#Also includes admission of smth i thought i was not able to do

[rosepetals-v]

Never mind, I'm reading rn.

[trashlie]

oh you're 100% correct, i have nothing to add. a character doesn't have to be personable, relatable, likeable etc to be interesting and to drive the story forward. and i think ily does a great job at giving us enough information about the characters' backgrounds, motivations, fears, etc, to be able to view the story from different perspectives.

thx for the link to the thread <3 i think your theories make a lot of sense. i absolutely agree with you both that it's likely that kou will fail as the cfo, it's been hinted at multiple times. just in my opinion though, him realizing that being the heir isn't fulfilling him... doesn't seem like it'd be enough to break him free... like, even if we completely remove his motivation to please rand from the equation, being the heir is still his obligation, something he was born to do - whether it's his calling or not is secondary. and tbh i feel like his cultural background might play into it too. in the west, sure, children are more free to follow their dreams, do what they want. but in other places including east asia, children have certain obligations to their families, their own personal wishes are not as important. and even if culture is not a part of it, it's a status thing. he's not inheriting a small business, he's inheriting a megacorp that's been in his family for generations. he knows his family works differently. he knows people would give everything to be in his position. he knows there's a certain pressure from his family to take on this role. also. if he doesn't follow into rand's footsteps, then who? nol?? kousuke would never let that happen. yui would NEVER let him give up that position. i don't disagree with you and the person over on reddit, i just think this is a realization kou might come to much later. he'd have to be free from yui's control first, though.

i also wonder how much yujing exposing smth about the hiraharas/the company will affect kousuke. he already knows about yui's methods and it seems like he just… accepts it, makes use of it even (like when he told yui about nol's plans to study abroad, he knew exactly what he was doing). and it makes me think that he also knows that the family/company has skeletons in their closet, even if he doesn't know exactly what they are. kousuke is a business man. a capitalist. his morals mostly revolve around 'this will benefit the business/this will be bad for the business'. i feel like even if something horrible is exposed about the company/family, he'll try to rationalize it somehow. i just don't think he's at a point where he has the backbone to turn on the company/his family. yet.

something i thought of after sending my last ask... it's really interesting that after the fight, kousuke is reliving the incident from years ago when nol (allegedly) attacked him and was labeled as troubled/unstable/violent/dangerous. isn't it peculiar that this is what's replaying in his mind, rather than, say, him almost killing nol, or what they just talked about, or the phone call with rand? my gut is telling me that we are being shown this for a reason.

so… my own theory is that this incident with him attacking and almost killing his brother will be made public, and that this time kousuke will be labeled as unstable, dangerous, violent - just like nol was in the past. wouldn't that be ironic too, after all the time warning people that nol is troubled and dangerous? after trying so hard to be better than nol, to be rational and perfect? after saying (during the fight in minhyuk's room) that he's never laid a finger on nol? the media has already been reporting on nol's case, so they'll probably find out that his admission to jail will be delayed (my guess is he'll be in the hospital for a couple of days at least). there'll be questions, rumours, and there are plenty of witnesses too. even if people don't understand exactly what happened between the brothers, they know kousuke made nol fall from the second floor, then chased after him, then nol ended up in the hospital in a bad enough condition to delay his admission. maybe i'm dramatic, but if that doesn't look like attempted murder, then i don't know.

rand is facing a big dilemma now as well. if he covers it all up, it'll send nol (and all the witnesses including shinae&friends) the message that nol is insignificant to him, and that the chairman is not beyond using questionable methods to cover things up. on the other hand, if he lets kousuke take the blow, it'll worsen his relationship with kousuke, and significantly tarnish the company's image. both hirahara brothers getting violent in the span of just a couple of weeks? absolutely devastating for the family's reputation and the business. it's a lose lose situation. and how would kousuke take it if he knows it's his fault? when the public, the partners, the investors, etc start thinking that the future heir is unstable? sure, i guess he can try to turn it around and blame nol for provoking him, but people saw what they saw, and the result remains the same.

honestly i might be completely wrong though!! there's so many ways it all could play out, and i'm curious what you think about my theory. i'm also starting to think that i'll not be a single event, but a combination of various things that'll make kousuke crash and burn. i saw a rumor that kousuke's growth will be the second half of s2, but i'm not sure if it's true. like you, i'm very interested in the time skips though, and where he'll be in a couple of months, and in a couple of years. - lil anon 💗 (btw i'll be gone for a couple of days, so i'll leave you alone for now. have a good sunday. take care!)

oh sorry i think i forgot to draw a proper conclusion to my theory oops ;; anyways basically i feel like the incident with him almost killing nol will severely tarnish his public image, make him question the past incident that lead to nol being taken away (and yui's part in it), and eventually make him come to some very uncomfortable conclusions about himself and his made-up reality. we even saw in one of the panels that the ground underneath him was starting to crack and split in two. he'll probably try to continue on as he did and keep up his usual appearances to the people around him/at work for as long as he can, and try to repair his image/reputation... but the incident will definitely be eating away at him. especially if other things like him failing as the cfo, yujing's expose, etc add on to that.

anyways that's all for now. like i said i'll be gone for a while, so please don't feel pressured to reply quickly. take your time. byeeee <3 - lil anon

I took some time to reply to this - since you said you'd be gone for a little bit, but also because it's such a GOOD, long ask I wanted to be sure I could give it all the attention I could, because you make some REALLY compelling points that I definitely want to get into! I really hoped to have this answered, you know, a few days ago lol but I had the most HARROWING last couple days lol bUT I'M HERE NOW!!!!!!

I really love what you have to say! I hadn't thought too much of how the media will cover this - I tend to focus so much on emotional sides of things and when it comes to logical parts of plot lmao it's the asks like yours that really help me out! The fact that Rand pointedly wanted to keep this quiet, too, makes me feel like it's a nod to potential fall out from this.

There's something that is so tragic and fascinating about the possible irony of Kousuke being the one labeled a violent person, ESPECIALLY if it turns out Nol never really was - and I still stand by that thought so far, or at least that Nol didn't attack unprovoked. (I saw a very interesting thought, btw, on reddit, that I haven't fully digested, but someone pointed out quimchee once said Nol's near-sightedness plays a role in the story, or would come to, and they went on to note that, yknow, Kousuke and Yui are nearly identical and is it possible that Nol could have had an altercation with HER thinking it was him? But of course what does that make of Kousuke in that flashback and the huff huff huff? Anyway just a little thing I want to throw out there that I haven't really made up my mind on yet lol.)

We've seen Nol and Kousuke heavily foiled a lot, and especially as we get deeper into it as we have been, learning how much Kousuke resented the traits Nol possesses that he doesn't, the fact that it seems like Kousuke's entire recollection of whatever happened is completely fabricated because he can't handle the truth ("Sometimes those that experience trauma create falsified memories to cope"), wouldn't it be just such an inverse parallel for Kousuke to be labeled a violent person, except on reasonable grounds this time? I definitely had not considered that possibility, but now that you've mentioned it, it's been sitting at the back of my mind and I've been thinking over it the last week or so.

I definitely think something like that could be the crack that makes him start coming to - or at least confronting - those uncomfortable realizations, because right, it needs to be something that shakes him up. And I think, especially if Yujing's expose has anything to say for it - and I imagine it might because why else were we shown Yujing looking at that article - it would at the very least bring him to crossroads with his relationship with Yui and that made up reality of his.

A lot of the way he talks to Nol feels like he's projecting - the way he's always accusing him of starting the fights, of being difficult when he's not, things like that, which have always felt like that readjustment of Kousuke's reality. Nol is the difficult one, so he always believes he is. And thus, the more we learn about it, the more I wonder if Nol ever was the attacker, or if it was just in defense that Kousuke was able to warp the violence and attack, if it was something that Yui fed into. I just can't get over her "You won't have to see that awful boy for a while." It just seems too much like her hand is in this, right?

If he comes to that uncomfortable realization that maybe the things he believes, the things he's been projecting were never about Nol, he'd absolutely crumble and god I think it would mess him up even more than he already is? And like, he's pretty badly off lol. Would he ever be able to continue his job when his world is literally unraveling? Again, I'm SO CURIOUS where we're going to find Kousuke after our time skips, because I think there's a lot of potential to really rattle him up coming out.

And yes, like you said about Yujing's expose, I've also wondered about the way it will affect Kousuke. I wonder how much of it is about Yui as opposed to the Hiraharas in general as a family - which admittedly is mostly Yui, but certainly contains Kousuke in this regard. And now adding what looks like attempted murder into the books makes it so hard to separate him from Yui, even if he does usually try to distance himself from her. It makes it look like he's following right in her footsteps, that he's just like she is.

But also I think Kousuke having to contend with the reality of his mother is definitely one of those contributing factors to breaking him down. The thing I'm coming to realize about him is that he seems to operate on two levels - or maybe this is just how he makes sense to me? When he was arguing with Nol in the party, he was playing dumb, deflecting and throwing things back at Nol. And it was similar earlier in the night, after Nol's pool jump. Kousuke actively rewrites the story, but he IS aware of the reality, because he said so much in 212 after he'd chased down Nol.

Kousuke KNOWS he has actively tried to tear Nol down. He KNOWS he's sabotaged his happiness at every turn because he couldn't bear for one moment for Nol to possibly excel to possibly contend with him. He was already so jealous of all the traits Nol possesses that Kousuke never has, how could he bear to let Nol know Rand's love, too? How could he bear for Nol to be the one Rand was proud of. So it's like... what is Kousuke aware of and what isn't he? I think when it comes to the belief that Nol is violent and vicious, that is real - he truly believes that because that experience was so traumatic to him he rewrote that memory. But what about Yui? Because you are right - he knows what she is capable of and has absolutely knowingly sabotaged Nol via her. But when Shinae calls her a wrench, he got SO upset. Like, disturbing his reality upset. Sometimes I wonder if it's a similar thing, where on some level he knows what Yui is and what she does and thus has an inkling that maybe she's done it to him, but because he cannot handle that kind of thought, that possible truth, he has to rewrite it? idk idk the needs a lot of lmao therapy to unpack everything he's dealing with.

I feel like i've probably gotten really off topic but lmao to try to get back on: I think you are right and this could be one of the things that really cracks that foundation. I think Yujing's piece, too, can get a rise out of him even if it's just that it's an attack on his mom, on his family name, on his family company because you are right - these are his identity, this is how he sees himself. Even if he doesn't have any joy working, even if it ever starts to feel like a prison sentence, this is his role, this is what he was born for, he's the inheritor of the family fortune. But what does any of that mean if the Hirahara name is smeared? What does it mean if the media starts looking into their practices? We know there's a whole side story going on involving Yui and drugs (the implications that something involving medications and tea, Nol's time in the mental facility and his extreme aversion to medication, providing Sangchul date-rape drugs for.... "recreation") and there definitely seems to be an angle between this and Yujing's friend, the one she mentioned to Shinae who'd been through a similar experience. I think this is where it all beings, too - Yujing wanting to help her friend and started digging around and the leads brought her to Yui. (There's a really heinous theory that involves Yui, daterape drugs, and Kousuke that could have culminated in his fall out with his friends but god I don't want that one to be true because it's truly awful and involves Yui, once again, invading Kousuke's privacy and pushing him into uncomfortable situations. Like just thinking about it makes me feel sick.)

What I'm getting at is it's very possible that there could be a story trail there, that could definitely make the public opinion on the Hiraharas and their company turn sour and lose rank. What is Kousuke if he doesn't have that? Who is he if that identity because something ugly, a mark he cannot remove? That coupled with the potential for the media to learn of his violent altercation with his brother? WOOF.

It's funny you mention that about his growth being in s2 because I'm pretty sure i remember quimchee saying some time back that Kousuke's growth had already started - don't quote me on this but my brain connects it to the time when Kousuke was trying to win Shinae's trust with the beaver. But I think what you've heard is right and while the growth has BEGUN it won't happen until later, that we have some events to get through before Kousuke can even begin to CONTEND with the uncomfortable truths he needs to face.

I think Shinae definitely kickstarted Kousuke's growth, in that she has made him face the way he treated Nol, the ways he failed him, and she remains a reminder of this even as recently as 141! But it's only kickstarted, the wheels are turning but they aren't going fast enough yet. Kousuke admitting those fears of his, acknowledging how he tore Nol down so he could never get ahead? I think that's definitely part of it - but it's just a fraction of what he needs to do, and unfortunately he has to break some more to get there.

I'm... really nervous for him and Yujing's article, ngl, because there's a lot that I don't think Kousuke is ready to face, and the idea of the family name and business being tarnished absolutely affects him as that is his entire identity. But also what you said about this altercation ALSO makes me nervous. Supposing the news gets out, Rand has to make a choice that feels like he's choosing between his sons - and also he's got to be strategic because of Yui. It's easy to play off helping Nol and his case as being done for the family, lest Nol embarrass the family even more. But this dilemma isn't that easily played off - if he lets Kousuke take that blow, it affects the company image and name, and that's an attack against Yui. Rand has a dedication to them, and it's his duty to protect their image at al costs. Something in 218 makes me wonder if he WOULD cover it up and continue to send that message of Nol's insignificance - a very nihilistic outlook of what does it matter if he tries or not isn't it better for Nol to believe this anyway? Isn't it better to protect the family? But also!!!! The other point you made - and I think something we were talking about last week - is if it's found that Rand covered up something like this, it aligns him in the public's eye with Yui, that he is cut from the same cloth, that he, too, will stoop to whatever level to get what he wants in the name of the company. Maybe it wouldn't come out now - maybe it would come out as part of Yujing's piece - the idea of Rand sacrificing himself in order to bring down Yui. If the public learns that he covered up a violent situation between his sons, if he hid his son's instability, all of this just plays into those blows.

Anyway WOOF this is long and I'm sorry I feel like it's not a satisfactory response but I REALLY LOVE what you sent in and I think there's a LOT to think about and that you are probably on to something. I think the likelihood of Kousuke - at some point, perhaps not just yet in this moment - being labeled as the violent, unstable person that he's labeled Nol is quite high and it feels narratively in line with the ways they've been pit against each other. I think it also is a big enough event to shake things up enough FOR Kousuke to contend with the things he's not ready to face, to come to grips with those very uncomfortable truths. I fear he has a LOT of turbulence ahead, which, I think makes sense, actually, because we've been watching Nol LITERALLY go through it, and we have to assume at some point the truth will come out, and it will be revealed that he never was what the public made of him. And I think to get there, we're going to have to watch Kousuke tumble.

It's gonna be ROUGH ;A; lol