In her room, Kurumi ponders what she should do. She believes she has enough to keep making money that way (she still hasn’t realized it was just luck) and isn’t sure whether to confess to her father that she’s been trading on the FX market, whether she should declare the money, or what her next step should be. Kurumi is very calm about the situation.
But Kurumi’s calm and composure will be disrupted when she has to return the three million yen she took without her father’s permission. The situation gets complicated when her father knocks on the door, saying they’ve been robbed—someone has stolen their money. Not knowing what to do or say, Kurumi tries to put the money back without her father noticing—a completely absurd move on her part. As she tries to reach the table, her father grabs her by the arm, causing the money she was carrying to fall to the floor.
At first, her father seems understanding, and it’s clear he genuinely wants to help Kurumi; he tells her she can trust him and lean on him. But when Kurumi realizes her father isn’t upset, she tries to manipulate him, and we see her true nature: a miser who doesn’t care about others and is only interested in pursuing her own plan to make money. Kurumi’s descent into madness is set in motion. Her father, angered by Kurumi’s ranting, slaps her to bring her to her senses; Kurumi, taken aback by this, is left paralyzed.
Kurumi’s character is quite interesting to analyze because she isn’t a girl who is apparently evil from the start; she is a victim of the circumstances in which she grew up. She didn’t get involved in FX out of personal greed, but rather as a form of revenge for what happened to her mother; she is a protagonist marked by tragedy, much like in classical Greek literature, where heroes are haunted by misfortunes that drive them toward their fate.
After the argument with her dad, Kurumi seems to have come to her senses, but it’s her own inner demons that torment her and make her doubt herself. She says she’s going to quit FX, but those voices torment her, causing her to relapse into the same behavior. While I find this interesting—since it highlights Kurumi’s lack of willpower—she’s a girl who appears to have conviction but who falls back into her old ways at the first sign of temptation.
We also see that this temptation is fueled by Mochiko, Kurumi’s so-called friend, who introduces her to Mebuki—a girl who has no clue about anything and just wants to make quick and easy money. Mebuki believes Kurumi is the key to earning the money she needs to live comfortably. We see that temptation, a lack of character, and the inability to say no are what drive Kurumi to help Mebuki with her plan to make money through forex trading. This sets the stage for Kurumi’s so-called friend, whom we’ve already seen on more than one occasion manipulating Kurumi at will—she is the evil force pushing Kurumi into a downward spiral of ruin.
