minato shouji

shin, on the other hand, is part of this youth where it doesn’t matter and it’s not ingrained in him to feel guilty or like he needs to hide, and he’s aware of this and how it affects minato. and when he sees minato as childish, it’s not that he needs to grow up necessarily, it’s more like he needs to grow forward, out of these old notions of gayness being tied to guilt, and emotionally mature in that way, almost like he needs to grow up again, just in the current surroundings and be taught these new things about identity that allow him to be comfortable. but another way in which shin does see him as childish is how fickle he thinks he is, that he’d fall for people easily, which centres around this insecurity about minato’s feelings for sakuma and feeling like he can’t be secure in minato’s feelings for him because of it. it’s ironic bc minato turns his nose up at this idea shin not trusting him, but he also easily distrusts shin and thinks the worst when he sees him with someone else, almost like he can’t have any security in shin’s feelings for him bc that childishness of his passion implies that it’s not genuine, that it too is fickle and temporary. and shin’s distrust would be placated if minato learned to be more forward and reaffirm his feelings for shin without seeming like it’s hard or a big deal, but he can’t do that bc of all the reasons above about why he’s insecure in this relationship in the first place. it’s all connected, and it needs growth on both sides to get better, but my favourite thing about all of it is that neither of them wants the other to change fundamentally. shin can list all the things he likes about him and it encompasses his looks and his cuteness and his kindness and his brattiness and how difficult he is bc he likes him being this complicated handful minato knows he is and doesn’t shy away from. and when minato just says shin is handsome, I don’t think it’s just him stuck on looks, I think it’s more that there’s this inherent handsomeness to him, not just in the way he looks but the way he holds himself, the way he pursues his goals, the way he shares his feelings with confidence and is so kind and giving, it’s handsomeness in every facet. shin doesn’t want minato to not be difficult, and minato doesn’t want shin to not be so full on, they just need to find the ways to stop these things they like clashing and getting in the way.

Ep 3 is focused on Akira Minato, about his school life and what shaped who he is as a gay adult. Like many teenagers, he had a crush on one of his teachers, but being a closeted gay teen, he felt the weight that telling someone you like them carries. He struggled to confess to his teacher at graduation, but did try kissing him (which is shown as unreciprocated / unresponded to in the moment). This fear of confession, of revealing one’s feelings and being rejected, has been carried by Akira throughout his adult life. We see in Ep 1 that Akira was immediately attracted to Shin despite his age, and his language use with Shin, despite the age difference, was friendly and casual, bordering on flirty, while he thought his feelings were one sided. When Shin tells him he reciprocates those desires, Akira needs to reassess their friendship and pull back on how open he is with Shin, lest his actions lead to something they can’t come back from. Akira is the grownup here, and he needs to be the one to stop this before it starts.

I find it fascinating then in Ep3, Akira starts off trying to dismiss Shin’s feelings as the same as he experienced, just a schoolboy crush that he will get over once he meets people his own age at uni. When Shin pushes back against this idea, we get the scene by the pool, where Akira acknowledges that what Shin feels is real and important, but that Akira can’t be with him. At no point does Akira state that he doesn’t feel the same way, or talk about his feelings at all. It’s purely that Shin is in high school, Akira is not, so they cannot be together the way Shin wants. Yet although Akira knows that he should be the one to put space between them, he puts it back on Shin. He tells Shin that if he can’t spend time with him without wanting more, they should stop hanging out. Akira isn’t strong enough to end whatever they have so he needs Shin to decide whether they can continue this charged friendship they have, while not crossing boundaries, or if they need the distance to remove the temptation.

And Shin isn’t dumb. He is emotionally a lot more intelligent than Akira in a lot of ways. He hears what Akira is saying and more importantly what he isn’t saying. I think he is well aware that whatever Shin is feeling is not one sided, and that under any other circumstance they would likely be together. Shin is tenacious in the pursuit of what he wants, something that his friend Asuka picked up on and tried to address with Shin. But Shin knows what he wants, and is willing to push Akira until he can admit his feelings out loud.

I love the shift in Akira between how reacted to Shin trying to kiss him outside the pool, vs his reaction within. The pool is a safe space for Akira (the safety of water is often a common theme in BL), but beyond that, I think there is an acceptance from Akira in that moment that this isn’t something fleeting. That if he stops fighting whatever it is they are feeling, they can find a rhythm that works for them until Shin graduates.

the 30-something was too stunned to speak

Minato is learning to reach out to Shin while Shu and Asuka are trying to work out their feelings alone and confused. This is what open communication does. Minato goes from closed off to open because Shin is totally honest with him and expresses himself and his love gladly and openly and with so much love while Asuka and Shu are both still boxed into their own spaces because all of their communication, now cut off and even before, has never been clear.

HUH?!