Like I mentioned in my last post, I have watched Byakuyako, a story about two kids–now grown up–who are in love with each other but they cannot display their love in public in fear of getting caught by the police. Now, if you haven’t heard of Byakuyako before or if you haven’t watched it, the storyline may seem a bit confusing. Allow me to summarize.
(MAJOR SPOILERS. AND I MEAN MAJOR)
Ryouji is a young boy–I’d say about eleven years of age–whose father is the owner of a pawn shop. Ryouji’s mother seems to be the type of woman who is mostly interested in material things. She is always well-dressed and you don’t see much of a relationship between mother and son in the beginning. So, walking home one day, Ryouji sees a girl who is sitting near a creek. She looks like she is thinking about something, and notices Ryouji. Their eyes meet momentarily but she goes back to what she was doing, biting her nail and ignoring Ryouji.
Ryouji, the viewer can see, is now infatuated with the girl and runs home. The next time they meet is at the library and after some shyness on Ryouji’s part, the two of them begin to speak and quickly become friends. Now here’s one part that I didn’t really like. In one of the scenes, Ryouji and the girl, Yukiho, are playing in the street late one night (their parents are such great parents, aren’t they?) when Yukiho turns Ryouji towards the street and pushes him onto it, claiming that what he was going to do was going to be fun. Well, it turns out that she wanted him to run into the street, stand there, and pray that a car won’t hit him. A large semi comes towards Ryouji and the poor kid looks like he’s about to pass out. The truck luckily dodges him, and Ryouji is left somewhat breathless, still not believing what had occurred. And then Yukiho begins to laugh, as if it was hysterical. This is when I began to dislike Yukiho’s character. Call me judgemental, but I think the girl has mental problems…
Skip to the part in which Ryouji’s father discovers the truth about his son’s first love. The man forbids him to ever see Yukiho again during dinner that same night, giving the excuse that Yukiho’s mother is a dirty and horrible customer of his pawn shop. Ryouji goes on to say that although her mother acts like that, Yukiho has nothing to do with it. Ryouji’s father bursts and sends him out of the house. This little explosion caused my suspicion to rise–it wasn’t as if Ryouji had said something bad, right? It was the plain truth…
So Ryouji goes to find Yukiho. He finally does, and he tries to take her hand, but Yukiho also explodes, yelling at him and telling him to never touch her again and that it was disgusting. Poor Ryouji, thinking that it was because of his sweaty hands, goes off to sulk. Then, one night he sees Yukiho being pulled forcefully by her mother into a small alley. Ryouji follows them inside what seems to be an abandoned half-built building, hides until Yukiho’s mother has gone, and sneaks into an air vent once he realizes that the room Yukiho is in is locked.
Once he manages to get a peek of the room through the air vent, Ryouji is shocked to discover exactly why his father never wanted him and Yukiho to see each other. The old man turns out to be a pervert. A pedophile, you could say. He has Yukiho naked while she lays on a table. Ryouji’s father is taking picture after picture of Yukiho, and that’s all you see for a moment until Ryouji climbs down from the vent and gets his father’s attention, asking him what he was doing. While Ryouji’s father tries to explain (in a pretty sad manner), Ryouji takes a pair of scissors and stabs his old man in the gut.
Yukiho, now fully dressed, goes over to Ryouji and convinces him that it was she who killed his father. She told him that she had killed him in her mind over and over, and so she should take the blame. They then promised each other to meet again years later, but for now they would have to pretend as if they didn’t know each other in fear of the police catching on to them.
That’s exactly what happens. Every memory Yukiho holds of Ryouji she destroys. Enter the detective, who is trying to track down who the murderer is. He is either great at his job or way too paranoid, because he begins to believe that the murderers may just be the kids. Yukiho’s mother isn’t a good mother at all (as one could see…she’s purposely selling her daughter’s body so that a pedophile could take pictures of it for money) is a prime suspect of the murder. Yukiho ultimately decides to stage a suicide that was supposedly her mother’s action. I think she leaks the gas and her mother does die, but Yukiho–who also wanted to die–is saved and is sent off to live with a woman from a different town to start a new life.
Years later Yukiho and Ryouji meet once more. It is seven years earlier than they had planned (they planned to meet fifteen years later I think) and they’re happy to see each other once more. However, they must part ways and continue on as if the bittersweet reunion never occurred.
Once you lie, you have to continue lying. Since Yukiho’s and Ryouji’s first lie, their entire lives have also beens lies. They desperately want to be together, but with the detective and the police hot on their trail, they can’t afford to do so. Finally after fifteen years, Yukiho and Ryouji meet once more, but this time they’re going to have to get out of the tangled web once and for all if they truly want to be together.
If you ask me, I think they should’ve just admitted to the crime when they were kids. I mean, when you’re a child the law is usually softer on you, right? But now that they are older, Yukiho and Ryouji are knee-deep in crap. Plus, that detective seems to have no life! I mean, fifteen years after the murder happened and he’s still trying to investigate?! Oh God!
So this is what basically has happened. There’s no way I’m spoiling the ending…I have spoiled much of the story and I can’t afford to spoil more. It is a great dorama, and Yamada Takayuki makes it even better! So I’ll provide the actors who played Yukiho and Ryouji now:
Izumisawa Yuuki as Young Kirihara Ryouji
Yamada Takayuki as Kirikara Ryouji
Fukuda Mayuko as Young Nishimoto (Karasawa) Yukiho
Ayase Haruka as Karasawa Yukiho
For more info on the cast or episodes, you can visit www.wiki.d-addicts.com/Byakuyako.
