In this chapter more of Kurokawa’s backstory is presented. We learn that Kurokawa took on the name of her dead older sister Aya when she emerged and that Kurokawa’s parents treat her as a substitute for Aya. Despite Kurokawa being fine with it, I found this to be quite sad. First of all, her parents made it clear that they favored Aya when she was alive, which probably wounded Kurokawa’s self-esteem and made him jealous of his sister. Second, it’s too sad that Kurokawa thought so little of himself that he gave up his individuality to take the place of his sister for his parents. It’s like the parents lost both of their children and gained a ghost. And then the parents willingly sacrificed Kurokawa to bring back their favored child. How messed up is that? They’re all deluding themselves. They’re all living a lie.

The light of hope is that Kurokawa hasn’t completely given in to becoming her older sister. She maintains a preference for girls and outside of her house, maintains her individual personality. In other words, despite the attempt to delude herself, Kurokawa is not fine with being her sister’s substitute. I wonder will Kurokawa continue to protect her parent’s emotions and her own emotions by being Aya for them. To force the issue would make them accept Aya’s death and make them have to acknowledge the existence of Kurokawa. Living a double life has got to be taxing on Kurokawa.

The second point of interest in this chapter is Sagara telling Narumi that she’s thinking about going out with Kurokawa. What made Sagara tell this Narumi? Is it because she thinks Narumi likes Kurokawa, so she wants to apologize for snatching away Kurokawa. I’m think this is the case, since Sagara starts the chapter by saying she thought the love triangle was centered around Kurokawa. The cliffhanger is evil because we don’t know whether Narumi is reacting to Sagara claiming his long-standing crush, because we sense Narumi’s falling in love with Sagara, or Narumi shocked about two girls going out. The other side of this is Kurokawa in some sense seems very much like a boy when she’s coming onto Sagara or back in chapter 6 when she briefly looked upset that Narumi was hugging Sagara. Kurokawa seems to somewhat split on the matter. She asserts her own claim on Sagara, but at the same time seems to support Narumi.My laugh out loud moment was when Sagara wonders what two women “do” as she ponders going out with Kurokawa. I remember being that age, and because I was a sheltered child, the thought of what same sex couples “do” never crossed my mind.Here are some more of my favorite scenes from chapter 7.

I’ve already had a look at chapter 8, so I know what comes next. I look forward to doing a formal translation to get deeper into the chapter.