20 October

The two walk to school together, where Manaka asks Kenji if he has heard of ロバの耳の王様の話, which apparently he has heard of.

And I haven’t. Let’s see what the almighty Google has to say.

This is the Japanese translation of the fairy tale The King with the Donkey Ears. It is a continuation of the King Midas story. According to the story, Pan (on the flute) and Apollo (on the harp) challenged each other to a musical battle. All the judges except for one agreed that Apollo was the better player. That judge was King Midas. Apollo (in true Greek jackass god style) punished him by making have donkey ears.

Now King Midas was embarrassed about this development, and thus he hid it with various hats and heavy scarves. The only one who did see his ears was his barber, who was under a strict non-disclosure agreement. However, keeping such a secret was difficult, so the barber dug a hole in a cliff and shouted “The King has the ears of an ass!” Unfortunately, in that hole was a piece of Echo, left behind after the jealous Pan (from earlier) ripped her to shreds for not returning his love. Thus the voice echoed “King’s ass ears! King’s aaaaaaasssssss ears!” And from that day on everyone in the kingdom knew King Midas has the ears of an ass.

Moral of the story: Greek gods are complete jackasses.

Manaka asks why it has to be donkey ears, to which Kenji says that there isn’t much of a difference if they used horse ears and dog ears. “Why not pig ears?” Manaka asks. Kenji replies that it would be completely weird since people do eat pig ears. Furthermore, he adds, it is a delicacy in Okinawa. Either way, he says, since no one eats donkey ears, it is used instead.

Kenji tries to touch Manaka’s head, but she becomes embarrassed by the people watching her, yet somehow she allows Kenji to plant not one, but two passionate kisses on her.

Not sure if shameless or really bold… At least that went better than expected for Kenji.

After exams, which Kenji aced, he returns home with Manaka. Manaka tells him about two fellow tennis members who have fallen for the same guy and thus ended up quarrelling. She fears she will end up being sucked into this shitstorm. She hopes to find a way to resolve this situation before it gets out of hand. “Isn’t love a fascinating thing?” she wonders.

They hold hands and kiss as they return home and Kenji prepares for work.

After returning home, Kenji takes his time to style himself.

He sends a mushy text to Manaka before going to sleep. Manaka replies with equally loving words.

… Right. I ordered him to send it. Move along.

As he drifts off to sleep, he imagines Manaka saying to him それを言うならN500系だよ！

I think that means “It’s the N500 if you say so!”

Other than the N500 series being a series of Nozomi-class bullet train, I have completely no idea what the background of this is.