Summaries (Spoilers, Obviously) and Comments

Note: I group summaries by story line, not in presentation order. If you want to know how the scenes actually played out in their official sequence, why not follow this link to the episode and watch for yourself?

Episode 25 Summary

The episode opens with a repeat of the events that ended the previous episode. Ohm and Mick part ways with Ohm promising to speak with Mick’s mother about his return to the marching band. He then bumps into Yuri who asks him where Noh is. Realizing that Phun and Noh are probably hugging, he tells her that he is in the music room, but is very busy. Unable to come up with reasons, he tries to delay her, but it does no good. She enters the room as Phun and Noh kiss and begins to cry. She drops an envelope she carries as she runs from the room. She is too upset to see where she is going and bumps into Pete. Pete sits down with her and tries to talk with her.

Ohm enters the music club room and apologizes for not preventing Yuri from finding the club room. Noh assures him that it isn’t his fault since Phun and Noh were reckless by being together at school. Ohm leaves the two alone. Phun is in shock because of Yuri’s reaction. He asks Noh if he wants to go after her. He feels bad because he initiated the kiss that Yuri witnessed. Noh kisses Phun and lets him know that it won’t do any good to chase after Yuri after what she has seen. Noh retrieves the envelop Yuri dropped and finds that it is the pictures that they took together in the photo booth when they broke up.

Later that evening, Noh is alone in his room uncertain what to do. His mother enters his room and gives him a bag that Phun dropped off. He wants to know if Phun is still there, but he has left. His mother pats him on the back and reminds him to brush his teeth and shower before bed. She also tells him to smile as she leaves. The bag contains a cream puff which Noh begins to eat. He finds a note with a message from Phun reminding Noh to smile. Noh realizes that his mother has read the note. Peeved with Phun, Noh starts to scarf down the pastry, choking on it.

Mick returns home from school to find that Arm is again in the living room with his mother. She presents Mick with a brand new horn as a reward now that his grades are back up. He can return to the music practice. While he is studying with Arm, he texts Ohm and asks if he can have a late night music lesson. When Arm finds out that Mick is going over to Ohm’s house late, he offers to drive him there. In the car, he tells Mick that he will wait and drive him home once Mick lets it slip that Ohm’s parents aren’t going to be home and that horn lessons often take place in Ohm’s bedroom.

At Ohm’s house, Mick doesn’t bother to knock and finds Ohm practicing his guitar. Ohm scolds him for treating his house as if it is his own. They have their lesson. Mick is rusty. When Ohm frets that Mick won’t be ready for the competition, Mick promises that he will be if Ohm agrees to teach him every night. Mick says that he will tell Film that he will be returning to the band, but Ohm offers to do that himself as he does not like the idea of Film being alone with Mick. While the boys rehearse, Arm is outside in his car, worrying that he has just delivered Mick to Ohm to lose his virginity. He practices a speech that he plans to give Mick on the drive home.

Ohm makes Mick Ovaltine, but when he returns, he finds that Mick has fallen asleep. He tries and fails to awaken him gently. He leans in to kiss Mick but is interrupted when Arm rings the doorbell. When Mick wakes up, Ohm gives him the Ovaltine. Mick checks his phone and finds a number of missed texts and calls from Arm. He excuses himself. Once Ohm realizes that Arm is outside, he offers to walk Mick out in order to find out who Arm is. Ohm is surprised to find out that Arm is a teacher at Friday College. He has a brief moment where he imagines a cocky conversation with Arm, but comes to his senses. He is polite.

In the car ride home, Arm starts to give his speech about choices and thinking of his parents and “protection.” He also wants to find out what Ohm and Mick were doing. Mick’s answers aren’t satisfying Arm since Mick doesn’t quite follow what Arm is talking about. Arm is confused by Mick’s unintentionally suggestive answers to Arm’s vague line of questioning.

The next day, Noh appears to be returning to his old self. Noh is again confronted by pin thieves but manages to escape rather than give up his pin. Both he and Ohm are caught by the master with shirts untucked, but unlike last time, Noh completes his physical punishment vigorously. When Noh enters the classroom, his friends are silent as they don’t know if Noh will still be crabby. He starts to play an air jam on his bag to let them know he is in a good mood. At break they all play Jenga, but Noh hogs all the moves until the boys knock him down and pile on top of him. He attends band practice and taking Mick’s horn, starts to give Mick an example solo. Everyone is shocked that Noh knows how to play the horn (although to be honest, no one knows how to play that horn all that well).

Late in the day, Noh takes a nap in the music club room. He is having a good sleep until he starts dreaming that Yuri is calling his name. In reality, the voice he hears is Ohm, trying to wake him up. Ohm could, of course, try to wake up Noh with a gentle kiss like he tried on Mick the night before, but instead, opts to take off his sock and dangle it under Noh’s nose. That’s how friends do these things.  Noh wakes up pissed at the smell. Ohm tells Noh that he needs to go to the bookstore at the mall that day to pick up a set of encyclopedias for the music club. Ohm can’t go with Noh because Ohm’s older brother, Aun, is returning home from abroad and Ohm needs to go to the airport to meet him. Noh doesn’t know how he is going to pick up 14 volumes by himself, but Ohm suggests that he call Phun. He waits while Noh calls Phun. Once Noh hangs up the phone, he and Ohm once again tease each other about their relationships with boys. Noh is also starting to get upset that Ohm keeps talking about his relationship as if Noh is simply Phun’s pet.

Phun wants to help Noh but Fi won’t let him out of a long record-keeping session in the student council office. Fi is upset that Phun disappears to be with his boyfriends these days and is pissed that no one seems to be concerned that his girlfriend won’t talk with him any longer. Phun asks Nan to take over a bit of paperwork with Fi. While Fi isn’t looking, Phun sneaks out of the room. He runs through Friday College to find Noh. Fi chases Phun, bitching about Phun’s lack of responsibility and his girlfriend. Phun finds Noh and they race off together.  Fi runs over Oil on the basketball court, landing on top of him. As he gets up, he brushes his hand over Oil’s chest. Oil watches Fi as he walks away.

At the mall, Phun gives Noh a drink. Noh is teasing Phun for trying to be a big man, always paying for the cab and dinner. Phun says that Noh can pay for dinner that evening since Phun is doing Noh a favor. This shuts up Noh (who has spent most of his allowance for the month already). Phun and Noh enter a restaurant, but stop in their tracks when they realize Yuri is eating with her friends.

Rambles

Another week, another episode bookended with Yuri about to cry. She’s made the cliffhanger four episodes in a row now. Thankfully, she’ll be gone for a while after the next episode and we’ll be given a little Yuri reprieve. Yuri. Yuri. Yuri. She keeps coming back even though at this point, there is nothing her character can offer the story. Yuri may linger, but honestly, all she does now is cry and we don’t need another scene to let us know that Noh feels guilty about that. He didn’t run after her, which helps move plot along to other things.

Things like family. The families are starting to emerge. Ohm’s parents were absent this episode, causing Arm a great deal of worry. There is also a reference to an older brother in this episode. Arm gives a speech about always thinking of one’s parents, although we question his motives for caring. Noh’s mom is back for the first time this season. She’s read a note and may suspect something, unless it is usual for best friends to show up late at night with cream puffs. We haven’t heard from Phun’s family, but they are coming sooner rather than later. I’m much more excited by these characters than Yuri as they represent something new.  Or at least a logical extension of something that’s been going on since Noh first came to school after spending the night with Phun and his friends noticed that he was wearing Phun’s shirt and started to pry.

Noh has finally figured out that he loves Phun. In the novel he spent a lot of time deciding that he and Phun were just friends, no matter what happened, until that didn’t make any sense. Now he has to deal with the fact that they are boyfriends. True to form, he’s hoping to hang on to ambiguity until that doesn’t make sense any longer either. He still wants his relationship to remain a secret and hopes that he never has to publicly label it. That issue is starting to get as tiresome as having Yuri show up. We’re getting nowhere and that really is starting to drag Phun and Noh into boring stasis once again. They haven’t plateaued- they are just stuck in the muck somewhere halfway up the hill. Even Ohm in this episode seems tired of going over the same “Who really has a boyfriend” argument. “Why are we still going over this issue again?” he asks.

I think we are getting close to a breakthrough. While Noh is not ready right now, his reluctance to move forward is starting to hurt. It’s choking him. The cream puffs made their appearance. If the writers had followed the novel precisely, the cream puffs would have arrived last episode. I was sad when they didn’t, but here they appeared just in time. In the novel, Noh hoped that they were magic cream puffs that would permanently relieve him of his anxiety, but instead, their magical impotence led to a moment of self-realization. They were “coming-of-age” cream puffs.

In the series, the sole puff seems to represent his relationship with Phun in several ways. First, the puff represent Noh’s desire for privacy. When Noh realizes that his mother might have read Phun’s note, he treats the pastry like evidence that must be covered up as quickly as possible. He tries to shovel that choux cream down, but he can’t, and the process of trying to hide that reality chokes him. Covering up this relationship is becoming impossible and dangerous. Second, that little sweet is another food gift from Phun, but since Phun isn’t there to feed it to him, he can’t manage to feed himself. He cries out for help, even though his parents have put a fridge in his room because he’s not supposed to rely on them for glasses of water any longer. He finds that he can’t give himself a drink without spilling it on himself. Without Phun there, Noh can’t take care of these basic needs. I’d write another long ramble about Noh’s regression into infancy in this story, but I think I already covered that enough in the write up to Episode 23. That was a very rich cream puff, indeed.

The episode ends with Phun providing Noh a drink again, which Noh manages to draw down without spilling on himself. Noh begins to complain about Phun acting like a rich kid, even though he can barely afford to buy the dinner they are about to have. We’ll move off that issue as it will come up again a few episodes down the road.

Moving on to Mick and what confusion is brewing in that loveline: finally, some progress! Mick must be a very sound sleeper. Or very good at putting himself in vulnerable situations. Suddenly, and a little implausibly, Mick’s mother and Arm have declared him “grown up.” That’s what Ohm said he wanted from Mick a few episodes back. And now he makes a move over Ovaltine with extra condensed milk. Mick is “grown up” but wants Ovaltine. I can see how everyone is going to be a little confused. I know I will have plenty to say about Ohm’s behavior in future episodes, but before I unload on him, I should point out that Mick himself is adding to the confusion here about whether he is “grown up” or not. He has interest, but if he is presenting himself as a kid off and on, I can see why Ohm isn’t certain what kind of relationship he should have. Next time, Mick should ask for coffee.

Up Next

Can we get to the band competition already? Why is jealousy so boring? And old friends are reunited to the disappointment of everyone.