AkiのStudio

I would like to talk about the front page of the new chapter. Mostly about the bird Yashiro was reaching out to.

First, what is this bird ? According to @joyfullyholyluminary , this is Quetzal Bird, a representation of freedom in Maya Mythology. It has a rather interesting characteristic : Quetzal Bird cannot be kept as a pet. Once they are held in captivity, they will slowly lose their will to survive, until they pull out their own feathers and freeze themselves to die.

Don’t you think this characteristic sounds familiar ?

We keep our pets indoor to keep them away from predators, bad weather, natural disaster, and extreme temperatures. We provide them food and shelter to protect them. But for Quetzal Bird, these are cursing more than blessing.

Just like Yashiro.

Doumeki wished to bond with Yashiro, this is what everyone will do when they are in love. However, things don’t work the same for Yashiro, who had the formula of “Love = Betrayal” written in his survival instinct.

Same as we keep Quetzal Bird in an enclosure to protect it will result in its death, Doumeki trying to bond with Yashiro will slowly kill Yashiro, so severe that he went to Hirata suicidally. Quetzal Bird cannot be contained, just like Yashiro cannot be loved. Doumeki’s love to Yashiro will kill him. Just like Quetzal Bird.

After talking to Nanahara on the roof, Doumeki learned what stupid things he had done. He didn’t see his feelings on Yashiro’s viewing point and did whatever a normal person will do (which was trying to bond with Yashiro), and pushed Yashiro to the cliff of suicide. Now he understands Yashiro’s defects, what will he do to stay with Yashiro ? He once treats Yashiro gently, it triggered Yashiro’s protective instinct and cause him to flee. If he treats Yashiro normally, he will be a normal passing by. If he treats Yashiro violently (which I believe he will die to prevent it. This is just a If.), he is just an ordinary man who will hurt him.

It seems you are more interested in the representation of Quetzal Bird, so let’s talk about freedom for Yashiro and Doumeki.

What is freedom for Doumeki? Freedom in Doumeki’s eyes, is Yashiro can be free from his nightmare and trauma, and live a life he can free to love or be loved without feeling any pain or suffering. For Doumeki, Yashiro’s self-destructive behavior was building a cage of masochist to trap himself in. He wants to break this cage and set Yashiro free.

This is the regular concept of regular human. What Doumeki did was what regular people did when they are trying to rescue their love one from their pain. This is very romantic. However, does Yashiro feel the same? Or let me ask this : Does Yashiro need rescue?

Yashiro, who has a twisted concept of value, see things different from regular perspective. For him, falling in love is suffering, binding with someone is life-threatening. With this twisted value, what is freedom in his eyes?

For Yashiro, freedom is what he was doing all along : messing around with uncountable strangers, sleeping around with guys he know not their names, and cut any relationship that he found too close to his heart. He can stay safe as long as he stay a bystander, who has no close bind with any existent on this earth. This is how he protect his heart from getting betrayed again. He use pain to remind himself how will it feels if he ever give his heart to someone. This pain is bearable, and it will protect him from the pain that are unbearable.

This is why I hesitate to use “Freedom” as the main focus to analyze this front page, because Yashiro and Doumeki did not understand “Freedom” in the same perspective. The cage Doumeki wants to break to free Yashiro, is actually the fortress Yashiro built to protect himself. Doumeki’s intention to set Yashiro free, was to take away Yashiro’s finally armor and lay his shameful wounds bare for everyone to see. Doumeki’s act trying to rescue Yashiro, did nothing but push Yashiro to the cliff of suicide.

“Why do you want it?” (Or him?)

Yashiro : “Dafuq, I do not!”

D : “That’s not how it looks like to me”

Y : “Fuck you”

D : “Are you volunteering?”

Y thought bubble : “If you only knew how much I’d love to”

I had keep repeating how Yashiro refuse Doumeki because of his twisted survival instinct. Yashiro cannot accept Doumeki because he “knew” Doumeki is going to betray him (Thanks for his parents). He is not going to accept Doumeki, let alone volunteer any intimacy with him. This will trigger his survival instinct of “Never Fall in Love” and cause him to take self-protective action, EX. flee.

However, what we see here was not Yashiro refusing Doumeki. Although it was part of the reason, but most importantly, Yashiro was trying to pull himself together. In CP1 he said “I keep protect myself by making myself a Bystander.” But this doesn’t work with Doumeki, because Doumeki kept interfering with his life, so severe that he cannot stay as a bystander anymore. To “protect himself”, Yashiro has to make himself a bystander again. He did this a lot to Doumeki back in the chapters. In CP2, he had it with a man and ask Doumeki to watch aside. In CP11, he pressed on Doumeki’s wound trying to make him admit “It hurts”. (The point here was not “The wound hurts” but “Kashira you hurt me”. He trying to make Doumeki admit he will harm him, but Doumeki refused to.) In CP32 he used all kinds of wicked words to hurt Doumeki. Beside driving him away, Yashiro trying to make himself coldhearted, so he can stay bystander without being drawn in Doumeki’s passionate affection. 

On the other hand, Doumeki cannot do anything to Yashiro either, at least not now. In the analysis of the pervious chapter, we discussed about “How Doumeki’s current Yakuza ranking affect his relationship with Yashiro”. In the bathroom, why did Yashiro dare to provoke Doumeki to do it with him? Because he was sure “Doumeki cannot do anything to him”. Doumeki is now an official member of Sakura Family, and Yashiro is the guest invited by his Kumichou Tsunekawa, later became his cooperator. As a subordinate, Doumeki is going to face some serious trouble if he dare do anything to Yashiro, let alone do it all the way to the end.

Although this is only Yashiro’s guessing, but it was not totally wrong. Why Doumeki joined Yakuza? Because he wanted to stay in the same world with Yashiro, and more importantly, he wants to protect Yashiro. So how can he achieved this? He needs to become much stronger, much higher rank, and much more powerful. He needs to become more powerful than Misumi to free Yashiro from his captivity. If Doumeki did anything serious to Yashiro, Tsunekawa’s cooperator and Misumi’s sworn son, he would be most likely get Hamon from Tsunekawa and has to prepare for Misumi’s revenge. This is the absolute opposite of his goal to become powerful. He is not going to do that.

I want to answer the post of @abuelitnt and @darkwitchxeres, but the post seems to turn out a bit too long, so I think it may be easier for you to read if I start a new post.

I know you girls always want Yashiro to make the first move. Yes, we all want him to show his desire to Doumeki, show he wants him. It will be the happily every after we all dying for. However, I fear this will not easily happen, if not never happen. I don’t want to say anything too pessimistic, but Yashiro’s current mental state is not hopeful at all.

To understand Yashiro’s behavior, we will need to go back to his childhood. That is where everything started. We are well aware that Yashiro was sexually violated when he was at the age of mental developing stage, which caused his twisted sexual desire and unhealthy protective instinct by making himself a masochist. However, despite his twisted value on sex and relationship, we usually forgot he was betrayed by his immediate family.

What is family? Family is suppose closest to you before you can individually survive on your own. Family represent our future intimacy once we grow old enough to know the different of gender, because our goal is to build our own family, which is represented by our immediate family.

 Yashiro, who was betrayed by his very family, learn this : If I build an intimacy, I will get betray. 

This knowledge affected Yashiro’s life significantly, and eventually became another protective instinct of him along with his Masochist.

This protective instinct named Philophobia.

I mentioned Philophobia several times before. This is a fear of intimacy. This is not exactly a mental disorder, it’s more like a mental condition. Philophobia occurs after experience of infidelity, betrayal or heartbreak. These experiences wrote the formula Affection = Betrayal = Getting Hurt into protective instinct. It tells Yashiro  “Stay away from love, or I will get hurt.”

This is why I am certain Yashiro will not make the first move, because this will trigger his protective instinct and cause him to take protective action (ex. flee). He cannot show his desire to Doumeki, and he cannot accept Doumeki’s love, because it means to build an intimacy = going to get betray. Just like what his family did to him.

However, not all hopes are lost. Maybe some of you already notice it. Philophobia isn’t fear of love itself, but fear of betrayal and heartbreaking after falling in love. What doesn’t this mean? This mean Yashiro can love Doumeki, he just isn’t able to tell Doumeki or accept Doumeki’s feeling to him.

We could see it in the plot. In CP. 44, we saw Yashiro masturbating while thinking of Doumeki. No matter that was true memory or mere imagination, Yashiro masturbated thinking of Doumeki’s sweetness. This is our hope. Yashiro cannot accept love, but he can love. He also notice Doumeki’s feeling to him. (Although now he is convinced Doumeki hate him)

What Doumeki did to Yashiro was indeed awful, it broke Yashiro as he stated. However, Yashiro’s masochist mask needs to be broken for Doumeki to reach inside, and reach the true Yashiro. Reach to the young Yashiro who is still trapped in that small apartment, hypnotizing himself to be a masochist so he could face that never ending pain forced by his very family.

Yashiro had changed, he can now able to feel love, he just cannot admit it. However, this is only the beginning of his long and painful healing process. Yashiro still needs help, he needs immediate attention on his mental condition. The environment is not very friendly to him. I only hope Doumeki can really protect Yashiro, and assist him on his painful path of healing.

Yashiro’s twisted hobbit is unresolvable. It’s like...imagine this : There was a 100 floors tall office building. It had been there for 40 years and was operating perfectly for past 40 years. And suddenly, a structural report showed there were many defects at the fundamental structure and needed immediate attention. The best way to solve it was to rebuild the whole foundation. Now how can they do it without moving the 100 floors above? Is this even possible? No! They could only put more supportive structure on the foundation to sustain its structure. The more the foundation rot, the more supportive structures they add on it. Until the foundation became too weak to support the 100 floor above, then will they dismantle the whole building and build a new foundation and a new building above it.

This is Yashiro’s current condition. His foundation of life is rotten to bone, but he cannot do anything to it. As he stated, “I will have to abandon who I am.” Accepting Doumeki means he has to change his foundation, this means he has to abandon the young Yashiro who struggle and survive until now. He will need to make his life a pathetic joke. So this lead us to another problem : His Philophobia.

It’s not the problem if Doumeki is there for him or not. It’s the problem Yashiro cannot assure Doumeki will be there for him. Philophobia is the fear of betrayal after fallen in love. Yashiro cannot certain Doumeki, who makes the promise today, will be there for him after 30 / 40 / 50 years (If they live that long). He cannot travel through time and see if Doumeki still there for him years after. The consequence to accept Doumeki is way over the top for Yashiro. Once he choose to accept Doumeki and abandon himself, he will need to rely on Doumeki psychologically for the rest of his life. But how can he assure Doumeki will never turn his back to him? Maybe he will just walk away with somebody else after he gave his whole heart to him, just like his family. This is a death cycle, and this is ridiculous too. We all know we are going no where if we keep suspicious on matters that may not even happen. Yashiro knows it too, and he think it is stupid too. He just couldn’t get himself out of it. This rule had been written in his survival instinct the day his mental stage was developed. To change it, it will be like my example above. Yashiro has to remove Yashiro so he can change his foundation, but this is mentally self-destruction. It will be much much easier for him to just commit suicide.

My English is not very good and I haven't written in this language for a long time, so I apologize if these thoughts are not very clear

Thanks Google Translator

Reading this manga over and over again, I realized something, when Yashiro has "his encounters", even in his fantasies and memories, he never touches someone of his own free will, he is always touched, kissed, beaten, tied up, slapped, etc. and it is understood, he is a masochist, to obtain pleasure it must be through pain... Except for two occasions: the tender rub on Doumeki's cheek in the middle of their meeting and the kiss before telling him what bothers about him (I don´t count when he kissed Inami, the policeman, since that was before they had sex and to avoid a disaster with Doumeki being there annoyed by what he said)

When he takes the initiative (I think you know what I mean), he only touches "the part" that he likes, he does not touch any other part ... but when Doumeki begins to help him when he need it, Yashiro little by little begins to touch him, maybe it's instinct, I don't know, I haven't seen someone else do it to him either, maybe I'm thinking this matter too much hehehehe

What will happen when he is the one who wants to touch? Will he ever want to touch Doumeki? Now that Doumeki doesn't touch anyone else directly due to his gloves, will Yashiro feel the need to touch him? Will he want Doumeki to touch him again? When they are together again (because I know that will happen sooner or later), Will he touch him or will it be the same as always?

I don't know, maybe I'm thinking too much about the matter as I said before and I'm going further but I think that if you are with someone and you are in love with that person, you have the need to touch and feel it, I don't think that Yashiro is immune to those feelings, especially if he's still in love with Doumeki after 4 years

What a long question...

This is a long question that deserves dedicated answer. 😊 Your question contains multiple factors and I will try to answer them one by one. If you cannot understand my responds, please don’t hesitate to ask me again.

Yashiro is NOT a masochist, not from the first place. He made himself one to sustain his corrupting mental stage, so he won’t drown in the abyss of hatred and agony. He kept telling himself “I like pain” “I like it hurt” so he could survive the twisted lust of his stepfather. This is his survival instinct. He adjusted himself to fit into the world around him (Please refer to my other analysis <>).

Yashiro survived his childhood by deceiving (or you can say hypnotizing) himself. These lies then become part of him as he used these lies to protect himself. After he grew up, these lies become his armor, protect him from the hostility others hold to him. I said deceiving, because Yashiro wasn’t exactly enjoying sex no matter with pain or not. He hate sex (or in Misumi san’s words, he hate all mankind), but he kept doing it, because this is what he did when he was growing up, this is a part of him. He cannot simply cut it away, it is the same as he cut a major part of his own body away. The pain will be unbearable, and he most likely can never recover from it.

The major part of sex is touching. No matter it’s kissing or hugging or rubbing on skin, it is touching each other affectionally. But for Yashiro, who hate sex with all his mind, touching is not so enjoyable. He hate touching, just like he hate sex. He cannot cut sex away from his life, then he will keep affection away from sex. This is why he cannot accept any affection in sex. Anyone who dare mixing affection in sex will be discarded mercilessly. The best example we had is our poor Doumeki.

Talk about Doumeki. We all know he is special to Yashiro. Yashiro never let anyone (psychological) get close to him. He never open his heart to anyone. Yet Doumeki make out a territory in his heart. This is not normal. Nanahara, who worked for Yashiro for 10 years, couldn’t enter his heart. Misumi san, who knew Yashiro before he was even a Yakuza, couldn’t enter his heart. Hirata’s subordinate, who got suspended for falling in love with Yashiro, couldn’t enter his heart. Why Doumeki can? What makes Doumeki special to Yashiro?

There are many different theories according to this thesis. This is my guess.

Because Doumeki was impotent. 

Yashiro hate sex. Anyone who are able to have sex with him is his target of hatred. This is why he never let Nanahara do it for him, because he doesn’t want to hate Nanahara (He is like a family to Yashiro BTW. The same reason Yashiro never thought for doing it with Kageyama.) But he allow Doumeki do it for him, and he didn’t hate Doumeki for it. Why? Because Doumeki was impotent, he was not able to have sex with Yashiro. I think a part of Yashiro feels safe around Doumeki, because he hate sex, and Doumeki can never do it with him. He felt comfortable about this. So comfortable that he allow Doumeki do what others can’t on him, so comfortable that he allow Doumeki stay close with him, so comfortable that he allowed Doumeki enter his heart, and became a special existent within him.

The feelings Yashiro hold for Doumeki was very simple, or you can say pure. Around all the men that could hurt (sleep with) him, Doumeki was the only one who was not able to do so. That’s why Yashiro became fond of him. You can say Yashiro didn’t see Doumeki as a Man (because Man will hurt him). Therefore, Doumeki was safe to touch, unlike the others. This is why Doumeki could stay close to Yashiro and eventually entered his heart. Because Yashiro hate all mankind, but in his eyes, Doumeki was not a “Man”.

However, this intimacy has one extremely important condition that CANNOT be violated. Yashiro cannot accept any affection mixed in sex, so for Yashiro to hold affection to someone, the rule is they CANNOT have sex. Because Yashiro hate sex. Sex is harmful. Sex is painful. Sex is the darkest part of him that he could never cut away. That’s why he accepted Doumeki, because Doumeki could never associate with sex. That’s why when Doumeki chose to cross that boundary, Yashiro fled.

And you asked if Yashiro wanted to touch Doumeki? Well...…

Reason 1. Yashiro didn’t know to resist

I once suggested, as we are taught to be civilize, we are also taught to resist. When we were very very young, we scream and cry when our guardians did anything against our will, by observing the reaction of our guardians, we learned that as long as we cry, our guardians will stop whatever they are doing on us. From these experience we learned to resist. This is what regular people will go through in their babyhood. However, Yashiro didn’t have the chance to learn this. He has a mother who cares absolutely nothing about her son, and a father who treat him like nothing but a sex toy. Yashiro’s twisted childhood coursed his twist mental stage and lack of common sense. From the story, we observed many defects on his communication skills and interpersonal skills, including he has trouble resisting whatever he was facing. Like he accepted he lost Kageyama and didn’t try to date him, like he accepted he is a Yakuza and didn’t try to get out (although he wanted to), like he accepted Hirata wants him dead, and even gave his head to him (if not for rescue Nanahara, he won’t even struggle).

We have way too many example on Yashiro accepting his fate, but what is accept? Accept is the opposite of resist. Resisting is not in Yashiro’s logical world, he has no knowledge to resist whatever others put on him.

Reason 2.  The Baby Elephant Syndrome

A child went into the backstage of a circus and found the giant elephant was only tied by a small rope. He asked, “Why the elephant didn’t struggle?” The staff answer him, “Because the elephant couldn’t break free when he was very young, so he learned to give up struggle and stay still even he is now big enough to break free.”

I believe Yashiro did try to resist when he was first violated by his stepfather, but he was too young to resist. He tried and fail again and again, until he give up and accept his fate. This incident affected the rest of his life heavily, like he accepted whatever others put to him, like he couldn’t resist sex that was forced on him. Although Doumeki didn’t mean to, but he did forced on Yashiro. At that moment Yashiro was not the Waka-Kashira of Shinseki, he was the helpless child who was forced to accept his stepfather’s twist lust. He couldn’t resist back then, so he doesn’t know to resist now. The rope on the young elephant captured his spirit even until now, he is always the helpless child imprisoned in that small apartment.

Also, when Yashiro awoke in Doumeki’s apartment, he said “Am I travel back through time?” Proving Doumeki’s apartment was the same (or at least similar) of the apartment from his childhood. The similar environment worsened his Baby Elephant Syndrome, making him freeze while he faced the same experience in a familiar environment, and further decrease his will to struggle.

Reason 3. Fight-Flight-Freeze Response

When human facing life-threatening situation, the brain with stop any conscious decision and the individual will enter survival mode. In this mode the body will take none but 3 action—-Freeze, Flee, or Fright. Your heart rate will increase, the oxygen in your major muscles will also increase. Your pain perception drops, and your hearing sharpens. Your body will prepare you to survive.

Freezing is the preparation of Flight or Fight. Usually after a short time of freezing, which allow your body to prepare for survival, you will enter Flight or Fight mode. If possible, you run. If not possible, you fight. This is our natural survival instinct.

However, for Yashiro, who lack the knowledge of resist and suffering from Baby Elephant Syndrome, has only Freeze mode, he couldn’t enter Flight or Fight mode. This made him freeze on the situation. To worsen the case, his masochist armor kicked in to try to solve the situation, but it didn’t help at all (Most likely because Doumeki refused to hurt him, so his masochist protection system couldn’t trigger). By that moment Yashiro has lost his chance to flee, the only thing he could do was to put on his masochist armor and pray for the end. 

Conclusion.

There are just…so many things happening in Yashiro at that scene. Experience of his twisted childhood,  The Baby Elephant Syndrome, the malfunctioned Fight-Flight-Freeze Response, and I even forgot to mention his Philophobia! (Yashiro felt sick for Doumeki’s touching, this was an obvious symptom of Philophobia—-severe reaction upon affection). Yashiro’s mental stage was tumbling, his mind and feeling were tearing him apart. As I observed, Yashiro was trying his best to hold on to his masochist setting while Doumeki trying to make him admit he can enjoy gentle sex. It’s like…Doumeki trying to take off Yashiro’s mask while Yashiro trying to keep the mask on.

Yashiro cannot accept love, not only because of Philophobia, but also because he needed his lies to survive. What are his lies? His lies are “I like pain.” “I like it hurt.” “I can’t feel anything if it doesn’t hurt.” Yashiro depends on these lies to sustain his shattered mental stage, so he can stay sane for all these years. Doumeki trying to rip off his lies without knowing how much it hurt for Yashiro, and Yashiro tried his best to keep his lies on, to keep his armor on, and keep himself sane. 

The tumbling of his mental stage, all the mental struggles in his mind, trapped him in his childhood memory, when he fear to even resist. These are the reason Yashiro didn’t resist.

The problem is not the rope on the baby elephant, but what happen if the rope is gone? The elephant grow up depending on the instruction of the rope. It learn to stay quiet when the rope is on it, that is its principle. But if this rope is gone, his principle is gone, what can he rely on to stay sane?

Maybe this is the key to solve Yashiro’s mental defects, including everything like Philophobia, masochist, or his self-destructive life.

The teaser for Saezuru chapter 44 is here!

Yashiro didn’t take Doumeki’s question well und provokes him back.

Improvised translation because my English is failing me when I’m excited:

Y: What kind of lousy logic is that? You think I can’t have sex with you? Who do you think you are? Remember how I told you I wouldn’t fuck my underlings back then? Yeah, I said that, didn’t I? That used to be my only principle.

Yashiro : What kind of lousy logic is that ? "Can you do it"? Who do you think you are ?

Doumeki : You said you will not do it with your subordinates.

Yashiro : Yeah, I did said it. That was my only principle.