Amamiya pops up and tells Miyako that she shouldn’t trap herself in the “ruins of her past.”
• Renji meets Amamiya in the church again, and tells him that Chihiro’s condition seems to be improving, and that she’s remembering things better. However, Himura tells him that it’s impossible and that Chihiro’s condition will never get better.
• Hiro decides to spend the time that Kei is using to rehabilitate her knee to do stuff with her and to rehabilitate his write as well. However, suddenly a publisher calls and wants him to do a one-shot manga, and Hiro agrees. Kei gets angry at him for agreeing to the job right after he said he’d take time off, but Hiro tells her that he has to take every job he can get or else they won’t ask him anymore. Kei then decides that she’s going to practice basketball, and Hiro tells her not to or else she’ll damage her knee more, but Kei throws it back at Hiro regarding his wrist and then storms off.
• That night, Chihiro stays up late reading her diary in order to remember everything when Himura comes in. When Chihiro tells him that she doesn’t want to forget about Renji, Himura tries to take Chihiro’s diary away from her and strikes her when she tries to grab it back. After Chihiro understandably yells at him, he relents and gives her the diary back.
• The next day, while Chihiro and Renji walk on the beach, Chihiro asks if they can hold hands, and Renji consents. However, Chihiro then faints. The next day, Renji comes to see Chihiro, who hasn’t woken up since the previous night due to exhaustion and has thus passed her time limit. Renji goes in to see Chihiro, who takes up and suddenly panics…asking why she’s grown up, where her sister is, and demanding to know why she has a patch over her eye. She then tears off her eye patch and screams in horror. Himura tries to comfort Chihiro, then turns to Renji and asks him if he now fully understands Chihiro’s condition.
• Miyako calls Hiro from a pay phone, and instantly becomes relieved upon finding out that Hiro hadn’t forgotten her.

Wow, what an episode for both story arcs. Miyako is completely crushed as she now thinks that Kei and Hiro are not only dating, but doing the deed as well. Meanwhile, Chihiro sleeps past her time limit, and thus resets her memory.

Both of these situation seem to be very difficult to get out of for Miyako and Renji, though there are signs that Miyako may yet recover. I’m just wondering what Hiro will think about Kei if he learns that Kei has been trying to trick Miyako into thinking that they were going out.

Meanwhile, I guess Chihiro could just read the diary again, though she no longer has the original memories that she was routinely remembering to reset their 13 hour clocks. While she may not be a different Chihiro as long as she doesn’t reset, we’ll have to see if her personality radically changes now that she has reset.

In any case, we’re now 2/3 of the way through this series, and we appear to have entered the “all hell breaks lose” section of the story. I can’t wait to see how this ends up.