“Hoshi-kun! Hey, hey! Hoshi-kun!!!!!!!!!”

          How many times does she need to say his name before he finally tires of her incessant pestering (as Gundham so nicely puts it)? Regardless, she’s bounding over to him with that same exuberant energy she always seems to be full of. Nothing in tow this time, simply herself. Asahina stops short of just absolutely crashing into the younger student.

         “I found some things we could do together! Fukawa-chan suggested reading. So I think I found a ton of books? Don’t worry, I avoided all the text ones. Oh oh! We could also play games!!! Togami-kun suggested Chess? But...I don’t know how the pieces move. So I found Mouse Trap! Oh! Also Nanami-sempai was teaching me about video games, other than the fighting and racing ones! So I borrowed some of those too!”

          confusion   spreads   across   her   features   as   she   turns   toward   the   other.   hands   move   upward   quietly   in   a   vague   motion   of   apology.  

          ❛   i’m   sorry,   was   i   in   your   way   ?   ❜

          the   teen   will   side   step,   allowing   the   other   to   pass   while   she   glances   again   toward   the   books.   they   spanned   quite   a   bit,   and   she   had   no   idea   what   she   was   looking   for   --   especially   with   the   way   her   features   would   slowly   grow   more   and   more   concerned.  

          ❛   um   ...   you   wouldn’t   happen   to   know   where   ‘   to   kill   a   mockingbird   ‘   is,   do   you   ?   ❜

Misconceptions

God that’s a big one. The narrative has a bad habit of having him only mention Kaede and Kaito later after their respective trials, but he does express upset. Rantaro dying was shocking... but he didn’t know him very well, and I understand Kaede overshadowing it. Some deaths that really got to him were how Tenko literally died in front of him, or how Kokichi went crazy enough to concoct the whole plan Kaito was a part of--which I do believe he mourned for Kokichi, too. Even if the narrative wanted us to just see Kaito’s part of it.

After every trial, he goes to his room to try sleeping it off. This doesn’t change between Kaede’s death, or Ryoma and Kirumi’s, or the trifecta in the third trial. Hell, Gonta really beat him up--he didn’t want to blacken him at all, but if it meant the survival of his friends, he was willing to face that ugly truth. He had to go against Kaito entirely on that trial and if he didn’t care, chances are, he would’ve bowed to Kaito’s will right there.

I wish the narrative did more justice for it and I can see why some people are dissatisfied, but there still is ample proof he cared a lot. Every death bolstered his resolve until he pretty much broke at the end and just, “fuck you and your game”.

│⚙️│ “…”

“I live and learn to truly achieve my purpose as the most human-like robot to ever exist, to greatly assist the Professor’s research. Not only that, I wish to find my calling in life with the help of my Ultimate talent. And it certainly would be gratifying to witness the greater inclusion of robots into modern day society with my assistance, therefore eliminating social stereotypes and robot discrimination…”

“you’d think, with all the talent that this school is able to bring in...” musician, mechanic, the list goes on and on... all relatively harmless talents until you got a better look. to say the least, it was amusing to the yakuza. “that they’d know better than to invite the likes of us, but what do i know? i’m only a kid, right?”