#es 5

And I woke up to these texts this morning:

Yeah, unpopular opinion that Nagisa’s home life is problematic. I don’t think his parents don’t love him. I think they love him, and I think they believe they’re good parents. But they definitely inflict a lot of judgement and expectation onto Nagisa and I feel like a lot of it is gendered and sexist because he is the only male in the family. 

His family wants him to be a successful businessman, which is why they sent him to a private school, to train him to get a good job, a traditionally masculine job. But that will never be Nagisa. They are beginning to come to terms with it, but they will probably disagree about things for many decades to come. 

And Nagisa may love swimming now, but it’s certainly not because it made him “stronger.” Nagisa has said that what he values most about swimming is emotional, not physical. It’s about the love he has for his friends, not the size of his body or physical prowess. 

And his sisters’ teasing definitely does not help. I am in a minority, or a quiet majority, that is extremely uncomfortable with how his sisters treated him, and the idea that he “secretly liked it.” I like the characters of his sisters because they are complex in that they act like siblings, they shit on Nagisa but they love him at the end of the day. Doesn’t mean what they did was ok but I think it’s behind them. 

Ultimately, Nagisa and his family face difficult compromises. They do come to understandings. His parents have never forced him to remain in a situation that makes him miserable. 

But the road to that compromise will probably not be easy. Nagisa will likely have to make sacrifices to agree with them, and they may not always be easy conversations for him to have. 

And some of these conversations may place a lot of pressure on Nagisa emotionally. Obviously his relationship with his parents is a huge stressor for him. He ran away, shut out his friends (which he never does) and then broke down when he thought he had to face his parents and say how he felt. So future conversations may continue to be explosive as Nagisa grows up and continues to defy his parents’ expectations for him to be the perfect child, a perfect son. 

Like I just love how Nagisa so freely expresses his emotions in front of Rei because for some reason, Rei provokes him more than anyone and brings out this emotional outburst that Nagisa needs and deserves so bad. 

And Rei lets go of him while he shouts, but he doesn't pull back. He releases Nagisa so he can openly express himself, can speak out and be louder and more present than he ever has. But one Nagisa falters and begins to break down, Rei immediately holds onto him again. He grips his shoulders to steady him, as though to promise him that it's okay, and that is there, and that Nagisa can shout, he can cry, he can feel, and Rei will still be there. He will be there, holding onto him, and assuring him not only will things be okay but when they aren't, Nagisa doesn't have to pretend they are. 

I never thought of the possibility of his parents checking Rei's house! They probably checked it after Rei left, or he would have mentioned it to Nagisa right away. But they very well might have dropped by after Makoto/Haru contacted Rei to come over. 

TW: Homophobia

Yeah I sadly kind of have this headcanon, too. I've always wondered about Nagisa's home life considering how much his sisters bullied him as a child without consequence, and how tormented Nagisa felt about his gender expression and how he was perceived by others. I've also wondered what kind of pressures he might face as their only son, if any. 

It's obvious that they do care about him, because they hated seeing him miserable and took him out of private school. So while it's easy to place them in a category as "bad parents," they're not entirely. They have expectations for him and are stern and can be unforgiving, but at the end of the day they sincerely care? Even if they don't express it the same way Nagisa does (he's emotive and openly loving). They let him rejoin swim club and came to watch him compete, even though they had strict guidelines. So it's complicated. 

With all that prefaced, the definitely have expectations of what he is "supposed" to be, and that makes me think they wouldn't be accepting of his sexuality. Because Rei can be so uptight I thought his parents might be the strict ones, like you said, but considering how easy he seemed to think it would be for Nagisa to "just talk to" his parents, I'm thinking his are a bit more understanding in general. I'm headcanoning them as a bit more intellectual as well and perhaps more accepting of Rei's sexuality.

And if this were the case, it'd probably affect Nagisa pretty severely, considering how stressed he can get about his parents and how all-or-nothing they can be with their guidelines. He'd probably avoid coming out but get really frustrated when his sisters brought boys home and he had to lie about his love life. Considering how vocal and expressive he is, he might lose his temper and let it out someday. And if it were while he was still a dependent that would raise all sorts of issues. 

His parents would never stop taking care of him, though, or disown him. They do love him, beneath it all. But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't emotionally or mentally hurt him while thinking they were helping him. It would come from a place of what they saw as love, but could really hurt Nagisa deeply. He'd probably run away from home again. He might even go to Rei that time and ask something silly like "can I stay with you?" But that would mean avoiding conflict, which Rei is practically incapable of doing.

Rei, of course, would try to talk to them even if Nagisa begged him not to and that would backfire terribly. Rei would probably be able to work something out with them, though, considering his ability to mediate and resolve problems. He'd make some sort of deal, like he could visit as long as they stayed in common rooms or had the doors open at all times (assuming Nagisa wasn't allowed to Rei's house any more). 

And any compromise would probably not seem good enough to Nagisa but he'd get by until he was on his own. Some days would be better than others, and hopefully his sisters would look out for him, like in ES 5. Perhaps Rei's parents would have an influence on the Hazukis, but that would mean the Hazukis looked for their input, which they might not (from my own experience with this stuff, this doesn't seem to happen). 

Anyway, this is a super depressing headcanon but I can relate to it and it makes sense to me. Thoughts? Anyone think Nagisa's parents would be supportive, or that Rei's wouldn't?