Midori confesses her love to Watanabe and embraces him in the rain

Midori confesses her love to Watanabe and embraces him in the rain at the turning point of their reunion: she has chosen him over her boyfriend, while Watanabe admits that he loves her but cannot yet leave Naoko behind. The scene converts an estrangement of two months into an explicit declaration of mutual feeling, yet stops short of a settled union. Its embrace is both a return to physical closeness and a promise deferred, with Midori choosing to wait on terms that make clear she will not accept divided attention.

The Reunion and Its Confession

The conversation unfolds on a deserted rooftop in the rain. With the roof empty and the kiosks and rides closed, Midori and Watanabe sit beside the children’s game area after looking through a telescope. Midori prompts him to speak, and he explains that depression had clouded his mind; losing contact with her made him understand that her presence had helped him survive. Her reply overturns his assumption that she had simply been angry and wanted no contact. The two months apart had been painful for her, too, and her anger came partly from wanting to see him while feeling that he did not look at her.

Midori then identifies the conflict that led her to keep away: she had begun enjoying Watanabe’s company more than her boyfriend’s, although she still cared for the boyfriend and regarded him as the first man she had taken seriously. She describes Watanabe as special, says she believes in him and does not want to let him go, and recounts asking her boyfriend what she should do. His answer was that she must stop seeing Watanabe or end their relationship. Midori chose to break up with him. The revelation gives the reunion a consequence beyond renewed contact: she has made a definite choice in response to the emotional conflict between the two men.

A Choice Made, and Its Cost

When Watanabe asks why she ended the relationship, Midori responds with exasperation at his failure to understand what she has already told him. She says that she likes Watanabe more than her boyfriend and that she has fallen in love with him. Her confession is direct, but the scene does not make the choice easy or consequence-free. Midori acknowledges that she had been serious about her former boyfriend and that she had needed distance to sort out what she felt. Her decision emerges from that period of confusion, not from a claim that her earlier attachment was unreal.

After confessing, Midori throws her cigarette into a puddle and asks Watanabe to stop looking so stricken: she knows he is in love with someone else and says she is not expecting anything from him at that moment. She asks for an embrace because the preceding two months have been difficult. Watanabe puts up his umbrella, and they hold each other behind the game area and kiss. The physical reunion follows the confession, but it cannot settle the question of whom Watanabe is able to choose. The scene’s movement is from distance to touch, while the emotional decision remains incomplete.

Watanabe’s Responsibility to Naoko

Watanabe answers Midori with reciprocal love: he says he does not want to let her go again, but cannot make a move because of Naoko. When Midori asks whether Naoko loves him, he says the situation is complicated and uncertain, and that neither of them knows where they stand. What he can name is a sense of responsibility as a human being; even if Naoko is not in love with him, he does not feel able simply to turn away from what has passed between them.

Midori counters that responsibility cannot make her an abstraction. She presses her cheek to Watanabe’s neck and insists that she is a living woman, physically present and openly offering her love. Her speech is at once playful and urgent: she lists her honesty, hard work, cooking, attractiveness, and trust fund, then warns that if he does not choose her, she may go elsewhere. The list gives her insistence a comic surface, but its central claim is serious. Watanabe’s obligation to an uncertain relationship with Naoko is being tested against the living person holding him in the rain.

Watanabe asks for time to think and make decisions. Midori accepts the delay, saying she will wait because she believes in him, but sets a firm condition for any future union: if he takes her, he must take only her, and when he holds her, he must think only of her. He says that he understands. Her answer neither dismisses his responsibility nor agrees to remain indefinitely as a secondary presence. The scene leaves the decision with Watanabe while giving Midori a clear standard by which his eventual choice must be measured.

The Rain-Soaked Embrace and the Unresolved Future

The pair’s embrace makes the emotional stakes bodily. After Midori tells him to stop thinking and hold her, Watanabe sets down the umbrella and holds her in the uninterrupted rain. Traffic on the highway rushes around them; the water soaks their hair and clothes, darkening Midori’s denim jacket and Watanabe’s yellow nylon windcheater. Earlier they have already held each other and kissed; the later embrace extends that closeness without converting it into a decision about their future. Midori’s desire is for contact now, while Watanabe’s promise of love remains bound to the time he says he needs.

The scene’s decisive shift is therefore real but deliberately incomplete. Midori has ended her relationship and spoken plainly; Watanabe has acknowledged his love and his continuing sense of responsibility toward Naoko. Their reunion restores intimacy after two months apart, yet it does not resolve the conflict that separates desire from commitment. Midori’s willingness to wait is paired with a demand for exclusivity, leaving the next step dependent on whether Watanabe can turn his declaration into a choice.