It's time for Chiaki's story!
Fumika, Kaname, and Natsuka visit Fumi-chan in the hospital. They attempt to call her back from a coma by talking to her, but it doesn't work. Chiaki interrupts, asking them if they would like to go 'play'. Fumika suggests a vacation to some islands.

Oh Chiaki and your carefree-ness.
While Fumika, Chiaki, Kaname, and Natsuka are on a boat; a girl wearing a hat and dress is shown in a parallel situation.
Fumika and crew reach the destination, and the girls have a pillow fight while the boys sit and stare at each other. (Yes, Matoma is male and was relegated to the other room.)

Pillow fights are fun!

Wtf is going on over there?
The girl from earlier, Shirakawa, shows up at the hot springs resort that Fumika and friends are lodging in. Clumsy Natsuka trips down the stairs and slams into Shirakawa.

Whomp!
Shirkawa is also going to Suitengu island, so she tags along with Fumika and crew. Her purpose is to visit her grandfather, Kiyosumi Saizou's grave. At the name Chiaki perks up, and becomes unusually reserved for the rest of the trip.

Oh, my.
Kanaka, Matoma, Natsuka, and Kaname play at the beach; so Fumika and Chiaki (Haha, you thought you'd get to see Fumika in a swimming suit, eh?) go to visit Kiyosumi Saizou's grave with Shirakawa. A resigned Chiaki asks Saizou if he had a good life, etc. When she is done paying respects, she notices a shigofumi stamp on the gravestone, along with her name.

Oh snap.

Gravestone shigofumi
Surprised, she turns to Fumika. Fumika says her typical line, 'The sender is Kiyosumi Saizou.' It becomes apparent that Fumika wanted to go on the 'vacation' because she needed to deliver Saizou's shigofumi to Chiaki.

Oh, Fumika.
Shirakawa goes on to say that her grandfather was always single, and that her mother was adopted. This leads into a series of flashbacks for Chiaki. Chiaki remembers when she first met Saizou, and despite their apparent height (and age?) differences, they fall in love. However, Saizou is about to propose to Chiaki while driving, but they end up in a head-on collision. Chiaki dies, and Saizou survives.

Propos-

Uh oh

Brace for impa-
With tears in her eyes, Chiaki posthumously says, 'I do.'

b'awww
*Just kidding.
Thoughts:
A b'awww-worthy episode… and wow, nobody died again. Again, the rules of Shigofumi are flip-turned upside-down again. It would appear that one can deliver to the dead after all. The fact that Saizou kept his chastity to Chiaki after so long seems rather unrealistic, but hey, it fits the storyline. Also, uh, *cough*pedo*cough*, Chiaki looked like she was a grade shooler compared to Saizou.
(Also I think that Saizou's formal proposal [Since the original was cut off by car collision.] was written on the gravestone, and Chiaki responded to that. If anyone can verify, that'd be great.)
March 9th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Yeah, the seemingly large difference between ages did make the relationship a little difficult to take seriously. Besides that,this was another lovely episode and I’m glad Chiaki recieved some quality development.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
@Shavelle: I didn’t care for Chiaki too much at first, since she was brought out as rather brash and obnoxious. But, it is nice to see some deeper development on her character, as you said.