Today I read volume 7 of Shuu ni Ichido Classmate wo Kau Hanashi (週に一度クラスメイトを買う話), a yuri romance light novel that I truly love and that I talked about just a few days ago.

This volume was absolutely wonderful and can be divided into three major parts:

1. Hazuki and Shiori’s date at the aquarium

2. Hazuki Sendai’s 19th birthday

3. Shiori Miyagi’s 19th birthday

Hazuki’s emotional state has been deteriorating since the previous volume. She is falling deeper and deeper in love with Shiori, but she is conflicted. She desperately wants their relationship to become something more, yet she is terrified of risking the fragile but precious connection they currently have.

The aquarium date only intensifies these feelings. For the very first time, Shiori laughs in front of Hazuki while watching the shows. That single moment feels so bright and warm to Hazuki that her feelings deepen even further.

On the other side, Shiori is equally conflicted. She sometimes allows Hazuki to touch her or kiss her, and she clearly understands that this is not what “roommates” do. But at the same time she still cannot fully accept entering a new kind of relationship. Her heart wants something, but her trauma holds her back.

One of the key factors here is Shiori’s past, especially her family situation. Her parents divorced, and her father, who has custody, is always away for work. He provides for her materially, which explains how she could afford giving Hazuki 5000 yen so often in the early volumes, but emotionally he is completely absent. This damaged her ability to rely on others or form long-term emotional commitments.

One memory that marked her deeply was a childhood birthday. She asked her father for a cake, received it and waited for him to come home to celebrate. He never came. She ended up alone, staring at that cake in the fridge. This memory still haunts her.

Hazuki wants to overwrite that wound in Shiori’s heart, and she manages to extract a promise to celebrate Shiori’s next birthday together. And in many ways, it works. They do celebrate together, and it warms Shiori’s heart, but it also makes her even more conflicted because she knows their “roommate” excuse is collapsing.

During one intimate moment, Hazuki begins kissing and touching her. Shiori does not say “no”. Instead she says, “I want to stay as roommates a bit more.” It is heartbreaking because it is not rejection, but fear.

Hazuki has her own share of trauma. As explained in earlier volumes, her parents focused entirely on her older sister and essentially abandoned her emotionally. This pushed her to want independence as soon as possible. It is also why she works part-time jobs despite Shiori protesting. She wants to save enough money so that after graduation she can escape her home and be able to support herself even if she struggles to find immediate work.

Seeing these two girls, on the edge of adulthood, trying to confront their fears, their broken pasts and the uncertainty of their future is genuinely powerful. The author excels at making their relationship feel real, tender and painfully human.

I am really looking forward to the next volume, which according to the postscript seems to be scheduled for release in the next few months. I will absolutely be reading it the moment it comes out.