#GNJSNIENE LIKE REALLY

[vixy-exists]

I think you should talk about them!! Be unhealthy about them!! I wanna read it :D

I don’t think you know what you got yourself into, anon. But aaaaaaaaaaaaa thank you in advance for enabling me to talk about one of my favourite things in the world!!

(Stuff under the cut!! Warning though, it’s like +2000 words and I get into headcanons and some pretty dark stuff too! I hope it's worth reading though :'D)

(I started an essay like… back on October 11th so Imma expand on that a bit. Also, I go into some character analysis and some headcanons connecting to that and how those things would interact and intertwine with each other!)

Okay, so

They first started out as a random crack pairing between me and my friend as a joke +2 years ago. Like literally just going “Wouldn’t it be funny if they kissed”? Then I started writing a fic about them and drawing and thinking about them more and aaaaaaaaaa. They have so much potential together – both as just friends and as lovers too!! Also, yeah, the ship name KazNaka came from said friend, though I also have been calling them Kazkemi somewhat, because I think it’s cute :)

They both have the same interests but different backgrounds and different ways of thinking. This makes them fit well together but be different enough to be interesting. For example, their love for computers or their interest in demon summoning. It’s stated in some interviews that one of the reasons why SMT 1 could happen and why Kazuya downloaded the Demon Summoning Program (or DSP as I’ll call it from now on) is because he never had a father or a father figure. He wants that power associated with a father – here, the power of demons. But what would he do with that? In the game, it feels more like Kazuya uses the program for self-defence – like he doesn’t know what else to do with it. He has the power just not the reason to use it – not until later when he has to fight for his life.

On the other hand, Nakajima is just interested in the occult, probably thinking of the DSP as just a way to flex his genius at first. Yes, he programs it, but he has no reason to use it, to test it, or a reason to finish it (it’s something briefly mentioned in the first book). That’s when his sudden burst of anger after getting beaten up comes in. He now has the motivation to finish it and, (unfortunately), use it. He uses the DSP as a weapon, a thing he can exercise his power with to control people, somewhat satiating his power-hungriness after what Kondo and Kyoko did to him.

It’s similar but different and makes me wonder how they would interact with each other if they were close. Would Nakajima let Kazuya use his program? Would he know better and feel like something bad would happen if he let him? Would he even tell him about it? What would Kazuya think of what Nakajima did at Jusho High? Would he see it as a good way to use something like the DSP or would he condemn it?

We also have their familial backgrounds. As I said before, Kazuya has no father figure, but it’s apparent that he has a good relationship with his mother. It’s almost the exact opposite with Nakajima. Nakajima hates his mother – he hates how she doesn’t have time for him, how she only cares about her work and nothing else. On the other hand, from the first two books, it’s not really apparent what he thinks of his father. All we know is that he’s away in Los Angeles on a work trip. I could imagine him secretly admiring him (like a child longing for his absent father, somewhat idealising him – similar to Kazuya) or I could imagine him having a neutral relationship with him. Either way, he still had his father in his life more than Kazuya – and, on the surface, it looks like they’re a completely healthy family who are also probably well off financially.

If I may also bring some headcanons in here: I like to believe Nakajima has a bad upbringing in general, being neglected and abused mentally – a reason why he would escape into the world of computers and the occult and maybe why his mind tries to protect itself with his fragile arrogance. It’s mostly his mother who is abusive (after all, she’s the one who he sees the most), but his father is not a great person either (it’s just that he's away a lot so Nakajima doesn’t see that side of him often). He doesn’t realise it, of course. He thinks what’s happening is completely normal in most families. He probably doesn’t even understand why he doesn’t like his parents (or, mostly his mother) and thinks it’s just because they are constantly away (which is a reason, but not all of it) and gets confused whenever they act kind towards him. The “how can I hate them so much when they act so kind to me now”, not remembering how bad the past has been.

That’s where Kazuya comes in. I imagine they would both look at each other’s lives and only see the good parts in them. Nakajima still has both of his parents, a father and a role model, he’s well off and goes to a prestigious school. What’s not to envy about that for someone like Kazuya, someone who comes from a poor and broken home? He probably feels weird whenever he visits and sees how better off Nakajima lives or hears him praising his father and how much he works, but he could never say it out loud. It’s jealousy, he knows it, but there isn’t really anything that could fix it, so why say it out loud?

On the other hand, all Nakajima sees is how good of a mother Kazuya has, and how he receives all the love that he has longed for for so long. It’s a feeling he can’t really understand, especially since he doesn’t know the reason why he feels it. It’s a sort of emptiness inside him, eating away at him slowly, agonizingly, but he doesn’t dare to say it out loud. Kazuya doesn’t need to know. He would just think he’s weak, pathetic, completely breaking the image he tried so hard to build up.

I can just imagine them feeling all insecure whenever the other is talking about their family. Kazuya looks at pictures of Akemi’s family, the emptiness his father left eating away at him. Or Nakajima getting welcomed into Kazuya’s family and trying so hard not to cry when receiving normal, healthy parental love for the first time.

Again, different, but similar.

Their personalities, I think, would also work well together. They are opposites. Kazuya is somewhat shy, doesn’t talk much but is a good listener and is capable of understanding people and body language. He would probably be very charismatic if he actually decided to talk to people, but he doesn’t have the bravery for that just yet. (Or, at least I think he’s like that, based on the stuff in the game.) On the other hand, Nakajima is arrogant, is probably confident and also talks a lot but has no one to listen to him. He’s probably shit with actually interacting with other human beings too – something that causes him to not have a lot of friends (in other words, he has no friends at all). No one is patient enough to deal with his bullshit, no one understands his interests nor cares at all – just like with Kazuya. Imagining them trying to interact, to step out of their comfort zone maybe is so fun for me. Like Nakajima finally letting Kazuya speak and nerd out about tech and shit and he discovers how much they truly have in common.

Oh, and coming back to their interests too! It’s mentioned somewhere that Kazuya has a commercially available COMP, but it has several modifications (probably by Kazuya himself). I imagine he’s very into tech but in a different way than Akemi, making them have several topics they can converse about. I like to imagine stuff like Akemi trying to teach programming to Kazuya or Kazuya fixing up one of Akemi’s computers, maybe modifying it a bit. Or the two of them brainstorming video game ideas or maybe even helping each other out with homework and school stuff (either in high school or even later in university). And, back to the occult too, I imagine Akemi knows more about how to practise it (he read one book over and over again and made a program out of it, I imagine that’s all he knows) while Kazuya has more knowledge about demons in general (like types and behaviour and shit). I can imagine Kazuya being the one to help out a bit in the program, making suggestions to improve it and Nakajima promising he will be able to test it out if he’s ever done with it. Of course, that never really happens, but I’ll get into that later.

I also have written a lot of stuff for them so far (it’s not on the internet, but I’m thinking about putting it on AO3 if I manage to organise and rewrite it) and most of what I wanna focus on in my writing (something I don’t think I’m successful in yet) is them growing closer together and healing somewhat – before all the DDSMT shit happens that breaks them apart. So uhh spoilers I guess?

I imagine they start interacting online – Kazuya being interested in the DSP while Nakajima is interested in Kazuya’s occult knowledge – and meet up somewhat after. They are distant from each other, only seeing the surface things, making an ideal picture in their heads before they grow closer together and start to see the cracks in each other’s life. Nakajima sees the bullying Kazuya goes through in school, how lonely he is, how having no father affected him, what being in a poorer family is like and how he escapes into the world of the internet, a place where he could finally forget about his troubles just for a bit. It’s similar to Akemi’s situation too. Kazuya slowly sees how years of abuse affected him, how he had no friends growing up, making him run off into his work and how he barely eats and barely survives because of it. That idealised picture they have of each other and each other’s life breaks and they grow even closer because of it. They can’t solve these issues, but they can help each other deal with them. This could work even if they were just friends, but I like to imagine that Kazuya had deeper feelings from the beginning while Nakajima only develops them as he learns more and more about Kazuya (falling for him harder, of course). And, as they both step out of their comfort zones, they finally start dating, accepting their feelings for each other, finally finding happiness, in each other.

And, of course, comes DDSMT. The thing that brought them together, the Demon Summoning Program, is what breaks them apart. Akemi becomes obsessed with his work again, going back to his unhealthy habits while Kazuya is left there, worried sick for his boyfriend. Nakajima doesn’t want Kazuya hurt, not talking about what he did because of it. He doesn’t realise that’s the reason he’s hurting him. And that’s why he doesn’t mention how he completed the DSP, fearing, that if he did, Kazuya would use it and summon something he can’t handle or leave him (either because he got what he wanted out of the relationship or because he realised how awful Akemi is). Ironic, considering that, because of his arrogance, he did just that – summon a demon he couldn’t handle. (And maybe if he asked for Kazuya’s help prior, things would have turned out much better and he wouldn’t have summoned such a powerful demon like Loki in the first place.)

Meanwhile, Kazuya basically receives constant rejection, locked out of Akemi’s life. He doesn’t understand why this is all happening. They were so well off and now Akemi just doesn’t answer his texts or his calls, he’s barely home and… And when he is, he only talks about this Yumiko girl, someone Nakajima has grown seemingly obsessed with and it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. He assumes what anyone would assume – Akemi just doesn’t love him anymore and is just too much of a coward to say it to his face. So he breaks things off just a day before it turns out Loki was using Nakajima all along. So, in this version, I imagine Nakajima doesn’t even have time to process what Kazuya said to him, only realising what had happened after the whole Megami Tensei stuff. But at least now he has someone to talk it over with, someone who will help him with his feelings and what to do next.

But, while I haven’t gotten that far into writing or planning, I feel like they could make up (that is if the world doesn’t blow up SMT 1 style). Maybe when they both graduate, after all the chaos that their lives brought upon them, they meet up again and maybe, just maybe, they can start again.

That, and I just think two nerds nerding out together about demons and computers is cute. They just make a cute pairing in my opinion :)

I also haven’t gone into all the shit about my headcanons for their relationship or how I’m still debating about if their breakup would be canon (I like my boys wholesome :() and stuff like that. Like how I imagine Kazuya brings some of his mother’s cooking to Akemi, just to get him to eat something for once, or how Akemi makes little games and gifts them to Kazuya or about their insecurities while dating and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa- I should probably stop before I accidentally write a 10000-word essay about them lol.

And, again, thank you so much, anon for letting me ramble on about these two!! Even if this was too much to read :’)