#like ok sure whatever..... right... right...

I think Toya is initially taken by the brightness An projects and how easily she seems to move in the world, which are both things he feels he fundamentally lacks - and when eventually he develops more perspective and confidence as An comes to peel back more of her insecurity, kind of the tables shift and he discovers something he can give her in return, which means a huge deal to him...

An does still struggle to understand him at first - as in canon, she meets him in birdsquad as Akito's incomprehensible tagalong (and here she and Akito already have a moderately complicated history of at least a year or so at that point), which is mostly what he will remain to her for a while yet. But honestly she struggles to understand herself as well, so it kinda goes hand in hand? As she grows to learn more about Toya and understand him better, and understand his relationship with his family etc, she figures out a bit more about how to understand herself too in a way she did not realize she was missing. Eg when they meet she still hasn't fully realized she also is struggling to understand her relationship with her own dad. Oh Ken I love you but (Shiraishi An voice) is anyone else their father's female son (pained smile). I'll talk more about birdsquad Ken eventually... though I think he's flawed in canon too so it just carries over.

In general An is so straightforward and candid with Toya, which he really appreciates as someone who finds it difficult and confusing how often so many people Aren't straightforward. An says what she means and if she wants him to know something she tells him. While trying to make her own sense of him she ends up helping him understand the things he's expressing too, and once she realizes that he's actually much more plainly enthusiastic about being included in things than Akito is, she makes sure to do so and treats them increasingly as separate people. But in general An doesn't really understand the weight of what she does for people and how much it means to them. She's just being An.

Toya to me is also so openminded and additionally is further than Kohane and Akito from what I lovingly refer to as An's "crazy fucking baggage issues problems blast radius", which is something she appreciates that about him - there are all these ugly and sad parts of her she barely realizes are there and doesn't know what to do with when she finally can't look away, but she finds it surprisingly easy to be vulnerable around Toya, who is a gentle presence. I think An mostly grew up in a chaotic and fast-paced environment which she has embraced as part of who she is, and it's not inherently a bad thing, but she also never really had a chance to appreciate that she could benefit from quiet introspection too. She thinks she has, there are lots of quiet moments before sunrise out at the marsh after all, but she still hasn't fully turned it inwards... Like her father, she spends more time keeping busy and thinking about other people. By July, An is possibly like two awkward rare bird stakeouts away from breaking down full-on ugly sobbing looking at a White Wagtail in a Wendy's parking lot.

Meanwhile most of Toya's life has been all quiet introspection and restraint - the only place that was ever truly his own was in his own head, and even that was rarely a comfortable retreat. So he very much wants to be part of An's world of wacky bird impressions, and scrambling down ridges (scary!) because she wants to stand in the stream she saw at the bottom, and impulsive car rides at 11 pm for ice cream. Compared to Akito, who is a bit more 'proud', An is much more likely to mess around in this free-spirited way which is new and infectious for Toya, who could never access such levity before. Yes, Toya carries a deep and particular affection for Akito, to whom he owes inconceivably much, but the texture there is its own, and that's a good thing - there's something unique and special to cherish about every person who for some reason has let Toya into their life and kept him around, and isn't that remarkable? Then, if the perspective Toya's past has enabled him to offer can return even a bit of that precious levity to that girl, it almost makes it a little easier for him to accept that he had to go through those things in the first place.

Sidenote. To be clear I don't think Akito is a stiff lol, and he definitely goes out of his way to have fun with Toya but. This post ain't about that guy. Nor is it about comparing him and An in depth because Toya himself isn't measuring those two against each other - he is just peacefully appreciating their differences. I think a particularly interesting part of where vbs starts to gel as a group and not just a set of duos is when each of them can begin to appreciate how their partner interacts with the others, and how they learn about each other through that. eg what Akito learns about Toya through how he interacts with An, or what An learns about Akito through how he treats Kohane, so on.

The drawings are based on An's song for Toya and Toya's song for An from my birdsquad playlist (which has songs for every combination of characters from each POV)...