I Just Love Her

In the wake of a bruising fight, both Yuki and Kyo settle on the direction each of them means to take. The hour weaves together hospital visits, a brutal reckoning between the two boys, and Kyo's overdue confrontation with the man who raised him, ending as Kyo finally chases after the girl he loves.

At a student council gathering, Kakeru raises the subject of Tohru's hospital stay and Kimi presses Yuki about what the two really are to each other, with Machi listening in; Kakeru frames Tohru as a mother figure to Yuki. Arisa and Saki head to Sohma General Hospital and cross paths with Akito, who confesses to being the cause of Tohru's injury and reveals that she stabbed Kureno after keeping him bound to her. Arisa embraces Akito, then visits a startled Kureno and vows to stay by him.

Back home, Shigure and Yuki admit how lost they are in the kitchen without Tohru. They find Haru already inside, and he notes how anxious Rin has been. Yuki then rounds on Kyo, who insists he must leave so he stops wounding Tohru. Kicks and repeated punches follow, while Haru calmly orders pizza and nuggets downstairs. Shifting from fury to encouragement, Yuki tells Kyo he admires him, that Kyo draws out a smile in Tohru he never could, and urges him to go to her. Kyo agrees but first heads to the Sohma Estate.

There he faces his drunken father, who again pins his mother's death on him and demands he be locked away, hurling a glass at his son. Kyo recalls his mother stepping in front of a train and resolves that he will not throw his own life away. The Sohma Maid reports to Akito, who declares the Cat's Room will be torn down; the maid, too frightened by age to change herself, envies her. When Kyo reaches the hospital, Tohru is being released and flees at the sight of him, so he runs after her, realizing at last how deeply he wants her.

The title comes from a line spoken by Kyo. The adaptation draws on five manga chapters and reshuffles their order considerably: the opening walk through Shigure's house, the meal-planning talk, and Arisa and Saki's school visit were created for the anime, while the sequence of Kyo's father confrontation and the hospital scene was rearranged from the source. The manga version had Yuki trick Kyo into arriving after visiting hours, and Arisa and Saki barred Kyo from Tohru until he faced his past. The Sohma Maid's exchange with Akito is far more emotional on screen, where she shares six decades of life spent entirely inside the estate.