Being in love hurts. It hurts so much. So much more than you could imagine. Especially when you fall for the wrong person. Or fall for more than one. In shuichi's case, both applied. He wasn't ready for the harsh reality of all of this; identity, love, longing and heartbreak. The movies and love stories always made it seem so...rosy. So perfect; like this beautiful, all-encompassing, deep feeling that resounds in your heart and makes you leap with joy. Cute guy loves cute girl, she loves him back; something that spells out a happily ever after. But this case scenario was more complicated. It didn't spell out "joy" or "happy ending" or "marriage" or anything like that.
Why, you ask?
Because it was with a guy. That's right; he'd fallen for a guy.
No, even worse; two guys. Having fallen in love already with his childhood idol and not realized it, it only added insult to injury to fall in love again, this time with someone so close, so attainable⦠and yet still so far out of reach. Why was it out of reach? Because there were endless complications. First off, the guy's a total asshole and Shuichi doesn't even know the first thing about him, let alone if he loves him for real or not or if this love is just some hollow desire of a horny teenager. Second, he was straight (the asshole; not Shuichi, unfortunately: we'll get to that in reason two).
Second, he can't come to terms with any of this madness yet. This whole "being gay" thing. He's afraid of it. If he were to accept it, what then? Wouldn't it hurt more to allow this part of himself to become a solid piece of his inner identity, knowing the reason he can't be himself is because the world doesn't want him? That he's a freak? A screw up? A disappointment to his parents? So he's trying to pretend he isn't; trying to ignore it, though it's so clear, now that he's made these new discoveries (we'll talk more about that even later).
This leads us to the third reason: everyone else. How would his parents feel, knowing he would never marry? Never give them the grandchildren and family that was expected out of tradition? Would they understand? Would they be okay if he fell in love and decided to, against all norms, date a man? No way in hell. They'd already put up with so much from him, being such an abnormal (disappointment of a) son; he wasn't "masculine" enough, he wasn't athletic or any good at sports, he'd never been very good at school, had behavioural issues, and of course, wanted to be a musician; the list goes on. They'd learned to adapt to and accept all these things over time. But this? This might be what finally broke them; what made them cut all ties or worse, blame it on eachother. His parents might get into fights, telling eachother that it's their fault that their son is a homosexual, and before long they'd have to split up, leaving Maiko, his sister, caught up in the aftermath of the explosion, in a broken home. He'd never want that for his sister. She was a good girl, and she had so much going for her: she was pretty, kind, a little silly sometimes and very smart, even if she didn't always reach their parents' standards for grades or school or society's definition for adolescents of success and all the bullshit they say you need to care about.
If worse came to worse, they'd become abusive; to each other or to her. He hated these thoughts, and whenever they crept in at night, when he was most vulnerable to these deep, gut-wrenching discussions with himself about things he'd rather not think about, he'd protestantly push them away. No, he'd think, how could I believe that? They aren't abusive, and they never will be. That's not the kind of people my parents are: neither of them.
But are they really? The other voice would say, intruding once again to plant its ugly seeds of self-hatred and unrelenting doubt. Couldn't they become those types of people? Tragedy changes people. It's not impossible, you know; people think they know someone they love all the time and suddenly they start to change; they change into this monster that you can barely recognize, just like you have. You're a monster for even having these thoughts about your dear, beloved parents! How could you be so unfaithful, so untrusting? After everything they've given you. You ungrateful piece of shit. The already-weakened voice of good would be too tired to fight back (from spending the whole previous day doing so to keep this sense-numbing madness at bay), so he'd give in to this spiraling negative train of thought until he fell asleep with tears staining his cheeks.
As you can guess, he didn't often get a good night's sleep.
