“I Want to Eat Your Pancreas”: The Infamous Bedroom Scene Contextualized within Sakura and Me’s Relationship

Spoilers!

I had so many questions about the infamous bedroom scene and legit pondered it for hours. There’s a lot of complexity and different interpretations of it, so here’s mine.

Background:

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas is tragic in many ways, but I found it tragic because throughout the story to the very end, neither Sakura nor Haruki were truly honest with themselves or each other about the state of their relationship.

Like most coming-of-age stories (and humans in real life), both of them were unreliable narrators. We as the audience were left to make sense of the ambiguities through other characters’ (Kyouko’s) knowledge, expressions on a 2D screen, and what was unsaid on our own. By nature of the beast, we were never the recipient to the totality of Sakura’s thoughts or the totality of Haruki’s thoughts, personal history, and emotional intelligence that would provide us with greater context surrounding the bedroom scene. Nor are we fully aware of the literary and cultural significance behind the books the movie chose to highlight (the book Haruki dropped and The Little Prince). If they were such unreliable narrators to us, could they have been unreliable narrators to each other and themselves?

Coming-of-age in real life involves many contradicting thoughts, wants, and needs that continuously sift and obscure each other based on timing, pride, the reluctance to be truly honest with ourselves and others, and the surprising moments of insight we share with each other and ourselves. This movie depicted this confusion very well.

At the same time, the movie adaptation did seem to push a romantic interpretation of their relationship more so than the manga. Given this framing, I believe Sakura and Haruki truly held a deep love for each other as people and friends—and as romantic partners but were hesitant to be honest with each other about their feelings, nonetheless act on them.

Their Feelings:

Long before that time in the story, Sakura held legitimate romantic and sexual feelings towards Haruki. However, she did not know how to handle them, nor was she brave or confident enough to express them to him in a straightforward manner. She’d noticed him weeks, months, or years before and thought he was curious but cute. She believed him to be safe and trustworthy, and likely wanted to play a game to see if he could open up to her. After they met, she consistently flirted with him. She consistently threw him sign after sign after sign after sign.

No girl would do or say the things Sakura did or said to Haruki to other men if she weren’t already interested: asking if he could be her boyfriend, saying they were going on dates, asking if he was interested in girls, wishing she could partake in a summer rendezvous and make mistakes in love aloud, inviting him on an overnight trip, arriving at said trip looking like they were going on a date, joking about sleeping in the same bed, asking him to look through her personal belongings for her cleanser, asking him to open the door and place it in the bathroom when she was showering, joking about him peeking, dressing in revealing clothes, doing her hair, buying alcohol, demanding to play truth or dare, asking him about her looks directly and indirectly, telling him to princess carry him to the bed and sleep next to her, inviting him to her bedroom in her empty house, and asking him if he had any feelings towards her again. And her facial expressions, major blushing, and voice direction! It. Was. So. Obvious. It. Was. Almost. Painful. To. Watch. Lol. She likes the guy!

At the same time, how could Sakura allow herself to fully commit to him? She was terrified of dying, knew Haruki did not want to become attached, and was possibly recovering from her treatment at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, who was implied to be abusive and controlling. As Kyouko stated, Sakura was fragile and vulnerable, yet even hid most of that and her tears from the person whom she was closest to. She had a lot on her mind and was confused!

Simultaneously, at that point in the story, Haruki felt the same way towards her (or was beginning to) but was still unsure about investing 100 percent of himself into her. He blushed and his voice softened at her dating questions and charm, though he prevented himself from fully embracing them. There is a lot to be said about what was unsaid, especially when there was no clarification about what was truth and what was lie during their game of truth or dare—he probably thought she was the prettiest girl in the class—or much clarification about his true feelings towards her, beyond a positive moment of narration about her every once in a while.

As time progressed, he chose to keep her company because he grew to care for her—but he did not want to become attached. Only after their conversation in the rain did he begin to give most or all of himself to her. He was also confused! Poor thing.

The Bedroom Scene:

The bedroom scene was a manifestation of all of this teenage angst and confusion: While Sakura was learning how to die, she was still learning how to live. She wanted to experience all that life had to offer, including love and sex, but was vulnerable enough to not follow through—but was not vulnerable enough to show her vulnerability. While Haruki was learning to live, he was learning how to love and be loved back, but also did not want to follow through.

I think Sakura fully intended to kiss and possibly make love to Haruki that night. After she was hurt that Haruki did not express any romantic desires to her, she put on an act to fool him that she, too, did not hold any feelings towards him. But that look from frame to frame, that heavy breathing, that nervous heartbeat could not have been an act. And Haruki was in shock. Before her surprise hug, he was becoming increasingly frustrated with his growing love for a dying girl, the unintentional games she was playing with his heart, the complexities of the world, the complexities of his newly awakened(?) emotions, the unwelcome realization that the world would react to him if he opened himself up to the world, and the perceived unworthiness from Kyouko, his classmates, and himself.

After her surprise hug, he was stunned that a beautiful girl expressed interest in him and was giving him major body contact—the first from a friend, nonetheless a girl and a girl’s boobs (teenage boys, lol). After glancing at the book he dropped when Kyouko questioned if he could carry Sakura’s burden, he hesitated but silently decided to try. And he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened his mouth, and leaned in…(yes, he slightly leans in)…only for Sakura to freak out, back out at the last second, and declare it was a joke and imply she saw him as a toy in an attempt to lighten her feelings, the atmosphere, and conceal her vulnerability and the fear that remained from her last relationship.

And of course, Haruki was pissed because no matter what Sakura’s true intent and feelings were, he felt like he was mocked and played with—rightfully so—and unleashed his confusion, anger, and newfound lust on her by jumping her and pinning her to the bed. In spite of being overcome with emotion, he was also paralyzed by these new emotions. Only after she began to cry did he realize he was scaring and hurting her and left in turmoil and shame, questioning if he was truly the right person to stay with her.

What Could Have Been:

After Sakura and Haruki make up, Sakura realized Haruki was not ready for a romantic relationship and decided to not push him any further. If she wanted to communicate her deeper feelings towards him, she would do so through a hug. By the summer, Haruki had emotionally developed enough to express his honest feelings towards her, reciprocate her physical affection, and remain in her arms to support her. Aside from his breakdown at the end, this scene was the apex of his character and emotional arc.

And if she had lived for the rest of the summer and a year? If. What if. Her life was full of if’s. Haruki would have developed enough to realize the totality of his feelings towards her and been ready to confess, clarify his emotional ambiguities, and so would she. During her dying months, they would have been able to experience another beautiful dimension of life—young love. But both of them were tragically robbed of that opportunity.

The Beast of Adaptations:

Of course, this theory originates in my belief that this adaptation framed Sakura and Haruki’s relationship in a more romantic light than the novel and definitely more so than the manga adaptation. Those adaptations contain more of Haruki’s inner monologue, though it still suffers from the ambiguities and the unknowns, so I wonder how we should synthesize all of this new information to interpret the bedroom scene, if we even should. If we rely on Haruki’s inner monologue and explicit confusion and disgust with Sakura’s signals present in those adaptations for greater context, our interpretation of this scene would definitely be less romantic and more condemning of Sakura’s selfishness, self-destructive tendencies, and/or reluctance to face her fears in love.

However, we can also interpret this adaptation as a work on its own due to the nature of the beast of anime film adaptations. Haruki did not explicitly narrate his disgust towards Sakura during the bedroom scene—which contrasts work of a similar nature, such as Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Your Lie in April, and Koe no Katachi—nor did he push her away before the kiss. Amongst several changes to the source material, these two scenes were deliberately never inserted into the film, and the author expressed disappointment in parts of its execution and implied changes in its themes and the state of Sakura and Haruki’s relationship.

The Film’s Final Message:

Regardless, we still know both of these beautiful characters were unreliable narrators, as we all are in real life. Sakura and Haruki were never able to discuss what happened that night or confess or act on their feelings for each other in this film, but their relationship was a lesson to Haruki and to us all. There will always be hurt and misunderstandings, but as long as we try to reach each other’s hearts, we can pierce through the ambiguities and vulnerabilities in each of us to elucidate our personal truths and our truths about each other.