Kimi ni Todoke 4 Continuing from what happened at the end of vol 3, Kurumi asks Sawako to support her in order to become Kazehaya’s girlfriend, but Sawako has to refuse and says that’s something she can’t do. (For those who didn’t read vol 2 or 3, Kurumi is a girl from another class, who went to Jr High with Kazehaya. She is very cute and popular among guys, but she only likes Kazehaya. Because she knows that Kazehaya has feelings for Sawako and spends a lot of time with her, she befriends Sawako in vol 3 in order to get closer to Kazehaya). On to the story… Kurumi is faking taers and says that’s probably because she doesn’t fit to be Kazehaya’s girlfriend after all, but Sawako says Kurumi would be very fitting, it’s just that she can’t support Kurumi to become Kazehaya’s girlfriend because Kazehaya is special to her too. Kurumi gets mad and asks if she wants to be his girlfriend and Sawako refuses. Kurumi gets even more mad because Sawako is so slow. She tells her Kazehaya is probably not even special to Sawako, as longs as it’s someone who is nice to her, Sawako will feel that this person is really special. At home Sawako thinks about what Kurumi said to her and even finds herself sympathizing to Kurumis feelings (which is typical for Sawako ^^). The next day, students are busy with the sport festival. Kazehaya wishes Sawako good luck and high fives her and some students fellow and do the same. Sawako is touched, but once more she thinks if his behavior is just because he is such a nice person and not because he is doing somethin *special* to her. The girls are playing soccer and the guys are watching. Some guy says Sawako isn’t there, but Kazehaya points out she’s there. The guys talk about how Sawako has changed a little since she befriended Yano chan and Chizu and that she’s a little brigther now. In the soccer game, Sawako manages to make a great pass that leads to a goal. Kazahaya is really excited and high fives her, and Kurumi is mad. Later, Kurumi and Sawako decide to watch the guy’s softball match together, because Kazahaya plays in it. Kazahaya sees them and waves to their direction. Sawako waves back as Kurumi says how Kazahaya just waved to her (Kurumi’s) direction. Sawako gets embarrassed because she just thought Kazahaya meant to great her (Sawako) as well. [Note here: The one Kazehaya likes is Sawako and he probably couldn’t give a rat’s ass to the fact that Kurumi came along to watch him XD. The one he meant to great was Sawako, but Sawako isn’t aware of his feelings at all.] The other guys are talking about Kurumi being there with Sawako and that Sawako was really amazing at soccor (meaning she at least gave her all ^^; ). Since they are calling Sawako “Sadako” (as all people in class do), Sanada kun points out her name isn’t “Sadako”. The guys are really shocked to hear that, because everyone seriously thought her name was “Sadako”. Sanada kun thinks really hard about her real name and suddenly says “It’s Sawako”. (Which is amazing for him, because he’s really bad at remembering names.) Kazahaya is shocked because Sawada kun was able to just casually do something Kazehaya was always too embarrassed to do: saying Sawako’s first name. Back to Sawako and Kurumi, Sawako tells her that because she was thinking last night a lot about what Kurumi said, she went to look the word ‘special’ up. The dicitionary said ‘special’ means that it’s a situation that doesn’t allow to treat what’s special the way you treat other things. So Sawako say’s it’s like ‘special’ means you can’t compare it to anything else and that’s how Kazahaya is to her. Kurumi says that’s because she never had real conversations with other guys so of course she can’t compare. She asks her about other guys who are sitting close to Sawako in class. Sawako says one is Sanada kun, but they only talked a bit. In this moment, a ball flies towards Sawako but Sanada kun manages to catch it so it wouldn’t hurt Sawako. Sawako says she needs to thank him and Kurumi says she sould do it properly with only the two of them. She asks what Sawako thinks of Sanada kun and she says he’s a nice guy. Sawako points out how the match is starting and she’s really curious about how Kazehaya’s play is. Kurumi says Sawako doesn’t know anything about Kazehaya. Kurumi was always watching him and she knows a lot about him. Sawako admits it might be true she doesn’t know anything and Kurumi just leaves. She thinks for Kurumi, Kazehaya is definitely very special and the feelings she has for him are feelings of love. As she repeats the word “feelings of love” over and over in her head, she’s staring at Kazehaya and realized it’s the first time she thought about the meaning behind this word. Kazehaya is looking back at her. She can’t get those words out of her head for the whole game. His team wins and as Sawako leaves with the other girls, she is still thinking about the meaning of this word. Kazehaya is looking at her as she is walking away. Kazehaya asks Sanada kun if there was any meaning behind how he saved Sawako before and (because Kazahaya uses the name ‘Kuronuma’, Sawakos last name), Sanada kun is like “Ah, you mean Sawako”. Kazehaya gets mad and says he should call her Kuronuma (like, if he can’t call her Sawako, that no other guys should do either ^^;) Sawada says that he saved her, it has no such meaning as Kazehaya might think. Meanwhile, Kurumi asks Pin (PE teacher) if she can see the list that says who has which duty during the festival. She sees that Kazehaya has to carry back things that were used during the festival to the storage room later, so she writes a note to Sanada kun which says to meet her there during lunch in front of the storage room and signs it with “Kuronuma Sawako”. During lunch break she meets Sawako and asks if she already thanked Sanada kun, and Sawako says no. Kurumi says she saw him around the storage room just now so sawako runs out to thank him. She sees Sanada kun sleeping and wakes him and he says he already waited for her and Sawako is like “What?” She thanks him for saving her and says she also has something she wanted to ask him about. She asks if he knows what ‘feelings of love’ is and he says he knows. The one he loves is Chizu all the way. Meanwhile, Kurumi meats Kazehaya “coincidentally” and says she’ll help him carry the stuff to the storage room. He says it’s okay and then smiles and says he just thought about how Sawako would say it’s her work alone if someone were to offer help to her. Kurumi gets sad and asks if Kazehaya really turned down Sawako’s confession. Kazehaya can’t believe there are still people thinking like that and says Sawako doesn’t have any feelings for him and never confessed. Kurumi looks down and says that when they were watching the softball match, Sawako really wouldn’t look at Kazehaya at all. She was only looking at sanada kun and says they should support Sawako if she wants to become Sanada kun’s girlfriend. Sawako and Sanada kun are still talking about Chizu and Sawako asks how he knew she was special. He says it’s something you can’t answer rationally, it’s just if you think about it, you can’t compare this person to anybody else! Kurumi and Kazehaya are arriving at the storage and Kurumi points out that Sawako and Sanada kun are talking just the two of them. Kazehaya runs towards them, grabs Sawako’s arm and runs away with her. He stops after a while and asks if she likes Sanada kun. Sawako can’t stop but thinking the one she likes is Kazehaya and she says the feelings she has for Sanada kun are not “feelings of love”. Kazehaya kun is really relieved and squats down. He tells Sawako to not look at him right now because hes really embarrassed :) Sawako squats down, thinking what she feels for him is really love. Kazehaya looks down and says from now on there might be times what he can’t be supportive and cheer on her, out of sheer egoism (meaning when the time should come that Sawako falls in love with some guy, he can’t support her). Sawako says that that’s alright and smiles. Kazahaya asks what she’s thinking about going out btw. Sawako says that something really mature she can’t relate to at all ^^; Kazahaya thinks that it doesn’t mean that it’s nothing against him personally it just means she’s not ready and says never mind. For now, never mind! Back at the storage room, Kurumi doesn’t know what just happened. Later, Yano chan and Chizu are confronting Kurumi, because they found out that she tried to trick Sawako with the Sanada kun thing and they also found out that Kurumi was the one who started all the rumors about Sawako talking bad about Yano chan and Chizu (see vol 2 for that). Sawako overhears it. At first she plays it off and says it must be a mistake, but Kurumi says it’s true, she was the one who spreat the rumors. Kurumi says it was because Sawako is a bother to her and she never even once thought of her as a friend. Hearing this, Sawako just stares at her and cries. Yano chan and Chizu tell Kurumi to apologize but she won’t because she doesn’t see how she is in the wrong and it’s all Sawako’s fault. Chizu then says they could go and tell Kazahaya about it and Kurumi freaks. The three of them leave Kurumi behind. Yano chan and Chizu apologize to Sawako, because they challenged Kurumi to admit that she betrayed Sawako. Sawako, even thought still shocked about the thing with Kurumi, thinks that in these two girls, she found true friends. They are watching another of their classes game and Sawako keeps thinking of Kurumi. She suddenly runs back to her. Kurumi asks if she came to laugh at her, but Sawako says she came to tell her that she likes Kazehaya as well. Like as in… love. And she says Kurumi is the first person ever she told about her feelings. She asks her if she was never happy when they were together and Kurumi says she was never happy and always saw her only as a bother. She says she was always aware that Kazehaya never liked her, it’s just that Sawako’s existence basically frustrates her. She quietly says while crying that she really hates Sawako and why did she have to run back to talk to her. Sawako is looking at her thinking that the Kurumi who loves Kazehaya so much, is really really cute. My opinion on Kimi ni Todoke vol 4 First of all, this was such a great volume. It had a lot of really nice Sawako x Kazehaya scenes, some jealousy and I liked the Sawako x Kurumi storyline. I have to say, I really can’t hate Kurumi. She’s selfish, but I can understand where her frustration comes from. She is really in love with a guy since Jr High and trying her best but he doesn’t return her feelings at all. And there Sawako comes along, pure and just happy she found people who talk to her and just like that, he falls in love with her and she doesn’t even realize. I can relate to the way she feels a lot. More about why she is the way she is, is revealed in vol 5, so be sure to check the summary for vol 5 too ^^. ISBN 978-4-08-846174-8 Back