Aqua and Akaneβs relationship is another example of the series trying to convey how lies are love and can become truths, in a very literal sense I might add. Their relationship starts purely for work purposes, but once Aqua believes he is free of his revenge, he stops seeing Akane as a tool and begins to see her for who she truly is, someone he wishes to love. He starts doing everything he can to be a good, genuine boyfriend to her, even though heβs still battling against his own feelings on his identity, if itβs really okay to let go of his revenge, and what he wants to do with his future. What he does know for sure is that he wants Akane to be in that future regardless of what path he ultimately takes. Their fake relationship became the thing grounding Aqua to his identity and reassured him it was okay to live a normal life, Akaneβs devotion to him giving him to the opportunity to experience actual love. Though things donβt work out that way, this is what their dynamic was leading towards before everything hit the fan.
(This whole interpretation is another reason Iβm very against shipping him with Kana)
People often bring up Akaneβs monologue about Aqua being attracted to Kana, but I feel this is very clearly just Akaneβs insecurity and inferiority complex (especially in regards to Kana) shining through. I still have yet to see any example of Aquaβs own character hinting at seeing Kana that way, at most he saw her as a potential second option when he wanted to distance himself from Akane, but I cannot see a universe where he would pick Kana over Akane, the only one who actually understood him and spent the entire story doing everything in her power to save him, the force that came the closest the completely freeing him from his guilt and revenge.
If you interpret Kana and Aquaβs βromanceβ as anything other than one sided admiration from Kana, then I honestly think you misread their dynamic
Kana fell in love with Aqua because he was the first person to βbeatβ her in acting, and thus she developed a strong sense of admiration for him in the same sense that she would a rival.
Kanaβs feelings are notoriously unreliable too. She falls in love with anybody who sees her for who she is and βsavesβ her, like how she started developing feelings for who she thought was Peiyon just because he gave her advice and helped her out. Kana is an extremely insecure person whoβs secret wish is to have someone to rely on, so anyone who fills that role for her becomes a romantic option. She didnβt love Aqua for who he is, she couldnβt possibly because she never came to truly understand him. She was in love with how he treated her and the fact he was someone who would always come through for her.
Her attraction to him was very clearly just another way she was clinging to her past and refusing to move on. Being with Aqua would have meant continuously holding on to that part of her history, and it was also just validate her feelings that she needed a savior and someone to protect her. If anything, losing Aqua was the best thing that could have happened for her growth overall ||, because it meant she HAD to stand on her own two feet and she could no longer count on him to save her at every opportunity, she couldnβt cling to the idea of him or meeting him again like she did previously, || she had to accept he was gone and couldnβt save her anymore, and has to learn to save herself.
