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No more obstacles (Rent-A-Girlfriend Ch. 239)

What chapter 239 makes clear is that Chizuru wasn’t struggling to understand her feelings–or rather, her confusion in that regard isn’t what caused her to keep her distance for three months. Instead, she felt paralyzed because the various obstacles before her–the question of Ruka, the wisdom of potentially giving up her job, the uncertainty about Kazuya’s feelings for her vs. her persona–made her feel unable to even begin to figure it out.

Chizuru, with nothing standing in her way of figuring out her feelings, smiles genuinely.

Chizuru explains this chapter that her feelings are clouded, but rather than explain why they are clouded, or what she doesn’t understand, she digresses into two tangentially related topics: the thought that she needed to quit her job to make things right and that Kazuya might be in love with part of her that isn’t real. On the face of it, these questions don’t have any bearing to what her feelings are. If she weren’t in love with him, they wouldn’t matter in the slightest, so why does she even consider them now?

The answer is that these are the issues that could be in the way of her attempting to figure out her feelings. With that idea in mind, Chizuru’s point of view clicks into place. Maybe she needs to quit her job to take responsibility for her actions and remove herself from the situation in which she has acted impulsively. That would bring a great deal of clarity, telling her if her feelings are real even if they aren’t bound by the terms and conditions any longer. Similarly, if Kazuya has fallen in love with a false part of her, then she doesn’t need to look into her feelings any further, but Kazuya rejects the entire idea; Chizuru was clearly probing at him with this line of questioning, even putting on a fake smile for him to see if that would sway him, but as soon as he deflects the idea, she snaps back to serious mode.

Chizuru clearly pumps herself up for this smile, just as she asks Kazuya if he is really in love with her fake persona.

Chizuru’s hangup with Ruka fits into this idea, too: Chizuru herself said she felt she couldn’t trample on Ruka’s feelings while uncertain, and the implication now is clearer: she couldn’t even begin to figure her feelings out (i.e. explore a potential relationship with Kazuya) because that would bring her into conflict with Ruka. Ironically, if Chizuru knew her feelings, one way or the other, she would probably feel a bit less bad about it. Her love, if it were clear, would have no less value than Ruka’s, after all. But instead, the idea that she would intrude on Ruka’s turf just to sort out her own feelings was a no-go, at least until Mini showed her the stakes and told her what this had done to Kazuya.

Left with no more reasons to hesitate, Chizuru steels herself for the future, and this is something she can actually smile about. She can really look into these feelings, which she doesn’t understand, and find clarity and closure. She can send the message she hemmed and hawed over months ago, the one she owed him after all this time. Chizuru is free, and that’s an exciting possibility for this series. We have never seen Chizuru truly unburdened and free in spirit. I don’t think even Kazuya is prepared for the kind of girlfriend she could be now.

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