Messiah Kids

During the time Kogure Jun was experimented on as a clone, the pain of constantly longing to be saved, to be loved, Hinamori and Kogure's direction of meaning in life is so different it's scary

Although there are things I don't know as to why Hinamori was 'it has to be none other than Kogure', it seems Hinamori is attached to 'his messiah'. He did not want to lose another one, he warned as well as protected him

Assuming both the above statements are true, not only we get a clear direction as to what the underlying conflict will be, but also a pretty good explanation on  why Kogure was Messiah’s personal damsel in distress.

From the start (Akatsuki), Kogure had already dropped hints of his insecurity, mostly overshadowed by his ‘honor student’ archetype. He was eager to find out more (if not everything) about himself, hinted by how he hacked into the Church’s system to find information about practice mission with his seniors and hesitantly asking Ariga about what he suspected about his relationship with Ichijima. Comparing him to the other 2 cadets, Miike’s purpose at that time was to die by Yugi’s hands, and Yugi wanted to both uphold justice and get away from Miike as far away as possible. Kogure could only blindly follow instruction. He tried, but he just couldn’t find that purpose.

Kogure became a damsel pretty soon, Itsuki went berserk, and we had that gag scene between Ariga and Kogure. If we look behind the jokes, notice that the first line Kogure said was ‘Let me assist you’. The reason for that as said by the person himself: ‘because I was praised by Kagami-san’ (for his hacking). This went beyond repaying someone for their ‘kindness’. To put it bluntly, Kogure wanted to be praised more.

Furthermore, during the higawari scene where Kogure revealed that Ariga has been practicing calling Kagami ‘Itsuki’, his first reaction was...to ask Ariga to call him ‘Jun-no, JunJun’. At a glance, it was rational Kogure testing Ariga to call out embarrassing names to figure out the underlying problem. But he could have also said something like “can you call Shirazaki ‘Mamoru’?” if that was all he wanted to do. And in Japan, being on first name basis is like trying to climb the Great Wall of China, yet Kogure seemed pretty eager to volunteer his own name. 

(AlmostPsych101: asking someone to call you by a petname is a way of confirming that the other person holds a special feeling towards you) 

At the end of Akatsuki, we saw a teaser of Kogure confronting Ichijima about their relationship in the middle of conducting an active mission. In Yuukyuu as well, he was wounded, betrayed and could possibly be killed by Ichijima, and he escaped capture just to run to Ichijima to confirm this relationship between them--and then get rekted. 

Why was it so important for Kogure? Possibly, because as a clone, he had no other memories of his past. Unlike other cadets (whose information surely he had hacked from the system), he literally had no reason to be there. If Ichijima was his father, then at least he could be at ease knowing that he could focus in work to impress his father. But no. He was Ichijima’s clone. So his original self was so worthless that he had to live as someone else’s copy...

The person Kogure thought was possibly going to be a figure of affection is a cold heartless bastard that betrayed him, wounded him, and the main reason why he was this angsty empty shell of a human. Kogure also unwillingly became ‘one’ with this person he loathed due to being his clone. As Kogure himself put it, ‘My life is not a toy you can play with... I won’t forgive you.’ 

At the end of Yuukyuu, we saw the beginning of Kogure’s rampage. “Worry? Why should I? Even if I die, there’s plenty of replacement.”. It continued all the way in Tsukuyomi (which I’m looking forward to), and possibly culminate in Hinamori yanking Kogure and giving him the famous quote ‘I won’t let you die’. Feelings grow, and they graduate happily ever after~

Oh wait. This is Messiah.

Hinamori is a mysterious figure that was pretty much airdropped to the somewhat established gen 3. We learnt in Tsukuyomi that he had apparently lost his former messiah. He definitely also knew more than he let on, being Kuroko’s gen mate, and having enough history with the Church to hate Ichijima with a passion. 

In their first ‘bonding session’, Kogure was shot by Ichijima while Hinamori was chasing after the enemy. When he rushed back, Yugi explained what Ichijima did. Everyone else who saw it happen was shocked, followed by a growing concern at Kogure. Hinamori clicked his tongue, clearly pissed off to the point of nearly breaking the blue-pink guy’s arm. Later on we learnt that Hinamori had a similar experience with Ichijima, and only returned back to Church to kill him. 

Hinamori might have patted the wounded Kogure and threw phrases like ‘worry about yourself’, but it was clear that his focus was not on Kogure’s wellbeing and more on his grudge towards Ichijima. Poor Kogure would have been bleeding almost dead on the cold stone floor if not for Yugi propping him up. 

‘As long as I live, I won’t let you die. You are my Messiah’ Hinamori said. The only question is, is ‘my Messiah’:

Someone that Hinamori genuinely cares about

A title passed from someone whom Hinamori used to care about (and Kogure is once again used to reflect someone else’s identity), or

A pre-requisite he had to take care of in order for him to (easily) finish what he came back for? 

And what would happen when Kogure is ready to put the entire meaning of his life on Hinamori? Is Hinamori willing to do the same, or will Hinamori deal the final blow to Kogure’s already shattered ego?

Extra:

Since I still can’t get the image ‘JunJun == Shuusuke 2.0′ out of my head, let’s draw some parallelism!

Remember the reason why Souma is the only cadet that had close to zero respect towards Ichijima?

Remember how Souma treated Shuusuke when circumstances forced them to be paired together as Messiahs?

Remember when Souma suspected Shuusuke to have betrayed the Church? 

Only now we have a significantly less expressive Souma, and a very, very, very unstable Shuusuke.