Episode 4

Bad Apple!!

### **On a Train**

While riding a fairly empty train, two men decide to occupy the seats flanking Minagawa-sensei. She narrates, smiling: “*There is no point unless you’re wanted. I don’t have any reason why. I mean, being wanted just feels so good.”*

#### **Flashback to Minagawa-sensei’s Highschool Days**

> During this moment, Minagawa-sensei recalls a memory from when she was a teenage student. In the memory, she is approached by a boy named Saito, who, she explains, is one of her female friend’s crushes. Out of the corner of her eye, Minagawa spots the friend who likes Saito watching the interaction of him returning Minagawa’s dropped handkerchief to her while in the shadows of a nearby corridor. However, Saito doesn’t notice her. Present day Minagawa-sensei narrates, *“...something about how neatly they would fit [together] really bothered me. Honestly, I wasn’t interested in Saito at all. But maybe I was interested in the attention Saito was receiving.”* Assuming that the friend believes herself to be unseen by the two, Minagawa decides to “accidentally” touch Saito’s hand when retrieving the handkerchief, an action that surprises him and prompts him to move a little closer to Minagawa. The friend, still believing herself unseen, silently excuses herself. Soon after, Minagawa finds her friend down by the water’s edge of a pond, where she, heartbroken, was crying to herself. Minagawa-sensei narrates, *“The feeling I had at that moment wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t a sense of superiority either. I thought that I would rather die than find myself exploited like her. I suppose that was the day I realized how much I enjoyed exploiting people.”*
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### **Flashforward to the Night After the Restaurant Interaction With Hanabi & Mugi**

Minagawa-sensei is naked in bed with the man Hanabi and Mugi saw her with at the restaurant earlier. While the man, Terauchi, is attempting to be intimate with her, a straight-faced Minagawa-sensei asks him what happened to the girl he was dating. Terauchi tells her they quit seeing each other a long time ago, which causes her indifference to him to immediately become pure disinterest. Not even acknowledging the naked Terauchi fondling her breasts and kissing her neck, Minagawa-sensei narrates, *“There isn’t anybody out there right now to prove that this person is someone to be desired.”*

### **Flashforward to The Next Day, At School**

While walking with Kanai-sensei outside, Minagawa-sensei notices Hanabi watching them from an open window. She smirks and thinks to herself that Hanabi must really love him. She narrates, *“I can’t really tell how good someone is unless someone says they are.”* Shortly thereafter, Kanai-sensei asks her if she’d like to spend time with him outside of work, perhaps at a café. At that moment, Minagawa-sensei again notices Hanabi nearby, watching them, and therefore decides to reject Kanai-sensei’s proposal in favor of them spending time together on campus after work that day. Like in the previous episode, Hanabi approaches Minagawa-sensei and asks her if the man she and Mugi saw her with the evening prior was her boyfriend. Minagawa-sensei rejects the idea with a smile, believing that Hanabi’s pain is her own fault.

She recalls her interest in Hanabi: seeing her being popular with the boys around school, seeing Noriko sadly watch her and Mugi huddled together under an umbrella after school one rainy day, and especially when seeing how differently she behaved around Kanai-sensei (the first scene in Episode One). In reference to this last memory in particular, she narrates that she had wondered *“when someone like [her] would let [her] guard down.”* Minagawa-sensei reveals that this interaction she had had with Kanai-sensei after seeing how Hanabi liked him was the moment she had decided to start leading him on (despite not being romantically interested in him) explicitly for the purpose of hurting Hanabi. When Hanabi had quickly excused herself from the classroom, Minagawa-sensei narrates that she was disappointed, stating that she had *“wanted to see the hurt expression on [her] face.”*

When sweetly asking Hanabi if something was the matter (when Hanabi was wondering why Minagawa-sensei would ask that she keep the interaction with Terauchi a secret if he wasn’t a former student), Minagawa-sensei narrates that she desperately wanted to see pain in Hanabi’s face in that moment. As she runs off once the bell interrupted them, she reiterates her excitement at seeing Hanabi’s devastation after school, knowing that she’ll get a front row seat to Minagawa-sensei’s meeting with Kanai-sensei.

### **At School, Later**

As Kanai-sensei waits for Minagawa-sensei in the music room, he thinks back to three months ago…

> While walking alone one day, Kanai-sensei saw Minagawa-sensei and was astonished at how much her hair reminded him of his late mother. The two made eye contact and Kanai-sensei narrates that it was love at first sight. Later, he had his first interaction with Minagawa-sensei, who had gently removed a cherry blossom petal from his hair while he rested at his desk. She sweetly suggested that they should look out for one another, seeing as how they’re both new teachers. That was when he learned her name was Akane.
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### **Back in the Present, At School**

Minagawa-sensei arrives at the music room, flustered. She remarks about the summer heat before asking Kanai-sensei what it is as he wanted to discuss. A very nervous and flushed Kanai-sensei eyes a bead of sweat that rolls down her neck to her exposed collarbone before mustering the courage to confess his love for her. In accordance with Minagawa-sensei’s plan, Hanabi happened to be standing in the doorway of the music room as he said this.

Hanabi runs off and takes refuge in another empty classroom, sitting on the floor and hugging her knees. Breathing heavily, she wonders why the tears she expected to flow weren’t coming. She attributes their absence to the lack of right she has over Kanai-sensei, pointing out she never did anything about her feelings for him. She wonders if the two will begin dating, immediately hoping that they don’t. She wonders why, in all the time she’s known Kanai-sensei, why she hadn’t ever confessed. She wonders if her hesitation might’ve been due to her fear that they'd have stopped being so close if she had.

A hazy, glowing figure of Hanabi as a young child scolds her and informs her *“That’s why you lost him.”*

### **Mugi’s Apartment, Later**

Hanabi goes to Mugi’s apartment, but stops herself before ringing the doorbell. She acknowledges that, although she wants to rely on him, telling him about Minagawa-sensei and Kanai-sensei would only hurt him. She decides to leave.

### **Outside**

While walking from Mugi’s place, Sanae suddenly approaches Hanabi, surprising her. She asks Sanae if she had been following her. Embarrassed, Sanae confirms, voicing her concern that Hanabi is upset with her. Hanabi stares at her, frozen, wondering why Sanae likes her so much. Overcome by emotion, Hanabi rushes forward and wraps her arms around Sanae. Both girls are crying. Mid-hug, Hanabi apologizes for the intimacy and how it might be making their situation worse, who calmly dismisses this and resolutely assures her that it’s okay. Sanae then pulls back a bit and kisses Hanabi, who thinks to herself that although she is aware that doing this isn’t okay, she isn’t stopping it.

### **At Hanabi’s Apartment, Later that Night**

Sanae is straddling Hanabi, gazing down at her as she lies in her bed. Sanae narrates that the rain that had suddenly come that night hadn’t shown any signs of its arrival until it had begun falling. She interlaces her fingers with Hanabi’s and grips her hand, who doesn’t grip back. Sanae asks her if she’s nervous, and Hanabi quietly tells her she is, but only because Sanae is her friend. Hanabi then closes her eyes and tries to turn her head away, but Sanae descends upon her and kisses her passionately. She then asks Hanabi if this is what one does with their friends, pointing out that she does these things with Mugi. Upon hearing this, Hanabi’s eyes start to water. Seeing this, Sanae withdraws looking ashamed and worried. Looking away, she tells Hanabi she’s free to stop this if she would like, but Hanabi, struggling to maintain her composure, informs her she won’t do that because she cares about Sanae. Sanae simply stares down at Hanabi, contemplating. She narrates that she’s aware of what Hanabi is doing: putting aside what she wants in order for Sanae to have what she desires, because she fears if she doesn’t, she’ll lose Sanae altogether. Sanae decides that if Hanabi is okay with being taken advantage of, then, to satisfy her own desires, she will do so. She starts to be intimate with Hanabi.

To cope with her discomfort, Hanabi tries to imagine a frequently-imagined scenario wherein she confesses her love to Kanai-sensei, who doesn’t reject her. However, the fantasy isn’t working and Hanabi cannot remove Sanae from what’s happening. Sanae tries to force Hanabi to be present with her, and tells Hanabi to tell her what it is she wants her to do to her. Flustered, Hanabi refuses. Applying a different tactic, Sanae fingers Hanabi under the covers and asks her again if she’d like her to stop, but Hanabi doesn’t respond. Sanae assumes aloud that perhaps Hanabi is just weak to sexual pleasure in general, but Hanabi interjects obstinately and tells her that when Sanae specifically touches her that it feels good. Sanae then takes Hanabi into her arms, cradling her head to her chest. She tells a crying, startled Hanabi that it feels good because she loves her so much and that the love can be felt through her touch. The girls have sex.

### **Outside**

Under an umbrella, Hanabi walks through the dimly-lit street, noting her loneliness. The same glowing figure of her younger self appears and casually tells her that she can’t be friends with Sanae anymore and it’s her own fault. The Child Hanabi playfully points out that tonight was the first time she’s taken advantage of someone’s feelings and that by doing so, she’s no better than Minagawa-sensei. Child Hanabi excitedly congratulates her and runs off laughing before disappearing into the night. Depressed, Hanabi watches on, thinking to herself that she already knew these things.

Hanabi narrates that now she’s no match for Minagawa-sensei, who she realizes knew she liked Kanai-sensei and is purposefully trying to hurt her. Although she doesn’t consider herself a match, she vows to change however she must.

### **At School, The Next Day**

Hanabi confronts Minagawa-sensei in an empty classroom, who playfully asks her if she’s mad about Mugi or Kanai-sensei. Hanabi bitterly wonders if this means that she knew about Mugi’s love for her all along. Smirking, Minagawa-sensei correctly guesses that since he can’t have her, that he’s *“filling the void with an accessible classmate”.* Exasperated, Hanabi loudly asks her if it’s *“really that fun to be loved by people you don’t even like?”* This question excites Minagawa-sensei, who lets her blouse drop past her shoulders, exposing her bra-straps. Her face flushed and sensual, she asks Hanabi what could feel better than being desired by men. Hanabi watches in horror as the teacher licks her lips like an animal, like a hungry predator.

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クズの本懐 第4話予告-0