A girl who seemed gloomy and quiet was ostracized since elementary school. In middle school, rumors spread that she could communicate with ghosts. By high school, the rumors had evolved into:
"If you make eye contact with her for more than three seconds, you'll be cursed."
"If you talk to her, spirits will come to your house at night and crawl into your bed."
"I heard her sixth sense is crazy strong."
"Can she summon something?"
"Don't talk to her."
"Someone got into a bike accident just by making eye contact!"
"Someone brushed past her and broke their leg the next day, slipping on a banana peel!"
In just a few minutes, the character setting for the female lead, Kuronuma Sawako, was fully established.
A silent, socially awkward, and slightly emotionally oblivious girl who, since elementary school, had been completely isolated—
Now in high school, I still couldn't make a single friend.
After only a few minutes, Gu Yi already felt deeply immersed.
It wasn't like she had been ostracized herself,
But she had been called nicknames she absolutely hated.
"I'm sorry for letting everyone down…"
"I can't see any ghosts at all…"
But her frustration was soon washed away by Kuronuma's guilty little monologue—
It made Gu Yi chuckle.
"She's so cute!"
"Wait, what? She feels bad because she can't live up to people's expectations that she can summon spirits."
"My heart hurts for her!"
"If I had her mindset, I'd probably never get angry again."
Kuronuma Sawako's character was undeniably lovable.
But in a drama, the real challenge lies in portraying this kind of character—
a stunningly beautiful girl who is perceived by everyone as frightening.
Without the help of filters and props, it would've been hard for Jing Yu to pull this off convincingly.
But once the audience accepted it,
The immersion came naturally.
Gu Yi stared at the on-screen Kuronuma Sawako:
Serious, hardworking, pure, and kind.
Even though her classmates misunderstood her, and she knew they did,
She still treated them with kindness and optimism, even when they refused to believe she was just a normal girl.
But even if the whole school thought she was scary,
There was always an exception—
Kazehaya Shouta.
Smart, athletic, handsome, popular, kind.
And most importantly:
Up to the five-minute mark of the episode, aside from her parents, he was the first person to smile at Sawako.
"Wait—is this her reacting because she already likes Kazehaya?"
"A crush?"
"Are we locking in the main couple this early? Is Jing Yu-sensei changing his storytelling style?"
"'White Album 2' didn't reveal who won until the end, same with 'Your Lie in April'—we didn't even know who Miyazono Kaori liked. 'Initial D' didn't reveal the extent of the cheating until the end. And 'My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday' had the leads miss each other forever. But now 'Kimi ni Todoke' is confirming the love interest right at the start?"
"Aren't female-lead romances usually love triangles? The kind where she's surrounded by multiple amazing guys, and we don't know who she'll choose until the final episode? But this… this is a fresh take!"
"On the first day of high school…"
Gu Yi's eyes stayed fixed on the screen.
Cherry blossoms fluttered through the air.
A forked path.
Two students in the same school uniform crossing paths.
"If I'm trying to get to Third High, which way should I go?"
A soft, pale hand pointed in the right direction.
The boy responded with a bright smile:
"Thanks."
Gu Yi's heart melted.
This female lead. This male lead. They're just too—
"This is the essence of a girl's drama!"
"My inner teenage girl is screaming!"
"Jing Yu-sensei's smile totally got me! I'm a guy, but I think I'm half in love!"
"No wonder Sawako fell for him. If it were me, I would too—with a smile like that."
"No, no, no—Sawako doesn't even realize she likes Kazehaya yet. She just said in her internal monologue that he's a good person. She probably just thinks he's nice."
"Hah, she'll figure it out soon."
"This drama is definitely going to be a sugar bomb!"
"Ten minutes in and I'm already auntie-smiling. This is what dramas should be—light, sweet, pure. Compared to Jing Yu-sensei's previous stuff? Like...
'Your Lie in April'—the girl dies.
'White Album 2'—everyone's messy.
'Initial D'—cheating and heartbreak.
'My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday'—star-crossed lovers who miss each other forever.
'Steins;Gate'—twisted timelines and amnesia.
'Rurouni Kenshin'—the heroine gets cut down by the hero.
'Love Letter'—the male lead is dead from the start.
Being a fan of Jing Yu-sensei these past three years has been exhausting!"
As the first episode continued, the class began organizing a courage test.
The class unanimously agreed on having Sawako play the ghost.
Except for Shouta, who was visibly upset about how the others treated her.
But Sawako didn't want Shouta to be put on the spot,
So she volunteered to play the ghost herself.
The sequence that followed was full of interaction between the two leads:
"I heard Shouta can't just ignore classmates who are being ostracized?"
"Shouta-kun… he's really a good person. When he said it out loud, he meant it."
"I'm glad… I thought you might hate me."
At first, Gu Yi was still multitasking—watching fan group chats.
But before long, she wasn't paying attention to them at all.
Because she was totally hooked—
whether it was Shouta's charm or Sawako's adorableness.
After confessing to classmates Yano Ayane and Yoshida Chizuru that she couldn't summon spirits and had no supernatural powers,
She finally made her first two friends.
During the test of courage, she took her ghost role seriously,
thinking her job was to scare people for fun.
She even believed the others' terrified screams were just expressions of joy.
But among all the classmates, the only one not scared by her act
was Shouta.
When they met in the woods,
She forgot about her role as the ghost,
And he forgot about reaching the finish line.
The two of them just sat in the forest under the moonlight and fireflies.
Soft background music played.
As they made eye contact,
Shouta bashfully lowered his head and hid his face in his arms.
"Ah! Sorry! I'll make sure not to maintain unreasonable eye contact for over three seconds! That rumor about getting cursed if you stare too long…"
"No, no—it's not like that… You're just making me shy. Don't make me say it…"
At that moment, the moonlight poured down.
Sawako in white, Shouta beside her with his ears flushed red,
the music swelling gently—
"AAAHHHHH!!!"
"Sawako, go confess already! Shouta's totally shy because you're staring at him, and you're over here worried about curses?"
"My inner teenage girl just exploded—again!"
"This drama is way too pure. It's making me feel butterflies again!"
"I have zero resistance to shy boys like this. Jing Yu-sensei is 27, right? How is he still so convincing playing a high schooler?"
"I'm dying from how cute this is. The school heartthrob, the campus prince, gets all flustered just from Sawako looking at him???"
"Kazehaya is clearly already in love with her. But what's his reason? Sawako likes him because he's the only one who isn't afraid of her—but what about him?"
"This is way better than 'That Year!', honestly."
"Pure love forever! Jing Yu-sensei has such a gift for wholesome romances—why does he keep torturing us with all those heartbreaking love stories?"
But soon, the plot took a turn.
Because Sawako and Shouta didn't finish the courage test,
The class teased them.
Some even suggested that, as punishment, Shouta should sit next to Sawako for a whole week.
But that suggestion made Shouta snap.
The boy who hadn't said a harsh word to anyone until now
looked at the entire class—visibly angry.
"I'll take the punishment for not finishing the test—but I'll do anything except that. Calling it a punishment… It's too disrespectful to Sawako."
At this point in the episode, both Gu Yi and the audience at large
had completely fallen for the male lead.
"Wait… were the classmates unintentionally playing wingmen?"
"Shouta definitely wants to sit with her—but he just didn't want it framed as a punishment. He's probably worried about hurting her feelings."
"Even when he's mad, he's so handsome."
"The classmates were probably just joking—not trying to be mean."
"Subjectively, maybe not. But objectively, it's hard to say. If Sawako wasn't this kind of girl, that kind of joke could've really hurt."
It was getting late...