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noxnenxon · 5 months ago

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Ohhhh dearsies /pos

You Are What You Eat

CW: mentions of cannibalism, manipulation and despair toward a young child (Kokichi is three here)

It had been two hours. Kokichi stared at the bowl in front of him—a creamy white soup, with a handful of meatballs floating in it. It was probably cold by now. He poked a meatball with his spoon, his stomach lurching as it bobbed. He swallowed thickly, glancing across the kitchen at the grownup stirring a pot at the stove.

At the severed arm tossed on a cutting board on the counter beside him.

"I don' wan' it," he tried again.

"Aw, that's enough'a that, boy!" Teru-onii-chan turned from the soup to pointedly brandish his spoon at the boy. "There's no way you ain't hungry. You're still growin', ya know? And after I even ground it up nice 'n' fine so ya couldn't tell the difference. The others don't get half as much kindness outta me!"

"B-but—"

"Not like you can taste it, anyhow. You wouldn't know human from pork from beef," he huffed. "Such a waste of my Talents, I swear."

And yet Teru-onii-chan always did seem to go above and beyond for Kokichi's meals specifically. So much effort, so much seasoning, all for the most boring textures. The small boy always wondered why that was. This happened every time. He didn't want it. He never wanted it. It was bland and boring and always had meat. He whimpered, looking back down at his soup. He wondered who it was, floating around inside it. If it was a mommy or a daddy, or...

Maybe a little kid just like him.

The image of a person roasting over a fire wasn't nearly as funny in real life as cartoons always made it out to be.

"I swear, Kokichi, if ya don't eat somethin' soon, you're gonna get sick," Teru-onii-chan tutted. "I'll hafta get your sister—"

Kokichi's blood turned to ice.

"N-no!" he cried, frantic tears springing to his eyes. "Not Nee-nee! Not the tube!"

It went down his nose and felt cold and weird when Nee-nee fed the slurry into it. He swore he could feel it as he hiccuped out panicked little breaths. It felt like he was choking on it.

Teru-onii-chan's expression softened, and he set his spoon aside to approach Kokichi at the table and give him a little pat on the head.

"Ya need ta eat, sugar," he insisted. "You know your Nee-nee only does it 'cause she cares. She'd be awful sad ta know you ain't eatin' again. It'd fill her with so much Despair..."

That word again. Despair. Nee-nee and her friends talked about it a lot, ever since the bad things started and they brought him down here. Kokichi didn't really understand what it meant. They were always so mean to each other on purpose. It almost sounded like Teru-onii-chan wanted him to refuse just to make his Nee-nee sad.

He looked down at the soup again, sloppily wiping his nose on his sleeve. The meat stood out clearly in the white broth, bobbing there like the most normal thing in the world. Teru-onii-chan could give him any other meat, and it'd taste the same, feel the same, may as well be the same. It didn't matter if he couldn't taste it. It didn't matter if he couldn't tell. It made his stomach churn just knowing what it was.

But... Kokichi didn't want to make his Nee-nee sad...

"T-Teru-onii-chan...?"

"Hm?"

"Can... make it hot again...?"

"Sure thing, Pumpkin."

This time he'd do it. This time for sure.

For Nee-nee.

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noxnenxon · 6 months ago

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Kou’s perception of Mitsuba, and how it changes, is fascinating to me.

(Quick note: I’ll be calling the human ‘Sousuke’ and the supernatural ‘Mitsuba’ to make it less confusing)

Let’s rewind to Mitsuba’s introduction in Hell of Mirrors: Kou leaped at the idea that Sousuke was back. Even after Tsukasa told him this isn’t the same person he used to know, merely an “artificial ghost with part of Sousuke’s soul”, Kou subconsciously rejected the idea.

Mitsuba’s existence brought his grief back full force, and while he could sense that Sousuke’s memory doesn’t perfectly match reality, logic was never his strongest motivator in hell of mirrors, he is so full of hope and desperation: He wants Mitsuba to be Sousuke so bad.

He can’t let go of the past, he is not seeing Mitsuba, just shadows of Sousuke.

Kou wasn’t able to tell this is not his old friend, simply perceiving Mitsuba as an amnesic Sousuke.

Kou wants Mitsuba to ‘remember’ him when we know from Mitsuba’s empty mirror that he has no life to remember. Kou calls him what he had called Sousuke and gives him Sousuke’s photos, visibly desperate to get his friend back.

Even when they get out, Kou did not allow himself to face reality, talking about Mitsuba as if he was Sousuke, pushing what Tsukasa had said away.

“I thought he was gone for good” “I didn’t think I’ll ever see him again” “Because I couldn’t save him” Is all about Sousuke, which, as Tsukasa explained, “Sousuke doesn’t exist anywhere in this world anymore”

Kou only starts to realize what he has been doing and face reality in picture perfect, when Mitsuba shows him Sousuke’s life on the windows, calling Kou out for only focusing on his dead friend, ignoring Mitsuba, and using him for his own selfish reasons.

Kou is reminded of his trauma when Mitsuba breaks the window with Sousuke’s memories in it, but it does serve as an efficient wake up call.

Kou actually looks at Mitsuba here. He is dazed and shocked but he pays attention to what Mitsuba is saying: he is able to sees him as his own person.

Mitsuba is confident no one cares about him, so after venting, completely breaking this world’s facade, he sucks up his tears and goes back to his human form, offering Kou his dreams.

This time Sousuke’s image isn’t overwhelming. Kou doesn’t want to believe in this fake world now that he can see through it: Now that he can see Mitsuba.

He understands this is his own wish, not Mitsuba’s.

He can see that this lie is hurting Mitsuba.

Kou understands that there is truth to Mitsuba’s words. During all the fun times they spent together, he had been picturing Sousuke by his side, he wanted to have Sousuke back so badly that he never considered Mitsuba’s feelings, or how his wish to replace him would be hurtful.

Kou is a selfish person full of genuine kindness: He still wishes Mitsuba was Sousuke and he feels guilt for ignoring Mitsuba.

“You can’t find happiness in a fake world” is a message to both Mitsuba and himself. Once Kou snaps out of his dream, he realizes it would only lead to ruin and tries to drag Mitsuba out of his own delusions, and while he has some points, he doesn’t understand that promising a better reality, giving him hope, is cruel.

Kou genuinely wants to understand Mitsuba, so he hears him out, and pays full attention to his distress.

There is still the solid weight of his failure with Sousuke in Mitsuba’s very essence, but despite them looking the same and being very tied together, Kou is determined to focus on Mitsuba, he doesn’t want to do the same mistake again.

I won’t go in depth on Kou’s lack of care about his own life in this analysis, but I think it is worth noticing this offer was for Mitsuba, not Sousuke, and Mitsuba could see that.

Mitsuba doesn’t believe Kou can make him human, but he understands that he is serious, and that Kou will try.

He gets the feeling that maybe, hopefully, Kou cares about him too, not just Sousuke, so it freaks him out that his possible friend throws himself out of the fucking building.

The last thing Kou wants is to hurt him, so he apologizes for being reckless and trying to sort out his own feelings without considering how Mitsuba would feel.

Despite this determination to be closer to Mitsuba, he subconsciously puts a distance between himself and the supernatural. He accidentally keeps ignoring him.

Remember this:

It’s about Kou’s wish, but it shows one of Mitsuba’s own wishes, one weaker than his burning desire to be human, but no less real: The wish for friends.

Friends are one of the reasons he went along with faking to be Sousuke, friends are one of the many reasons he wants to be human in the first place.

But unfortunately, this is a wish he shares with Sousuke, so Kou blocked it out, not wanting to overlap the two, even if wanting to be friends is a part of Mitsuba too.

It’s complicated.

Being friends meant so much for Sousuke, and Kou doesn’t want to be reminded of him.

Kou understands seeing Mitsuba as Sousuke is an insecurity of Mitsuba and truly believes that the supernatural deserves better, he should be his own person instead of a shadow of Sousuke. Kou recognizes this difficulty separating the two is his issue, not Mitsuba’s, so he is determined to make sure it doesn’t become a problem again.

This need to separate the two makes it so he can’t see Mitsuba as a friend, or if he does, he can’t voice it. He has never called Mitsuba a friend unless he was thinking of Sousuke or mistaking him for Sousuke, whose friendship he treasures. Even when Mitsuba had expressed he want Kou to stay in this world as his friend, the wish didn’t register, and Kou focused instead on the far less achievable, but completely detached from Sousuke, dream of turning him into a human.

Mitsuba’s dream is important to Kou, and Mitsuba noticed that, since his vent was a moment were he had Kou full attention on him instead of Sousuke, so Mitsuba eventually used his dream to distract Kou from Nene’s lifespan and their dilemma in Mei’s world.

Unfortunately, this is, at its core, just a distraction: Mitsuba may believe in Kou’s determination, but he doesn’t believe Kou has the power to grant his wish, he isn’t expecting Kou to find a solution, and he never pressures Kou about it after, he only said this because he doesn’t like to see Kou in distress, it makes him uncomfortable, and so he needs him to snap out of it.

Mitsuba has no idea how huge this is for Kou, how important it feels, cause Kou feels as if no one had ever expected anything from him before.

Even when Hanako expected him to save Nene, Kou had no idea so much trust was put on him, because Hanako only told him this:

And Kou was frozen in time, unable to hear a thing, when Hanako added this:

So in Kou’s point of view, Mitsuba is the only one that expects something from him, the only one that depends on him. (which is diferent from people depending on his role: like his siblings needing a housekeeper)

Kou talks big but in the end, he is just an overwhelmed 14 year old: while he is determined to make Mitsuba’s dream come true and fully separate him from Sousuke, he has no way to help him, and it is hard for him to not see Mitsuba as Sousuke. It’s incredibly hard.

It may have been presented in a comedic manner, but we know this haunts him all the way to his dreams.

Add in all the romantic undertones of his interactions with both Mitsuba and Sousuke, and Kou really has a big crisis.

He only fully comes to terms that Sousuke is gone when he visits his mom and sees first hand the impact of his death.

He processed and mourned Sousuke’s death, he can truly separate them now, but things are still far from simple.

What exactly is his relationship with Mitsuba? It isn’t as easy to understand as his relationship with Sousuke.

Let’s see how his wishes manifest to illustrate it. This is his wish with Sousuke:

It’s the wish to have been a good friend to Sousuke while he was alive. Depending on where you read, the translations may be ‘you were my friend’ or you ‘are my friend’ but regardless, it has Sousuke wearing his death clothes and thanking Kou, which shows that Kou has moved on. He has accepted his death, no longer wishing for Sousuke to come back to life.

His wish with Mitsuba may start simple enough: Kou wants to be missed, to be wanted.

But grows out of control very quickly.

It’s strange. Dangerous.

It’s important that when the Fake shows up in the red house he is a supernatural, not a human like Mitsuba wishes to be. The fake also wants Kou to fulfill his promise from picture perfect and die so they can be together, which is something Mitsuba rejected, angry with Kou for his reckless behavior.

This wish to stay by his side forever is purely Kou, though it’s not as simple as Kou wanting to die: Keep in mind that many of the house wishes are merely things Kou subconsciously wants because it would give him an easy answer to a dilemma he is being troubled by: Like when the house materialized an evil Hanako telling him to “exorcise me before I kill everyone” because all his problems would have been easier to solve if the world was more black and white.

If dying, ending it all, really was a deep wish of his the house would have shown him an easy way to die: For better or worst, the house is very straight to the point with its temptations, when Kou wished for a legendary weapon that would ‘save senpai in a flash’ the house gave him exactly what he asked for, when he got hungry it showed him food, so if he seeked death itself, even if subconsciously, the house would offer him a noose or a drop as high as a school building, not something so tied to the idea of being wanted, to Mitsuba trusting and believing in Kou.

Kou has very little self-worth and sees his own life as a disposable tool for others, but I do not believe being willing to die and wanting to die are the same. He mostly wants an answer about what to do with Mitsuba, he wants to be the one with the solution to his problems more than he wants to make Mitsuba human, and the only solution he can come up with is to become a supernatural, so the red house gave him exactly what he wants: a solution of his own making.

Kou is very self-centered, the Fake may be twisted, but Kou had always accidentally distorted his relationship with Mitsuba, the unease he felt facing the fake is likely because it isn’t what he expected to see, but it isn’t alien either, it’s similar to things Kou has thought before:

Now, Kou doesn’t want Mitsuba to be helpless, to consume his life, he have no malicious intentions whatsoever, but he does want to be needed. Kou is desperate to be needed.

He feels like he is never seen as reliable: He had bonding moments with Nene on many occasions but she has Hanako, whose actions are morally questionable at times but he does get results, unlike Kou. Teru loves him but kept him in the dark about the exorcist world for his whole life, Tiara loves him but Kou seems to be under the impression her favorite bro is clearly Teru, and anyone else wouldn’t pick him as their first choice.

In contrast, Mitsuba is very attached to him, Mitsuba has a wish that he had asked Kou to grant him, and Kou had attached himself to Mitsuba just as much as he has grown attached to the idea that Mitsuba needs him.

Kou’s wish to be with Mitsuba and his deep wish to be needed are interconnected, Kou wants so so much to help him, to not be a disappointment again, that he became obsessed. Ironically, while Kou wants to be trusted, he doesn’t trust himself, and this determination to grant his wish blinds Kou from bonding and granting Mitsuba’s wish for friends. Kou does have good intentions but he is doing what he wants, he is not paying attention to Mitsuba.

Kou doesn’t want Mitsuba to worry, Kou wants to help, and he can’t see his lack of self preservation hit Mitsuba too. I personally think Kou is aware his selflessness is inherently selfish but he hates that part of himself, because he rejected all his wishes in the red house but was able to admit to himself later they are his wishes.

He seem to acknowladge this but still reject it, cause he keeps doing the same mistakes: He may have apologized for jumping in picture perfect but he keeps missing Mitsuba’s intentions.

He is at his most selfish with Mitsuba and yet, I have no doubts he genuinely cares about him.

When he does see Mitsuba again, he is happy he is ‘good’ and he has both a heavy romantic energy and a noticeable distance. In hindsight, I’m not surprised he called him an acquaintance.

Kou likes him but he isn’t sure if is because of Mitsuba or because Mitsuba reminds him of Sousuke, so Kou had put a mental block on the idea of them being friends. Mitsuba very existence was born out of his failure with Sousuke, and have a big tie with Kou’s self worth. Any romantic feelings he has are being suppressed, and yet they do have a connection outside Sousuke. Kou is so focused on not disappointing Mitsuba he sabotages a lot of chances of connecting with him.

So what are they? It’s not as simple as ‘not quite friends and not quite lovers’, they are deeply affected by each other but know so little of the other they are basically strangers. They put their wishes on each other (”I want friends” “I want to be needed”) and yet misread what they are expected to give. They want connection and are afraid of not being as important to the other as the other is for them: They are a loving and tragic mess.

I am not surprised Kou had a breakdown when Mitsuba told him to exorcise him.

At this point, Kou is able to see Mitsuba as his own person/monster, so I feel like the request to be exorcised doesn’t make him remember Sousuke’s death, but it does bring back Severance trauma: We haven’t seen a Sousuke flashback in ages, but we got plenty of little panels of Mitsuba in the severance from Kou’s pov.

Outside the distress of Mitsuba wanting to die after Kou just got him back, it’s important that Kou focuses on how he needs to eat to survive after the severance, and instead of being disgusted as Mitsuba expected, Kou takes it as a personal attack, as a declaration Mitsuba also has Tsukasa to rely on.

Kou doesn’t care that Mitsuba is a monster, it was one of the main things he used to differentiate him from Sousuke, is old news, but he does care that Mitsuba still wants to be human but have gave up on ever being one. By doing so, Mitsuba indirectly admits that he doesn’t believe Kou can grant his wish, which is a promise that Kou had put a lot of his self-worth in, so it feels like Mitsuba doesn’t need Kou.

The only thing Mitsuba seems to need Kou for is to exorcise him.

Kou needs to handle both the realization Mitsuba wants to die and that he doesn’t believe in him, that’s more than enough to break him. Add in all the repressed feeling he have, both of friendship and romance, and dear lord, please help this kid.

These two have so many communication problems I hope they talk in the next chapter.

#tbhk #I hate tbhk fans please keep going I love analyses

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