Interestingly, Yubisaki to Renren veered totally away from Emma this week.  Obviously that’s no loss as far as I’m concerned, but it is somewhat surprising after all that development last episode.  Instead the focus is on the teased “sign language boot camp”, which sees our four main romantic figures head off to the mountains.  Yuki is pretty preoccupied with finding a job so she can join Itsuomi on his next overseas junket (I kind of feel like Itsuomi is independently wealthy and could pay for her if she was willing), and her friend tells her she has a lead.

Itsuoimi drives, and Kyouya and Rin are consigned to the back seat.  Rin thoughtfully comes up with a written driving game for Yuki, where everyone writes their wishes down as a daisy chain.  They’re all pretty standard, but Itsuomi – who seems not to have an unexpressed thought – says (Rin is writing for him) that he wants his girlfriend to go on an overseas trip with him.  This does have the effect of heaping more pressure on Yuki, but I don’t get the sense that he meant it that way.  He just doesn’t know how not to be direct, for better or for worse.

The boot camp looks suspiciously like glamping (who the heck had all that gear?).  And while there is some signing going on, you get the feeling that this is more about relationship building than language skills.  Especially for Kyouya and Rin, who’s dealing with a pushy former co-worker who keeps trying to get her to go out with him.  This is one of those times when the Japanese (both people and language) aversion to directness can really be aggravating.  The guy comes off as annoying, but when you consider that Rin never actually told him she wasn’t interested, you can sort of see where he’d get the wrong idea.

Eventually – when he stops messaging and actually calls her – she does.  That makes is pretty obvious to Kyouya what her feelings are (though I mean, duh), but he’s open about his scar tissue in this area.  I don’t know how old he is, but in this relationship too there’s clearly an age different of at least a few years.   Meanwhile Itsuomi is a bit perturbed by the fact that Yuki keeps looking at her phone, but happily this isn’t spun into some sort of misunderstanding drama and once she comes clear, they pretty much land on the same page.  Then Rin conveniently sprains her ankle and that puts and end to the boot camp, leaving the main couple back home with some time on their hands.

At this point, in fact, there’s not much drama with either of the two couples but that’s not a bad thing.  Kyouya is a bit of a plain yogurt despite Ohsaka Ryouta doing everything he can, but he’s a nice guy.  Stuff is happening between Yuki and Itsuomi but it’s natural outflow from the gap in their experience more than anything.  He very casually invites her to spend the night at his place and seems quite unconcerned that this might be a big deal for her, even starting to undress in front of her.  It’s hard to tell which side of the line this guy falls on sometimes, because he can definitely come off as pushy.  But again, I think it’s just Itsuomi being Itsuomi (and that’s the guy Yuki fell for).

Indeed, as is often the case in seinen romances (and I’ll go to the mat saying that A Sign of Affection feels much more seinen than shoujo), most of the drama is coming from the supporting characters who are frozen out.  Emma is nothing but drama, and Oushi seems to be on the verge of kicking that up a notch after his sister tells him she saw Yuki and Itsuomi out and about together.  His calling her was no doubt going to be another case of him being condescending, but with Itsuomi fixing to answer her phone (which he should never do, by the way) that has some combustive potential.