Seiji looks a little contemplative, and then smiles at him and tells him it’s okay and that he should laugh because the situation is ridiculous. The other main choice that surprised me was when Daichi tries to hold back his tears thinking about hurting Seiji during day 7 and ends up spilling his fears. The endings aren’t marked as such, but to get the “good ending”, Daichi has to be strong for his friend and not rely on him entirely. There might have been an ulterior motive, too, and obviously Seiji didn’t hate it because he came first, but he’s able to get off just fine without kissing Daichi, and that’s what ending F requires. Now, I think he did it because he knew that’s what Daichi needed, the same way that he knew that they’d have to stand face to face to be able to get off. I had no idea what he was thinking at the time. Somehow I managed to miss all of the kissing scenes, so I was super shocked when I replayed to get onto route 2 proper and Seiji kissed Daichi during a moment of hesitation on day 6. The first ending I got was ending D and I tried to be all over the place with my responses so I wasn’t hooked onto an interesting ending, which worked. A poor person who has been abused for a significant portion of his life with almost zero support network is going to have very different needs than a rich person with a loving family and very likely career prospects in the future, so it’s to be expected that Daichi would rely on Seiji more.) (For the record, I don’t think that dynamic at the start of the game is either of their faults. Daichi obviously feels the same way, but I think that because he’s so used to relying on Seiji so much that in some ways it’s harder for him, even if he wants Seiji to rely on him more than anything… hence routes 1 and 2. He doesn’t hate taking care of Daichi – on the contrary, while in what way is debatable, he definitely loves Daichi and wants him to be safe and happy even at the cost of his own mental and physical health – but it’s hard on him (especially in the hotel) and he takes responsibility for things that aren’t his fault.
Seiji was the only one, for a significant portion of Daichi’s life, that actually gave a shit about what happened to him. It takes a special kind of person to go out of your way to help a friend get all their legal stuff together after getting abandoned by their parents and then force them to work hard so they don’t drop out of school in despair. I think he probably thinks it’s his responsibility, too, and also that it’s something he’s used to doing – being thrust in the caregiver role in their friendship. I didn’t realize it at first because he’s so stoic, but he’s really a great guy and tries his best to look out for Daichi. In a lot of ways, I think route 2 is the key to understanding Seiji, and not just because of the only POV switch in the game being at the beginning of the branch. Isn’t that what friends are supposed to do? As I found out, in this case – no, because there’s a lot more going on than that. Why is this a bad route? Daichi was being honest with his feelings towards Seiji and vocalizing any concern that he had, while also trying to treat Seiji nicely (erm, with the exception of coming in his mouth). With that in mind… when I first played route 2 (which was the first route I actually completed), I was wildly confused until I got to the exclusive H-scenes. I forget what exactly his wording was, but I think Amemiya described the routes as Daichi snapping, Seiji losing himself to despair, and then them getting out together as friends.
Although, again, maybe this shouldn’t be surprising, given that Seiji shaped a lot of Daichi’s adolescence. This probably shouldn’t surprise me as much as it did, but given the way most VNs are written (ie – unrealistically, with characters interacting in ways that they probably never would in real life), I was caught off guard when I found out that Seiji shares a lot of the same values as Daichi does. Seiji and Daichi are actually pretty alike, but they express their insecurities differently. It might be partially because the first time, I was reading through it pretty fast and was high on adrenaline (and also was half-expecting some twist where he was out to get Daichi), but I found him a little bit easier to read the second time I read through some scenes, and now I feel fairly confident as to what he’s really like and why he acted the way he did in most of the routes and endings. The title of this post was what I was thinking for most of the game, honestly.
Major spoilers for all routes and endings in this post (and NSFW text), but I wanted to talk about our bespectacled friend for a minute.
0 kommentar(er)
