Period 4

In  the dressing room, the boys are watching a tape of the interview done by the TV station a while ago when Halu joins them, wondering what was making them giggle like schoolgirls.  Then he saw himself on screen, introducing to everyone Aki as his "mama". Embarrassed, he tried to make them switch it off but to no avail.  On the other side of town, Aki switched off the one Chika taped for her, telling Chika "this is bad".  As Halu and friends were leaving the training rink, 3 pretty girls approached them and asked for "Satonaka".  Halu replied and the other guys thought they must have seen him on TV and became his "fan".  However, one of the girls came up to Halu and gave him a tight slap, which left him bewildered.

At Face Off bar, Halu, Tomo, Yamato and Makoto are seated at a table opposite the 3 girls who approached them and the tension in the air is heavy.  All of them looked stress except for Halu, who was nursing his cheek with an icy glass.  He asked the guys if he had to take the rap no matter what, and they said he should have some memory of at least how the girl looked like, to which Halu replied "None at all." At this moment, Aki, Chika and Yuri appeared and wondered what the guys were doing with the 3 girls. And they thought it was a "合コン" (which is a joint party e.g. by students from several colleges; two or more groups, espeially female and male students, combining for a party). Upon seeing the girls, Yamato, Tomo and Makoto left their seats immediately and clarified this had nothing to do with them.  Aki got a big shock when one of the girls said that Halu had made her friend pregnant.  Aki is very cute here and she said "Then they should get married" and reassured the girls that although Halu looked nonchalant, he's really not such a guy. I was still wondering where this was going to lead to when one of the girls asked "You are Satonaka Fuyuki, right?" And Halu went "?!" He said there's no one called Fuyuki here. "Satonaka is correct, but I'm not Fuyu (winter), I'm Halu (spring) and this girl here is Aki (autumn)." Then the girl in question, Mariko, appeared and suddenly Tomo wanted to leave the bar with Chika.  Yamato sensed something amiss and stopped Tomo.  And it turned out that Tomo was "Satonaka Fuyuki". Halu is so cute here when he tried to high-five Aki when it was confirmed the guy wasn't him.

Halu was sending Aki home and one of the sweetest conversations of the first 4 episodes occurred here.

Aki: Luckily it was a misunderstanding.

Halu: Yeah, and it made me realize something. That I look nonchalant, but I'm not like that inside.

Aki: I realized it was odd after a while. I thought you wouldn't do something like that.

Halu: Why not?

Aki: Well, we are all playing the same game but you didn't do anything to me.

Halu: Well, that's because you are special, so I didn't do anything...

Aki: Oh, so I'm that unattractive huh..

Halu: It's not like that, it's because you have a beautiful heart. It's like watching leaves turning red in autumn, just looking at them is enough... Maybe, just going for a picnic will do...

Aki: (turns quiet)

Halu: What's wrong?

Aki: I'm happy. Even though you are just joking with me.

Halu: I hate to joke.

Aki: Liar, that's your favourite.

Halu: Oops..

Aki: I knew it long ago .. (Aki and Halu laughs)

Both fall into silence and Halu looks thoughtful and slightly uncomfortable. When they reach Aki's home, it seemed as if Halu didn't know what to say and asked if she still went to the bridge. Then they say good night to each other and Halu keeps his eyes fixed on Aki until she enters her apartment. Halu then looked into the rearview mirror and told himself "It's just a game." In her apartment, Aki says the same thing to herself. Looks like they are already in need of convincing themselves that this is a game. Haha.

Tomo beseeches Halu to go and meet the girl with him. In the dressing room, Tomo said he can just use money to settle the problem. And Yamato is unhappy and picks a bone with Tomo about using money. Yamato then picks on Halu about Makoto's matter previously. That Halu didn't say anything, but this time, this matter has nothing to do with hockey and why is he being so helpful now? Was it because he had thought about his retirement after this and hoped that Tomo will give him a position in his dad's company? This pisses Halu off and he picks back on Yamato, about him lying to his girlfriend about being rich. They nearly get into a fight and Tomo stops them. Here, I saw an expression of Kimura-kun's that I never saw before.  As he leaves the dressing room, he is still fuming and Tomo tries to calm him down, going "peace peace" with the "V" sign. I thought Halu was going to bite Tomo's fingers (doesn't Kimura-kun love doing that? ^_^). Then Halu clenches his teeth and went "peaccce". 

Halu has a mini training session with Anzai-coach's son, Wataru. And he wanted to give Youko monthly allowance but it turns out that she had found a job with Hyoudou-coach's help.  Halu has another rundown with Hyoudou-coach and he said Halu has never really loved before and so should not meddle in Youko's affairs and expect her not to love another man.

That idiot Yamato says the same thing to Aki and Aki is angry with Halu for thinking about retirement. At this moment, Tomo appears with his sports car to lend to Yamato for this date with Yuri.  That night Halu went to look for Halu and Aki refuses to open the door and chides him. Halu stays outside the door and chats with Aki. Their cute bicker about which season, "Aki" or "Halu" is greater turns into a serious conversation and Halu says Aki is greater because she has seriously loved before. And Aki tries to tell Halu that it is not in the past tense.  Then he tells Aki about how he got to know Tomo.  They joined the same racing gang at the same time and got into a lot of fights and the more the fought, the more they understood each other. Tomo is a rich man's son, but he's not likely to inherit his father's business. He was the son of a mistress.  And Tomo's mom told him before that she didn't give birth to him because she wanted him, it was because she didn't want Tomo's father to leave her. And because she felt guilty, she gave Tomo lots of money to spend. But that was not really what Tomo wanted. Tomo knew that most people are with him because he's rich but when he found ice hockey, he found something to fill the void in his life. On the rink, everyone's equal.

Halu went with Tomo on the first time to settle the matter, but the second time Tomo went on his own and got himself a serious beating, telling those people he's not going to give them more money. Makoto and Halu finds Tomo badly beaten up, and Tomo tells Halu he had decided to quit the team because he was bringing them too much trouble. Halu helps him up and out of the bar. Halu wanted to go and look for those people who beat Tomo up. Makoto tries to stop him, but it was useless and Aki follows them. Makoto immediately calls Yamato and the rest of the guys and they discuss what to do.  Finally Yamato speaks up and says it was unlike Halu would help Tomo because of retirement. Halu is a much stricter player than any of them and he would not tolerate if anyone was not in the team for the love of the game. Tomo is rich and doesn't really need to play such a bone-breaking game. Halu probably knows more of Tomo that they didn't and he must have his reason of helping Tomo.  In the car, Halu tells Aki that he's really helping the team by going with Tomo. Just in case Tomo gets into more fights.  At the club, Halu, Tomo and Aki are up against 200 odd people. It turns out that Mariko probably isn't really pregnant and is just using this to get money out of Tomo. Aki is furious and slaps Mariko for telling such a disgusting lie. One of the guys then pushes Aki onto the floor and Halu turns really furious and ends up being the first to strike.  At this moment, things seems dangerous. Were these 2 guys going to fight a hundred odd guys?  Then the whole hockey team appeared.  It was soooooo cool here.  Halu went "Parrrrty dayo" and there was this glint in his eyes. It was scary yet totally cool and exciting. Kakkoiiiiii!!!

Youko is in a telephone conversation with a man, talking about people being weak and in need of others.  And she asked the man on the other end of the line if he was angry with her for not waiting for him.  Turns out that that man is none other than Hyoudou-coach and he replies "No, I'm sorry for asking you to wait for me."

Episode 4 ends with a bruised and injured Blue Scorpions team preparing for a match. No one would reveal to the team manager what happened to all of them.  Then, Hyoudou-coach tells Halu that he himself had never really loved before and this puzzles the team manager even more.  Then Hyoudou-coach tells her "this is a new match tactic" and Halu gives a lop-sided smile.  Out on the rink, Tomo is checking out a girl in the spectators and Yamato warns him not to get into trouble again but turns out that Tomo was really looking at Aki.  Then Halu joins them and Tomo says "check out that girl in a white sweater. She looks really old fashioned. She must be looking for the man of her dreams. And I envy the man in her heart."  Then Yamato tells Halu "it would be stupid if you give her up now." As the match kicks off, Halu does the usual clenching-of-shirt-near-his heart-and-closes-his-eyes and Aki does the same.  As she looks up, she shouts Halu's name and seeming to hear only her voice, Halu looks back at her while starting to skate and gives her a warm smile.   ***FAINT*** .... oh, that was not Aki fainting.. that was me... :p

- Surf, Feb 06 2004. (updated Feb 07)