Regret is the Skin You Shed to Make It This Far

I want to start this off with a few quick disclaimers: firstly, because I know there are people in this fandom who hate jaizera, put their wank in the jaizera tag, and will call me a braindead fujo for "smooshing them together like yaoi boys without consequence" (will never stop clowning on that post), yes, I am a jaizera shipper. Furthermore, I like any and every interpretation of it, whether it's completely unrequited, whether it's a power thing, whether one day they learn to be sweet with one another, or regardless of who is in control, I find the two of them extremely fascinating and I have to yet to see an iteration of the ship I don't like. And even further than THAT, I am a fanfiction author, and if you've spent any time in the ao3 in the last six months you've absolutely come across my stuff. The reason I bring that up is because not only do I enjoy any interpretation of them, but my own interpretation will change depending on what I'm working on or what I want to achieve with the piece I'm working on. However, this post is meant to analyze it in its most canon-based iteration and where I generally drift to when I think of the topic outside of being a fan creator.

Let's start with what we know is canon.

Zera despises the idea of having feelings, and if he had it his way, he'd be a machine. Part of this definitely stems from his parents' divorce and living with his mother in the aftermath, who has very strong emotions, which in turn gave him a strong negative association with not only emotion and feelings, but by extension, love. However, despite his disdain for these things, we also know he can be a VERY emotional person, as evidenced by the crashout of all time at the end of LHC.

In terms of sexuality, based on the "so this is the effect of the male hormone androgen" lines, it's clear enough that he does experience sexual attraction, and, I mean, considering the entire plot of LHC, it's pretty safe to say he's sexually attracted to women. The topic of homosexuality doesn't come up for him until he begins researching Elagabalus, following his interaction with the fortune teller. We do know that he has an interest in Elagabalus as a ruler and, in a way, wants to imitate him. If we're talking about what's on-page canon, it's also worthwhile to bring up that when Jaibo and Zera meet, it's actually Zera who propositions Jaibo, not the other way around.

Per Bokura, he has a sexual relationship with Jaibo for 2-3 years up until the events of LHC, which is a long time to, y'know, be fucking someone you're not attracted to. He also makes numerous comments about Jaibo's beauty over the course of both LHC and Bokura, so with that plus the literal on-page sex they have, where he literally gets erect having sex with him, it is safe to infer that he is sexually attracted to Jaibo.

Emotionally or romantically, that's more complicated, and that's when the next section about interpretation comes in, because the reality is that there's so much we just don't know. But here's what we do know:

Among the members of the club, Jaibo is treated with special privileges or favouritism. This is especially evident in Bokura during Litchi's creation, where the rest of the club is working on crafting and Jaibo is allowed to sit on his ass and do nothing. Even when Niko calls this out, Zera defends Jaibo's behaviour, saying he is unfit for labour. Upon Jaibo joining the Hikari Club, Zera also defends his decision to admit him by saying he's the 'living statue' and the club's representation of beauty (not very heterosexual of him but what do I know). Even when Raizou protests this, Zera still holds firm on it.

Building off of this, it's also worthwhile bringing up that for the majority of LHC, Zera absolutely does not suspect that Jaibo could ever be the traitor. When he's listing off club members and their corresponding chess pieces ("Niko, the pawn", etc), he doesn't assign one to Jaibo, which if you've watched the movie adaptation, makes Zera's "you are none of them" comment make more sense. I didn't catch this the first time around, but without opening up my copy to double check, I am positive that it isn't until Zera starts to head to the crashout of no return that he even starts to bring up Jaibo's name when he's listing off potential traitors. Up until the reveal, Zera does not think Jaibo would betray him.

So let's take all of this and talk about my interpretation of it.

There is a stark disconnect between not only Zera and the rest of the people in his life, but a disconnect between Zera and himself. Zera thinks of himself as a machine, cold and calculating, and maybe that's partially true, at least on the outside, but he tells himself that because it's the easiest way to convince himself of it. The moment anything doesn't go his way, he becomes INCREDIBLY emotional - take ordering Kaneda's killing over the chess piece, for example, or sentencing Kanon to execution for biting back at him. Despite this being an objective truth, he still denies it, nearly to the point of delusion. This is to say that if he did experience anything close to love, or affection, or warmth for another person, the chances of him admitting or even recognizing it are slim to none.

It's also pretty not-heterosexual to meet a gay guy who says "I'll do anything for you" and immediately go "okay, blow me about it then", in my honest opinion. Jaibo was pretty up front about being attracted to Zera, but Zera was the one who chose to entertain it. This is where the water gets a little murky for me - did he pursue Jaibo because he wanted to imitate Elagabalus? Well, I kind of waffle on this myself, but I do think that even if that was the case, it wouldn't have carried on until the events of LHC if there wasn't something more to it, otherwise why would Zera have bothered? We'll get to the bit on feelings later, but I think if Zera wasn't benefitting from Jaibo's presence somehow, then he wouldn't have kept him around. Maybe he just liked the sex and money, who knows. But what I do think is that all of Zera's relationships are transactional in some way, and that if he DID pursue Jaibo because of his Emperor fantasies, then there would have to be something else keeping him there (sex and money, if you're a contrarian? idk man).

It's worthwhile to bring up that even Furuya states in the 15th anni collab book that the only time we ever see Zera's less serious side is when he's with Jaibo, and if we're not counting The Crashouts of the later chapters of LHC, then the only time we see him as anything less than perfectly composed is when he's with Jaibo. When Jaibo kills the animals in front of him, we see shock in him in a way that we really don't again. In the scene in the lychee grove with Jaibo, we see him happy. In their sex scenes, we see him more vulnerable than we ever see him again.

Building off of this, Jaibo has a firm hold on Zera's identity. Jaibo literally named him - he didn't have to adapt the Zera moniker, but he did! The "lalalitchi"? Jaibo. His power fantasies? Guess who enabled them the entire way! Zera literally is who he is because Jaibo built him that way. Tsunekawa Hiroyuki? Don't know her. Combine that with the special butt-buddy privileges he gets, Jaibo is practically untouchable to anyone in the Hikari Club.

All of this is to say that ultimately, while I like any and all interpretations of Jaibo and Zera's relationship, when I look at them in their canon iteration, I do believe that Zera feels SOMETHING for Jaibo, whether it's love or not. I'd go so far as to say with all the evidence I've presented, that's probably canon. My interpretation is that yes, he does love Jaibo - but because of his immense disconnect from himself, his own emotions, and the world around him, he will never interpret what he feels as love, nor really anything even remotely positive or significant. I don't think there will ever be a touching "feelings realization" moment, nor do I think that even if there was, he'd end up treating Jaibo any differently regardless. But I do think there is something there, and you'd be hard pressed to convince me otherwise.