This episode begins with Miyamura, Ishikawa, and Iura sleeping over at Sengoku’s place. Due to the limited space, Sengoku finds himself sleeping next to Miyamura in his loft though he soon realizes this is his chance to find out what Miyamura’s secret is. The dude has been curious since Episode 1 (or wherever the hell that episode takes place within the overall timeline). To give credit where it’s due, Missing Pieces is doing a good job maintaining some continuity between episodes. Obviously, it has a way looser narrative than the original series but it is less episodic than I anticipated back in Episode 1.
Things get awkward when Iura catches Sengoku trying to rip Miyamura’s shirt off. Ishikawa resolves the situation by helping Sengoku rearrange the room to make more space. That said, Sengoku is still curious about Miyamura’s secret so he tries again in the morning and during the next school day. By now, Sengoku knows that Miyamura has something on his chest so you’d think he could deduce the possibility that his friend has a tattoo. It’s definitely not a bazooka like Ishikawa claims at one point in this episode. Then again, Sengoku has proven himself to be an idiot in some regards so I guess this checks out.
I still wonder why Miyamura doesn’t reveal his tattoos to the other guys in his circle. The only one he confided in is Ishikawa and they weren’t close at the time. I suppose Sengoku is the student council president so him working closely with the school makes Miyamura uncomfortable. As for Iura, he is a loudmouth so that’s self-explanatory. Still, it’d be nice if Miyamura trusts his friends more. That said, I love how much of bro Ishikawa is to Miyamura. As stupid as most of his cover ups are, he really does have his friend’s back.
The second half of the episode centers more around Remi. First, we see her and Sengoku walking home together. Remi tries to make some requests to her boyfriend though she keeps resorting to gestures and singular words. For example, she says “hand” and Sengoku assumes she wants to hold hands with him when in actuality, she wants to put her hands on his cheeks. When Remi says “hand” again, Sengoku assumes the same thing and removes his scarf a little, only for Remi to clarify that she wants him to hold her hand this time around. It’s a pretty cute scene. I kind of forgot that Remi can be shy as Horimiya tends to show her being pretty outgoing when she’s with her friends.
For the end of the episode, we see Sakura hanging out with Sengoku without Remi. We later learn that Sengoku is helping Sakura get a surprise gift for Remi for getting a higher score on an exam, even though she falls short of the score she agreed to get. I honestly forgot that Remi doesn’t do well academically so I’m shocked to see used as a plot point for once. Given the rarity of seeing Sengoku hang out with Sakura without Remi, the other characters can’t help but speculate that he’s cheating on his girlfriend. Hori’s reaction is particularly funny as she tries to spare Remi of finding out the “truth” (it’s not like she has evidence anyway), inadvertently helping Sakura maintain their surprise. In the original series, we kept seeing Remi look out for Sakura so it’s nice to see the other way around for a change.
Watch Horimiya: The Missing Pieces on Crunchyroll and Funimation
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