ProfAllister wrote:
I'm not 100% sure about this but I seem to recall that Hisao was already planning on confessing his feelings to Lilly before the trip, so him not collapsing there should only change the where and how of it.
Also, that sounds like a terrible way of triggering a bad end - a random choise that doesn't really have anything to do with the major themes of the story arc and which allows no way for the player to figure out the right option.
I'd say it's worse than that. One theme I got from Lilly's arc was that of accepting your disability. Most of the choices have to do with you admitting that, yeah, your heart causes you problems. To make the bad end triggered by accepting your heart issues flies in the face of that theme.[/quote]
I was just drawing attention to how the game never acknowledges that Lilly knew about having to leave Japan forever before confessing to Hisao, and then never telling him. The kindest explanation that I can think of is that Lilly was especially emotional because of Hisao's stumble earlier in the day and didn't think about how much it would hurt Hisao in the future when she would (probably) leave. So if something delays the confession, Lilly may never do it herself, which puts her character into an interesting light. Preventing the stumble in the first place seemed like the most direct way of doing that.
Hisao pretty much accepts his heart for what it is by the end of act 1. I noticed it mainly gets brought up in Lilly's path to emphasize his frailty and get Lilly all worried (and have Hisao react to her worrying, even though that never really comes to a head).
There might be another way to have this work, however. We can take elements from this ending for our own use:
Paddy wrote:Lilly's bad ending: transpose Misha's bad scene (with a few revisions to fit Hanako's personality) into Lilly's story. (And, I dunno, she walks in on them or something. I'm not sure how she finds out but she does.) And when she finds out you cheated on her with Hanako,
Maybe not necessarily having Hanako and Hisao sleep together or even become involved, that would be out of character for Hanako. Hanako might awaken during the night, and Hisao finds her standing in the yard outside (a moonlit walk seems like a perfectly traditional VN scene, which Lilly's path seems like it was going for), they have a conversation that becomes slightly too personal, and Hisao connects some dots.
This might actually be the choice here. It seems like Hanako wants to say something, and Hisao has known her long enough to have an inkling of what it might be. If Hisao presses her, she blurts something out or has some kind of reaction that indicates that she really does feel something for him. Of course, being her, she darts back into the house in a panic. Hisao sleeps uneasily that night and has trouble facing the others the next morning. He keeps his distance from them for as long as possible, and in looking for excuses actually remembers to take his meds. The trip goes as everyone planned, but any thought of Hisao confessing to Lilly has been tainted by the possibility of hurting Hanako.
Not having her decision to leave for Scotland complicated by a relationship, Lilly, tells them about it much sooner. She tries to make it clear that she has to distance herself from them, but it seems like she doesn't entirely trust Hanako to be okay once she leaves. Hisao, meanwhile, is stepping on eggshells around Hanako. She eventually snaps at both of them like a firecracker that leaves a sobbing mess behind, and she leaves both of their lives like a puff of smoke. There is a final scene in which Hisao sees Lilly off to the airport. It's just the two of them with the impatient taxi driver. Hisao has no trouble loading her bags into the trunk of the cab. They say their goodbyes, and then it's over. He is no longer breathing so heavily from the loading, but his chest is gripped in the pain of regret.
In his bed that night, he sinks into self-pity about how alone he is again, abandoned, just like back at the hospital. In the quietest moment before falling asleep, he thinks that he might have been just selfish and cowardly, that both he and Lilly may have been. He was never concerned about hurting Hanako. He was only concerned about how hurting her might affect him. He slips away into slumber, but forgets this new knowledge upon waking.
If Hisao and Hanako just have a quiet walk in the moonlight, there's some nice descriptions of the countryside and a small suspicion on Hisao's part, and the two go back inside and fall asleep. The path continues as it was originally written, with the crisis of Hisao's heart bringing them together and Lilly's dysfunctional maternal instinct explored in a different way.
Hanako's favorite joke is The Aristocrats, but she never tells it because Lilly finds it really offensive. Instead, she practices her delivery in front of a mirror when she's alone. It's the only time she never stammers.
I smiled. 
Jus' sayin'.
