🛥

1) why he says “we do think alike” in 345 as if it’s a new insight for him

2) why he suddenly switched to ore and omae

so. ging and pariston. paying a little bit of attention to how they interact, we bump into what can be seen as a contradiction, namely their closeness (or lack thereof)

regard:

pariston about ging

his internal monologue seems to imply he is learning/confirming (note the 'do' in 'we do think alike) something for the first time. this isn't the sort of thing you'd expect someone to figure out after having spent a great deal of time together. it sounds a lot like pariston is finding this out as the reader is too, which is peculiar. perhaps the zodiac meetings weren't great for getting to know ging (especially if he's usually absent)

on the other hand, however, ging about pariston...

complicated. note, this translation is unfortunate in that it leaves out a crucial detail (which is that ging is actually referring to pariston as the shortened 'paris') that just furthers this sort of contrasting view they have of their relationship; ging calls him by a nickname, pariston politely and perhaps professionally goes with the distant 'ging-san'. going back to the screenshot, however... this is interesting. if it were just that they were coworkers like any other zodiacs, calling it a complicated history seems a bit much. so what gives?

the type of scenario i can picture is one in which they know of each other a lot longer than they have actually interacted (like a summer friendship, across many years but only ever meet occasionally) which is fascinating. was communication done through netero (who might've enjoyed the idea of these two butting heads -> actually the 'we do think alike' might very likely be a confirmation of something netero himself told pariston), building an image of the other up in their minds. were they constantly throwing a wrench in the others plans without direct contact? potentially, ging and pariston both seem to agree the latter really wanted ging's attention for ages, so was the fact ging is so distant a factor in fueling pariston's strange focus on him? much to ponder.

final sidenote: there might also be a difference in how confident they are of having understood the other. pariston seems to strongly believe in ging's qualities and skills (duh), but be more cautious about making judgements about the man himself too early, meanwhile ging, while having a good grasp on paristons modus operandi...

...might be a bit overconfident...