Pearled Oysters Volume 2

Recap of Volume 1

       First year student Hayami Kabehana has gained the reputation of being a thuggish delinquent because she beat up some boys who were getting handsy with one of her friends. This is compounded by her androgynous appearance, her alterations to her uniform, her blood red hair, and her visible piercings— which includes several facial piercings. Though she isn't hiding it, no one really knows the fact that she is a lesbian. A few days before the summer break, she is late leaving school and attempts to change in an alleyway. She is discovered by the "goddess" of her school and fellow first year Kumi Aramatsu, who tells her that Hayami is going to take her to a carnival event that's going to kick off summer break. After some back and forth, Kumi leaves with a cryptic message about preferring pearled oysters over squid. Later Hayami is daydreaming about her and Kumi together only to be stopped by one of her childhood friends Taha. When she finally gets home after a night out with her friends, Hayami is surprised by Kumi who is there because she couldn't wait until the date. The two end up making out and becoming a couple— including sending out pictures of them kissing with captions that read like exchanging of vows.
        The next day they further make it public by coming to school together and creating a scene just to dash rumours. Hayami admits to falling in love with Kumi when she sees a vulnerable side to the otherwise perceptibly perfect girl, and Kumi responds by having the taller and faster Hayami take her to the administration offices. Later Hayami is taken out of school by Kumi who explains that she is enrolling them in a program to be allowed to live together and be recognised as adults, but with additional responsibilities and high stakes if they fail to show that they will be productive members of society. After getting fitted for special clothes, Kumi and Hayami are surprised by a friend of Hayami's named Kageroshi. Hayami introduces Kumi as her girlfriend and tell them what's going on. Later they end up in a meeting with their respective mothers before officially joining the program and moving into their new apartment together. They quickly divvy up the set up for the apartment and both come clean about their interests in entertainment before Hayami takes her to meet the rest of her childhood friends. Kumi effortlessly connects with Taha, Chio, Natsu, and Kageroshi. Hayami finds herself questioning how she could be so lucky. As they leave the hangout spot, the two girls flirt and talk about mundane chores. Over the course of the evening and morning the two flirt and tease each other but Hayami can't help but wonder at how fast everything feels and realises for the first time that Kumi has yet to say that she loves Hayami.
At school they struggle to deal with the complications of the program not starting until after their summer break and are faced with a teacher who seems to harbour an unusually strong opinion of Kumi. At lunch the couple is confronted by Hayami's two remaining school friends as everyone else resent Hayami for dating the "goddess." The two remaining friends, Haru and Ume, are more upset that they were not told anything were treated like they weren't important. Kumi takes their side and Hayami ends up apologising before agreeing to take the pair to meet with her childhood friends. The two sets of friends hit it off and Haru is revealed to be a fan girl of manga and anime about gay and lesbian relationships as well as Kageroshi who is an agender person with a female presentation that is a rising star in the idol scene. They all decide to go to the carnival together while the couple enjoy their first official date. The day of the carnival everything seems to be going well except that Hayami has been growing increasingly nervous about Kumi's lack of confession. Just when Kumi suddenly gets interested in going to a specific place, they are waylaid by to astonishingly beautiful identical twins named Jacque and Jackie. The twins pick on Kumi for her choice in girlfriend and actually address Hayami's concerns by getting Kumi to admit that she will not say that she loves. They imply it means that she can't love and is just using Hayami before the female twin Jackie forces a kiss on Kumi while her brother threatens to hurt Hayami. They eventually overtake the twins and escape to the location that Kumi was wanting to get to, but then Hayami stops holding everything in. She explodes at Kumi about playing with her heart and demands Kumi says "I love you" instead of the other less definitive things she would say instead. Kumi refuses and Hayami leaves while Kumi is unable to say why she can't say those words.
Kumi returns home to discover that Hayami never came home. It is revealed that she had been planning to propose to Hayami so they could get married as so as they graduated, and that the reason they don't say the word love is because they have grown disillusioned by that word. They believe that it has lost its meaning through over use and so it's too weak to describe what she actually feels for Hayami, whom they've been falling for since before the school year even started because of witnessing Hayami's encounter with an abandoned kitten that Kumi then took home and raised. Unable to let everything end just when it was getting started, Kumi calls her mother Lady Rin and makes a deal to allow her cat Lily live with them as well as to have her mother know that her enemies are trying to mess with her daughter as an attempt to hurt the famous Rin Aramatsu. After the conversation, Kumi begins planning on what she wants to say to Hayami. Three days later she finally goes to each of Hayami's friends in the hopes of finding her girlfriend. Each give her a hard time until she admits that she isn't playing around and actually loves Hayami even if she doesn't say those words. This culminates in her breaking down in a giant speech detailing her almost obsessive love for her girlfriend in front of Kageroshi, only to discover Hayami hit the doorway right behind her friend. Mortified at her own appearance and how bad she thinks she must have sounded, Kumi flees. Kageroshi then chastises Hayami for not seeing this sooner and for not realising what the personal stakes for Kumi to even enter the program were. Annoyed that she even allowed the twins to speak before, Hayami leaves— passing by Haru on her way out.
Later, as Kumi waits for a program observer to check in, Hayami arrives and greets her girlfriend and Lily as those she was the wife of Kumi and makes a roundabout apology about exactly what she was responsible for before giving Kumi a special gift. When the observer does arrive, they keep her waiting as Hayami pierces Kumi's ear with an earring made from a wedding ring while she wears the matching one. They exit to meet with the observer and Hayami makes a comment to Kumi to suggest that she wants to start having sex that night.