#jean: if i'm too rude to harry it'll upset kitsuragi and i'll get a bad grade in Colleagues. i can't be like harry. i need a good grade.

[57sfinest]

what do you think kim's perspective on jean and harry's old relationship is?

i mean it can't be great, right? i doubt harry will ever remember much that he could tell kim, so kim would have to hear about it directly from jean or from their coworkers (or a mix of both) and regardless he's going to get some really biased answers. i think mostly the other officers would just be like "oh yeah those two crazy homos fought all the time but you never saw them apart. i think mullen swore off women after the last one and decided to start screwing vic instead." which is not especially helpful to kim in figuring out what the dynamic was.

jean would definitely open with telling kim how much harry sucked, warning him off harry, trying desperately to convey to kim that he should NOT make the same mistake and trust him. maybe later, if they've reestablished a little trust, then jean might tell kim some of the better things.

i think kim first and foremost knows that their relationship was deeply unhealthy, but the more he sees of both of them, the more he understands how it came to be. he recognizes their lack of distance and what it did to them. he sees jean's inflammatory behavior and the way harry has to struggle not to rise to the bait sometimes, and it's not hard to imagine those roles reversed. kim won't step in the middle of all their conflicts for them- it's not something he's comfortable with or wants to do, for several reasons- but he's a good mediating presence for them. just being around kind of makes them both take a step back and reevaluate whether they *really* want to get into it, jean because he clearly has respect for kim and doesn't want to look bad in his eyes, and harry because he is a sopping wet beast who thinks that doing something kim disapproves of will mean kim leaves forever and kim is his first (and probably only, at this point) bestie.