Blue Spring Ride

Futaba resolves to tell Yuuri about her feelings for Kou. After class, she tells Yuuri and Shuuko how she feels. On the way back, Futaba happens to run into Kou, who's out late at night. Intrigued, she follows him, and finds Kou hanging out with some kids in the entertainment district.

Futaba realizes that she likes Kou, and makes up her mind to tell Yuuri about it. But a chance encounter with an old friend from middle school makes her realize that it can be hard to balance love and friendship. Futaba decides she'll keep her love for Kou a secret, but this makes her conversations with Yuuri awkward.

Yuuri reveals to Futaba that she's in love with Kou. Futaba's feelings about her long-awaited friendship struggle against her budding feelings of love. Futaba decides to suppress her feelings for Kou so as not to lose her friend, but class representative work puts her alone together with Kou.

Futaba has begun to develop feelings for Kou, and Yuuri happens to learn about Shuuko's pining over Tanaka-sensei. As they bear under the weight of their emotions, the team slowly begins to grow closer over the course of the workshop. But then, the five of them get lost in the forest during orienteering.

Futaba has volunteered to be class representative for her new class, and so has Kou. They're all set to participate in an overnight leadership workshop with event representatives Yuuri, Murao Shuuko, and Kominato Aya. However, a troubled start to their morning foreshadows anxieties down the road, and a bad vibe hangs over the team...

Futaba asks about Kou's family when she learns that Tanaka-sensei is actually Kou's older brother. She also learns the real reason Kou didn't meet her for the summer festival back in middle school. As her 2nd year begins, Futaba vows to start from scratch in her new class... which for some reason includes Kou, despite the fact that he's supposed to be in advanced classes.

Motivated by painful memories of middle school, Futaba has taken on superficial friendships in high school. Kou refers to them as "friends-in-name-only." One day, Futaba encounters a classmate, Makita Yuuri, who is shunned by the other girls for putting on a "cutesy girl act," eating lunch alone.

At the end of her first year of high school, Futaba has a fateful reuion. Tanaka Kou, her first love -- who transferred without warning and disappeared from her life in middle school -- appears before her for the first time in three years.