Hey. Hey. Hey! Stop. Hey! Don’t you hear me? My name is Niran. If you want to call out to someone, you might wanna ask for their name. All this “hey, hey, hey,” I could have thought you were calling a dog.

"I have something to tell you."

Come on, we are alone. you don't need to be shy

I can take the pain for you

You can hate me if you want, but I'll always love you

I'm crazy because I love you

I really miss those times when you were by my side

Even if I have to follow you around for the rest of my life, it's still better than having to walk away from you again

I just want to see your face

The most important thing that I'm giving up is you, Shin

I remember everything about you

I can't lose you again

But it's essential to me (to take Shin home everyday)

I like this house because my friend lives here

You miss my puppy face don't you?

I know you miss me

I so damn miss you

For me, you are the only one I care about

My life without you didn't have any purpose

I kept thinking about you every damn day

So now you like me again, right?

This is our first couple photo in years

You're everything to me now

So what if I'm sappy? You like it, don't you?

I only want you by my side now

I'll protect you. I will not let anyone hurt you again

For me, all I need is for you to be okay

Come on, hug me, will you?

I could endure the pain then because I was thinking about you

You're acting like you're my boyfriend or something

Are we dating or are we just friends?

Why do we always have to hide like this?

When it's about you I'm acting like an idiot

As the pink color is pretty, suitable for a cute person like you

Please let me stay over at your place. It's paramount to my life

If we keep running away, you and I will never be happy

We can finally be together openly

From now on, no matter what happens, I'll never leave you again. I promise.

When you suffer, I also suffer

But I promise you the two of us will keep going together. I'll never leave you for sure

I will be with you for the rest of my life anyway

Do you hate me? If not then it means you like me

I love you too, Shin

I didn't expect you to have this sweet side. But I like it though. Well, try saying you love me again.

So I promise you, that you and me will be friends forever. From now on, no matter what happens, I'll never leave you again.

Thats precisely why the reaction Saint has to Shin "leaving" him comes out so naturally, so involuntarily, so pathetically- because what is he, in his raging fit, supposed to do when his world is leaving him.

Thats also completely understandable that Shin can't get himself to not care, even if he hates Saint. You can hate your home as much as you want- hate the cracks in your wall and the shitty paint- but you will still put the bucket under the leaking roof because you can't get yourself to stop caring.

As a person who is OLD and came of age in the 90s, I do want to talk about this show from a queer perspective. I grew up in a time when queer characters were not abundant. If they did show up in media, it was newsworthy. These characters were always support characters and seldom had love interests or explored what it was like to be queer. None of them looked like me or made me feel seen or represented. Heteronormativity was the standard, as it is today, but back then, a queer kid seldom encountered anything that made them question that heteronormativity. 

HSF, and Shin and Saint specifically, resonate with me more than most queer media I’ve consumed, and I’ve consumed a lot. The intense, obsessive love that Shin and Saint have for each other under the guise of friendship IS my story. For me, it was a wild girl named Jennifer, who I was attached to the hip with from 6th grade until our early twenties. I loved her. I was obsessed with her. I was probably in love with her, but it never occurred to me until years after we’d stopped speaking that what I felt for her was more than friendship. The heteronormative brainworms are real, and they infected me until my late 20s when I suddenly had a revelation about myself. 

Hindsight is 20/20. Suddenly, my obsession with Charlize Theron in Two Days In The Valley, Helen Hunt in Twister (1996), and Kate Winslet in Titanic made so much sense. My relationship with Jennifer was also at the forefront of my mind. Ah, I thought. That’s what that was.

HSF is a show about friendship, a show about community, a show about the ways adults fail their children, a show about class and poverty. It is also a show about unrealized queerness. The director, Fon, told that story purposefully through music, lighting, and dialogue, she told a story about two boys who can’t live without each other, but don’t have the knowledge, the vocabulary, or the self-awareness to understand what they are to each other.

In every choice Fon made, she dangled queerness without explicitly naming it. I would call it queerbaiting in any other media,  but for me, she made one other choice that I believe is purposeful and elevates this show into the queer category for me. She completely stripped the show of heteronormativity. There are no couples. None. We never see Chatjen’s parents. Any parents we do see are single - Ken’s father, Shin’s mother, Saint’s father, Cable’s mother.

In any other media, the male and female homeroom teachers with clashing teaching styles would  be an enemies-to-lovers side plot. Here, they grow into supportive co-workers and friends who become better versions of themselves to help the children in their class. In any other media, there would be talk of crushes among the teenagers. Here, we see them grapple with the pressures of academia, abusive or absentee parents, bullying, drugs, and the hopelessness of poverty. In fact, the only mention of sexuality or romance at all comes from Eve, a girl who befriends Airy, a girl from their rival school, and confesses that she had a crush on her when she was younger. Nothing comes of this revelation, even though we see Airy become curious and seek out Eve’s company prior to this revelation, and we see how pleased Airy is about Eve’s confession. But this is a show about unrealized queerness and even Eve and Airy, two girls who understand what they are feeling for one another, still can’t bring themselves to name it.

The lack of heterosexuality creates a void that is filled by Shin and Saint’s relationship. It’s purposeful, and Director Fon uses other friendships in the show to highlight the ways Shin and Saint are not the same. Knot, Nate, and Ken are extremely close friends. They, too, have a “no one left behind” friendship pact. They fight for each other and get hurt for each other and very obviously love each other. Chatjen and Shin’s friendship is also very deep. Chatjen considers Shin his best friend. He hero worships him a bit and sees him as his protector and savior. Yet, anyone watching can understand the ways the producers use music, lighting, costuming, and dialogue to elevate Shin and Saint’s relationship above all the other ones.