#and the next panel is a contrail across the clouds

[kalpalatas]

hello. hi. im back at ch20 and also the working adults au preview from twt Realising things. like how the au branches off from canon at a very very specific point. like down to a page.

because in canon, hirano (and kagi) had already come to the conclusion that their roommate arrangement wasn't going to carry over, because kagi didn't crack top 50...

...and kagi begins to sulk-sob the way he does when his efforts aren't rewarded. then hanzawa interrupts them to announce that false alarm! they made it!

which means working adults au - where hirano and kagiura don't talk to each other for ten goddamn years - branches off after this specific moment:

beginning to realise the true depth of kagi's feelings...at the moment that he loses him.

i can't begin to imagine the kind of psychic damage that must have dealt hirano. actually yes i can and am positively giddy about it in the most blorbofying way possible.

in canon hanzawa breaks this tension - this thought right there and hirano calling out to kagi - immediately. we know what happens after. we see hirano's stubborn walls form the smallest of cracks and then they never stop spiderwebbing across his heart until we get to where we are in ch26.

doujin hirano just. never gets that moment. the rush of relief from keeping his roommate another year that makes him drop his guards for the few seconds that it takes for what happens next "i guess he wasn't going to touch me just then"

instead it's this other thought, suspended in time, "all that passion focused squarely on me". and then...he moves on. he doesn't reach out to kagi again. kagi's passion is for basketball, not him not this room not wherever their strange faux dating arrangement was going-

kagi gets scouted. likely the b league, maybe even the U-19 national team. his hard work , all his dedication, paying off

hirano knows kagi has a dream. and he knows his passion is not hirano's to borrow a share of. kagi leaves and hirano lets go.

(in my delusions hirano really means it when he says "i'm rooting for you" but he steps neatly out of kagi's way even while doing it. out of sight out of mind)