So the beginning interactions are basically Kanade going after school all the time for study sessions. They gradually grow closer though, and one day when Kanade stays home sick from school, Chihiro comes over/ cooks for Kanade. Ikuto’s not too happy about this and goes “What the hell is going on here?”, but he and Chihiro end up sharing cooking tips, so Ikuto is slightly more okay with Chihiro being there. The cultural festival, Kanade learns that Chihiro had no friends during high school. …And then a chicken gets stuck down her shirt because Kanade is a bit of a ditz and I guess they needed to remind everyone that this is indeed an 18+ game. Oh, and suddenly, Kanade likes Chihiro, but she’s afraid of saying anything because of the whole student/teacher thing. They accidentally get locked in the school after hours during a study session, and Kanade doesn’t want to leave. …But then Ikuto comes and cockblocks.

So Ikuto starts having mood swings like he’s PMSing. One day he tells Chihiro to stay the hell away from Kanade since they’re teacher and student and he’s been looking at her funny. The next, Ikuto is in the park punching Chihiro in the face saying that he’d better not make Kanade cry. …After Kanade sees this, Chihiro (finally) confesses and Kaede is extremely happy since she thought the whole thing was terribly one sided on her part. Oh, and then after this, Ikuto is the most pleasant he’s ever been the entire route and acts fine with the two of them going out. I DON’T UNDERSTAND THESE CHARACTERS. (Though I kind of understood a bit more when I played Ikuto’s routes.) Also, retroactively, Ikuto punching Chihiro in the face became the best part of the route.

Anyways, Ikuto kind of broke Chihiro’s glasses, so Kanade and his first date consists of the two of them going glasses shopping. After they complete that task, at a mall, they run into a woman with a kid and both Chihiro and the woman obviously recognize each other. Kanade tells him to go after the woman since he obviously looks like he wants to say something and the two talk while Kanade gets depressed thinking that the woman is an ex-girlfriend or something. However, he tells Kanade that thanks to the talk, he feels better about things. …And I guess the entire plot decides that it’s provided enough closure on that situation since the woman is never mentioned again. She did tell Kanade to not run away from Chihiro, but hell if we’re ever told who she was or how the hell she avoided the bdsm pet cage ending if her and Chihiro ever dated (…you’ll see when you get to the Black End).

…The happy times last about 2 days, and Kanade can’t stop thinking about Chihiro pushing her down on the bed in her room the other day and so the next study session turns into a sex on top to the table session. …At least sensei remembered to lock the door beforehand. However, then things start going terribly downhill and Kanade suddenly decides that she’s ashamed of what her and Chihiro did and she starts acting really awkwardly. So here’s where Chihiro’s character takes a HUGEASS TURN for NO REASON whatsoever. One day he acts like a normal person, and then the next he suddenly turns into this character who’s all “I made you a bento. …What do you mean that you’re worried about me spending too much time on you and neglecting my job??! OH GOD, WHY DON’T YOU LOVE MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!?!1!!?!”

Then they screw on the desk again. Because why not.

Bad End: Chihiro and Kanade end up still meeting after school every day, but it’s sex time instead of study time. Kanade doesn’t exactly hate it either, so it’s not too bad of an ending to be honest. Especially in comparison to other endings.

So then after a study session (and after the school is closed), the two of them have sex in the middle of the hallway, right in front of a window. Kanade is terribly embarrassed and worried that someone’s going to see them, but it’s not until afterwards that Chihiro seriously says “Oh, sorry. This was probably a bad place.” …AHAHAHA NO SHIT. Kanade definitely thinks that he’s acting strange, and he says himself that he doesn’t particularly care if anyone knows about them or not. Suddenly, Chihiro starts spreading rumours around the school about him and Kanade going out. …But then when he gets an offer to become an author professionally since he won some award for his children’s books, he goes “NOOO! I CAN’T! IF I BECOME A PRO, THEN I CAN’T STAY AND BE WITH YOU IN SCHOOL!” to Kanade. Apparently the thought that he might possibly lose his job over the rumours never once crossed his mind. Chihiro concerned about his existence being unnecessary to Kanade since she has more of a life than just dating him and I guess the rumour spreading was to force her to rely on him…? No, really. That was the explanation they gave. I have no idea wtf is going on in this guy’s head, even with the little cut ins that gave his side of the story.

Happy End: Kanade reassures him though and asks him to trust her (though they’ll have to be separated due to him being waaaay to attached at the moment and there are already rumours thanks to SOMEONE). By this point, Chihiro is practically at the verge of tears and being a total drama queen, but he agrees. …And so he and Kanade act like normal people at school, but apparently they meet up at hotels and such. Luckily, they’re much more subtle about it than that window sex, and Chihiro isn’t inexplicably clingy anymore.

Black End: Kanade pushes Chihiro away unconsciously, and this is terribly shocking to Chihiro for some reason. So the answer he comes up with to this emotional dilemma is to kidnap/lock Kanade in a cage and make her wear animal tails (handmade too, apparently! What a guy!) up her ass. …Whatever works for him, I guess. Kanade herself just kind of goes “…yeah, I give up” since there’s no way she can get through to the guy.

Finally, the Gold End (kind of sort of) explains things. Chihiro wasn’t loved enough as a child or something and everyone eventually left him (probably because he was so clingy). However, Kanade manages to calm him down by telling him that his self sacrificing obsessiveness doesn’t make her happy since it’s ignoring how SHE feels. But she’s also says that she’s not going to abandon him or anything, and all of this gets him back to the person that he was at the beginning of the route. Skip to graduation and Kanade STILL calls Chihiro “sensei”. Though I guess he still is one. He’s an author now, but somehow he went from children’s writer to a guy who writes porn based on him and Kanade’s bedroom antics. At least it’s not porn for children. Probably. Hopefully.

…I give up on this character. Let’s see how KuroKin butchers the rest of these routes for me.

The route begins with Kanade hanging out with Yukio like normal friends. They go to photo booths, karaoke, and basically do all of the stereotypical Japanese teenager things that Kanade hasn’t done in a long time. For reasons I can’t remember, Ikuto’s school and Kanade’s school do a joint cultural festival (I think it was probably money issues), so that increases their hanging out time. During the actual cultural festival, Kanade gets bitten by a turtle and Ikuto treats it for her. The two also dance together.

Obviously, they fall in love and start dating. However, neither Yukio or Kanade tell Ikuto, since he’s basically a strict Asian mother, and they’re worried that he won’t approve. However, they eventually bring Ikuto to a restaurant and Yukio tells Ikuto “Please give me your daughter!” as a way of asking for permission to date Kanade. However, Ikuto’s known the entire time about this and has probably been thinking how the two of them are idiots. Needless to say, he’s perfectly okay with this development. Hell, he even offers to make breakfast for 3 people in the mornings from now on since Yukio lives on his own (his parents own some company, so apparently they can afford that) and normally doesn’t eat.

It’s probably a very good thing that Yukio’s never had a girlfriend before though, since after he and Kanade first have sex at his place (and quickly making sure that Kanade isn’t hurting too much), he asks for a round two. …And then he goes from embarrassed awkward virgin into EXTREME SEX ADDICT, transforming the route into giant pain in the ass. Basically, he and Kanade have sex for hours on end, 7 days a week, making both of them lose a ton of sleep and Kanade’s grade drop. It gets so bad that Yukio can’t even walk like, 5 steps away from the floor to the bed when she comes over. And then there’s another occasion where they have sex right in the middle of a park behind a tree (those poor, poor bystanders. I refuse to believe that hiding behind a tree concealed the couple completely). Anyways, Yukio is obviously having issues and Ikuto mentioned that he heard that Yukio’s grades have gotten absolutely terrible and he’s probably going to need to repeat a year. I figure by now, he’s probably also broke from all the condoms he’s had to buy. …Though at least they’re using them, I guess. I don’t think I’ve ever played an otome game where the characters actually used them since pregnancies are usually magical things that work conveniently and only happen when the characters want children xD. Anyways, Kanade feels guilty about all of this and knows things should probably change.

…And then to make things even more needlessly angst ridden, Yukio gets extremely depressed, disappears for a few days, and tells Kanade that he’s going to have to go home and live with his parents when she finally finds him angsting at his place. Their company is going bankrupt and can’t afford to pay for Yukio to live on his own. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS. The big issue here is that if he moves away, they won’t be able to screw like rabbits anymore! The horror!

Bad Ending: OH NOES, NOT A LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP! WHAT IF YUKIO RUNS OFF WITH SOME OTHER WOMAN?! Kanade basically goes “screw the condoms!” because she figures that if she gets pregnant, Yukio won’t be able to ever escape from her. …Yeah, good luck with that Kanade. I can’t see this ending well for anyone, but Kanade and Yukio continue their relationship the same way they always have, which means constant sex and not much else.

Kanade asks for a 3 day break for them to sort shit out, which was almost too hard for Yukio. …And then he holes himself up in his room. Because that course of action will definitely solve everything. Everyone else’s IQ then drops drastically, as Kanade gets a job at a carabet club to earn money so her pathetic boyfriend can continue living nearby and everyone supports this. Even Ikuto. What is this. Kanade visits Yukio one day and mentions that she has to go to work. …Which is a bad idea, apparently. Yukio starts freaking out over Kanade having a job and earning money for him because it makes him seem pathetic. …Christ, I don’t even have a tsukkomi for that. Then if I wasn’t already pissed off at him enough already, he goes “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND MEEEE” and then slaps Kanade. Why. Why did this route turn out so stupidly. OTL

Instead of slapping him back and telling him to get a life already, Kanade runs away. Ikuto finds her and then solidifies his spot as my favourite character in this game by giving Yukio the punch in the face he deserves. Later that night, Kanade goes to permanently return the room key Yukio gave her (in an attempt to get Yukio to come out) and they FINALLY have a talk to sorts things out.

…Kanade should have left this SOB to die in his room, but that’s not how otome games work.

Happy End: Yukio moves in with his parents and Kanade enters a long distance relationship. However, the two of them still meet up frequently and everything magically works out.

Black End: Yukio forces himself on Kanade and in the end she goes “whatever, this isn’t so bad”. So once again, they’re stuck in their terrible relationship.

Gold End: Things magically work out again. Yukio gets a job and continues to live on his own, and he and Kanade have a much healthier relationship.

Meh, after all of his bitching earlier, it’s safe to say that Yukio’s character is ruined for me. In contrast though, the rest of the game didn’t piss me off as much as it probably would have if I had done this route later. …Yay?

The route starts off with Ikuto just taking care of Kanade (while obviously being in love with her). Due to reasons only the plot knows, the cultural festival was handing out alcohol to minors. Kanade gets pretty drunk and Ikuto has to help her to her room. Only, she uses him as a hug pillow instead and the poor guy’s sexual frustration skyrockets. So Ikuto tries to hold back his feelings with all of his might and attempts to get Kanade to finally find a boyfriend so that he can get over her already. He tells her to go on dates, becomes more lenient with her curfew and even invites all of the other characters over, but lolnope Kanade just isn’t interested and wants to stay at home with Ikuto all the time.

It doesn’t help that when they go to a manga cafe, they can only rent out a couple room (basically, there’s just one small couch in a room), and when they go to a bath theme park (lolJapan), Kanade’s top falls off and Ikuto accidentally grabs her boobs while trying to help her out. So with all of this, Ikuto just kind of gives up and tells Yukio to screw off that he doesn’t have to pick up Kanade in the mornings anymore.

So then one day, Kanade accidentally sees into Ikuto’s room one day, to find him fapping on his bed and saying “Aneki” (what he calls Kanade) over and over. Kanade tries to pretend that this never happened, but Ikuto totally knows that she knows. Ikuto starts acting kind of creepy about the whole thing and Kanade tells him that it’s okay because all guys fap.

Bad End 1: Everything goes back to normal… or maybe not since Yukio comes over as usual, and then Ikuto takes the opportunity to shove his hand up Kanade’s skirt in the kitchen using the logic “you saw me, so now I’ll watch you.” …And then when Ikuto and Kanade come out of the kitchen, Ikuto goes “Aneki had problems with the eggs” and then licks his fingers really deliberately.

…Moving on. Or not, because Ikuto is special and also has-

Bad End 2: In this case, Ikuto NTRs himself by asking Yukio to force himself on Kanade while he watches. …I’d half like to see how that conversation played out (“Hi Yukio, I have issues, and I’d like you to rape my sister. No, really, I’m cool with it.”), but the part to take away from this is that this apparently helps Ikuto get over Kanade. Somehow.

Everything goes back to normal… kind of. Ikuto’s over protectiveness seems to double and now he just gets mad at EVERY guy who looks at Kanade. Also, he has this vision where he just goes ahead and rapes her, but he doesn’t want to make Kanade cry. 5 guesses as to what happens in the last Bad End. However, this all makes Kanade realize that she has feelings for Ikuto. Somehow.

Anyways, Kanade has another weird dream about the cowboy onii-san character, and when she wakes up, it (gasp!) turns out that Ikuto has been talking to Kanade while she’s asleep giving her weirdass dreams the whole time. It was actually him who first encouraged Kanade out of the house, and it’s been him who was supporting her this entire time. He leaves the room saying that he loves her (not that he even knows that Kanade is awake and can totally hear him). Even at school, Kotoko (Kanade’s friend) notices that something’s off with Kanade and Kanade finds out that she was pretty much the only one who didn’t realize Ikuto’s feelings.

Happy End: …And then Kanade decides to copy Ikuto and she watches him sleep. THESE SIBLINGS. He’s rather shocked when he wakes up and in that conversation, finally admits to Kanade’s face that he’s liked her ever since they were children. Though it’s cool, since Kanade says that she loves him back, which is why when he tried to find her a life earlier in the route, she rejected every other guy. Kanade becomes the seme-ish type (…do those terms work in heterosexual relationships?) here and Ikuto has to leave midway through to grab condoms. xD Things work out well between the two and come Valentines Day, Kanade absolutely fails at cooking and Ikuto tells her it’s okay because he can just cover her in chocolate and eat her instead.

Black End: Ikuto goes through with the rape he was thinking about earlier and afterwards, Kanade gets BDSM-confined to Ikuto’s room. Though unlike most of the other bad ends where Kanade mysteriously vanishes, I guess Ikuto could go tell people that Kanade’s just back to being a hikki and no one would even question it.

Gold End: The H-scene happens in Kanade’s room this time (Ikuto still goes grab condoms for this ahaha), and Ikuto just basically confesses. A couple years down the road, the two are married and have opened some restaurant. Which makes sense because Ikuto is pretty good at cooking, but also makes less sense because Kanade absolutely sucks at it. There’s an alternate ending of sorts too where Kotoko and Komine (another one of Kanade’s friends) are a couple as well. …Which is good because I’ve been shipping them pretty hard the entire game.

It’s really rare that these games don’t have me disliking the characters by the end of a route, but Ikuto managed to stay a pretty good character throughout the entire game. Yes, his bad ends were terrible, but at least those were avoidable. …Unlike the bitchslapping that happened in Yukio’s route and Chihiro’s annoying character change. …Tomoomi is a case aaaaaaaaall on his own.

So after the first hair cut, Kanade and Tomoomi still hang out. He has a beauty salon named Azalea and Kanade is allowed to have her hair cut there for free whenever she wants, since she’s his personal cut model. Oh, she has to model for photos too for the salon, but it’s not like that’s suspicious at all, right? As the two interact, Kanade gains feelings for Tomoomi, and after the culture festival, they start going out.

Then Kanade learns one day that Tomoomi is some genius make up artist in the film industry who vanished one day. They meet someone who knew Tomoomi at a film location one day, but Tomoomi just wants to get out of there as soon as humanly possible. Kanade wants to ask about this, but he starts acting weird and changes the subject to how much he loves Kanade. They almost kiss but lolIkuto and Kanade’s curfew. Though they do kiss eventually, I just can’t remember when.

To make things a bit more suspicious, Kanade goes by the salon without first calling Tomoomi, only to find that it’s closed. She goes home and pulls out Azalea’s business card, but it only has Tomoomi’s number, name, and absolutely nothing that indicates any hours of operation. Anyways, the next day she has Tomoomi do some kind of treatment to her hair, and for whatever reason, he drugs her drink. Who even knows what went on while she was unconscious, but the plot thankfully doesn’t say anything. Kanade just wakes up and apologizes for falling asleep while Tomoomi says not to worry about it.

Somewhere around this time, Tomoomi buys Kanade a rather expensive dress and takes her to a really high end restaurant. So obviously the guy is rich. On drive home, Kanade has a passing thought about how she doesn’t remember her ever telling Hasui where she lives which should normally be a warning flag, but she dismisses it. Then apparently Kotoko has somehow found out the hotel and room where Tomoomi actually lives and gives Kanade the address.

Before that though, Kanade goes to check out Azalea one more time because she’s now rather suspicious of the place. She’s never seen any other customers other than herself, and the business card is odd. To add on to that, she calls Tomoomi while standing in front of the place to book an appointment, and he pretends that he’s in the shop working as they speak. Kanade heads towards the hotel where Tomoomi lives, but is found by him in front of it. He gets pretty angry about her attempt to visit and tells Kanade that she’s “just like everyone else”. He drags her to his place and then Kanade finds this room.

…Yeah. This is where you run.

Tomoomi, who clearly has issues, then explains that Azalea is apparently a shop open entirely for Kanade’s sake. Tomoomi gives her a key card to the room and tells Kanade to come visit him. Kanade accepts, which seems like a really bad idea.

However, if she refuses, it’s an immediate Bad End where Tomoomi keeps Kanade captive in the hotel room. Kanade isn’t exactly compliant, but Tomoomi threatens to cut some of Kanade’s er, more sensitive lower parts WITH HIS FREAKING SCISSORS. WHY. So she has no choice but to sit still while he has his way. I totally knew this was coming, but completely underestimated how creepy it would be OTL

So on a later date and after talking with Ikuto about how Kanade wants to see this through, Kanade enters Tomoomi’s hotel room to find that he’s totally covered the floor with grey roses. And if that’s not creepy enough, then he decides to show Kanade his collection of photos he’s taken while he was stalking her. …Because that’s clearly the right way to impress a girl. He then gives Kanade a dress and tells her to put it on.

Happy End: Kanade strips, but ends up refusing to put on the dress. She tells Tomoomi that she’s not his doll, and that she honestly wants to know about him more. This apparently fixes things, they have a rather angst-ridden shower together, then sex, and then the route ends. …Yay?

Black End: Kanade puts on the dress and basically becomes Tomoomi’s sex doll thanks to some suspicious medicine and the fact that she’s not allowed to speak. Kanade doesn’t really feel anything, and like all of the other bad endings that involve Kanade completely disappearing without any warning, nothing is done. I mean, Ikuto knews exactly where she was going  and Kotoko knew where Tomoomi lives. I guess nobody cared enough to look for her. Lol otome games.

Gold End: Kanade puts on the dress, but then starts ripping it apart because she doesn’t want to end up as a unfeeling doll. However, her crying makes Tomoomi come to his senses as well and this magically fixes everything. It turns out that cutting Kanade’s hair was also a life changing experience for him. His old job sucked the life out of him since they didn’t care about his opinions whatsoever and all Tomoomi was allowed to do was follow orders. Plus I guess being the entertainment business, absolutely everything was about money. Anyways, apparently seeing Kanade and her hair once again made him find his inner passion for cutting. …Yeah.

Anyways, he used to look at Kanade as an object, but now he just wants to make her happy. They have sex and then later on, Tomoomi opens Azalea to the public as opposed to just Kanade. Er, I guess it’s open to their friends now (which is good, since Chihiro and Yukio desperately need better hairstyles), but there’s plans for Tomoomi to open it to the public in the near future. Tomoomi proposes and eventually they get married.

…I have no words for this route, really. I’m just glad that things worked out in the end.

Tags: Kuro to Kin no Akenai Kagi, PC, 黒と金の開かない鍵

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