Dungeon Meshi is about Kabru trying to solve The Trolly Problem. The dungeon is the trolly, and Laios is the switch (and also the victim.)
Please note that this post isn't for or against any ship, I'm simply trying to explain what actually happens in canon, as opposed to the funny memes that people like to joke about.
I've seen people describe what happens between Kabru and Laios in Dungeon Meshi as either "playing yaoi mind chess/tennis" or "one guy is playing chess and the other guy is eating the pieces, and the chess player doesn't understand why he's losing", however, I don't think EITHER of those things come even remotely close to what happens in Dungeon Meshi.
A chess game is being played, and Kabru is involved, but Laios is a pawn, not a player.
The dungeon on the island, and the island itself, has been fought over by the western elven empire and the eastern dwarves/gnomes for a very long time. The fact that the region is currently at peace is an anomaly, the normal state has been war, most likely for thousands and thousands of years, since the time of the Ancients.
That is because the northwestern corner of the Eastern Continent is the border region between the elves and the dwarves/gnomes and that is why there is a solid line of dungeons dividing the world there. The dungeons are essentially evidence of ancient trench warfare between the opposing groups.
The elves have been trying to invade the east, and the dwarves/gnomes have been trying to keep them out.
In order to stop fighting endless wars over this border, the elves and the dwarves/gnomes have allowed the short-lived races to rule the area, rather than try to claim it for themselves, or allow their enemy to claim it. The island/Golden Kingdom is a textbook definition of a buffer state.
The dwarves/gnomes broke that peace by attacking the Golden Kingdom a thousand years ago, but they failed to conquer the land. The Golden Kingdom vanished, and all that was left behind was the island. The elves assigned governorship of the island to a tall-man family, and the elves and the dwarves/gnomes have been at peace since then.
Six years before the story of Dungeon Meshi begins, an entrance to a dungeon opened on the island, and now the two long-lived groups are interested in taking the island back again, to regain control of the dungeon.
The people of the Golden Kingdom and the orcs are the two local groups that live on the island. There's also the non-local dungeon industry people who live there, a lot of poor people with weapons that are trying to get rich quick by exploiting the dungeon. In other words, adventurers with weapons and nothing to lose.
But what these three groups might want doesn't really matter to the long-lived races. The elves are planning to take back control of the island, and the dwarves/gnomes are preparing to go to war to stop them from doing so.
Kabru is playing chess with them, the elves, the dwarves and the gnomes, to try and place a tall-man figurehead in control of the dungeon. Laios doesn't even know that a chess game is being played, and that he's involved in it. He just wants to help the orcs and the people of the Golden Kingdom, but he doesn't want to be king, and his goals are completely unrelated from everything Kabru is trying to accomplish.
That means Kabru and Laios are not playing a game against each other.
(Spoilers for the rest of Dungeon Meshi beneath the cut)
Kui introduces Kabru as if he were a rival to Laios as a red herring, so that readers worry that this scary guy who is very good at killing people might be coming after Laios and his party.
But that never happens, because he isn't actually Laios' rival or his competition, because they don't want the same things.
Laios wants to save Falin, and, if possible, find a way to live in the dungeon for the rest of his life, like Senshi does, so he can be around monsters and away from human society. He doesn't know that this is impossible until maybe the last dozen chapters of the manga. He believes this is the solution he has been searching for, a way for him to finally be happy.
It's impossible because if dungeons are allowed to continue existing, they will eventually cause the end of the world. Can't keep living peacefully in the dungeon if the world ends and you're dead.
(takes a deep breath)
Kabru wants to make sure the dungeon doesn't collapse and overflow with monsters that will massacre the people on the surface. In his ideal world, all monsters would be extinct. This isn't a rational or feasible goal, and Kabru probably isn't actively pursuing it because he knows it's unrealistic, but all monsters being gone forever is what Kabru wants in his heart.
So a dungeon ruled by someone who wants there to be as many monsters as possible is Kabru's worst nightmare, because it is like a nuclear reactor just waiting to have a meltdown.
Once he learns about Laios' monster obsession, Kabru is afraid such a meltdown is exactly what will happen if Laios conquers the dungeon, even though Laios isn't a bad person. He's afraid Laios' inherent nature will cause a catastrophe.
The obvious solution is to kill Laios to prevent him from getting further involved, but this is incompatible with Kabru's morals. He's willing to kill people, but only if he judges them deserving of death. Laios is weird and antisocial, but he's not malicious or immoral. It would be wrong to kill him, even if doing so potentially could save many lives.
But to complicate matters further, Kabru also has an additional goal: He wants a tall-man to take control the dungeon for political reasons.
Because this hypothetical tall-man will have control over a dungeon, Kabru hopes they will gain the knowledge of how and why the dungeons are so valuable to the long-lived races, and this knowledge will give the tall-man country the power they need to interact on an equal level with the long-lived races, something that currently doesn't happen.
When the world leaders discuss what to do in Dungeon Meshi, only elves, dwarves and gnomes are present. No other races are involved in the conversation.
Kabru wants a tall-man ruled kingdom to be a part of deciding global policy, something they are currently denied.
Kabru does not care who the tall-man who conquers the dungeon is, he originally wanted to do it himself, but he realized that he was very bad at exploring the dungeon, and so he began searching for anyone who could do it for him. Whoever conquers the dungeon, Kabru intends to place himself near them and find a way to control what they do, or even replace them with himself or someone else who he finds more suitable, if necessary.
Kabru decides to push Laios to conquer the dungeon not because he thinks Laios will do a good job (he doubts it up till the very last chapter of the manga, and he's constantly afraid of what Laios' monster obsession will lead to), but because Laios is the only option Kabru has left, and he has run out of time.
The elves have arrived and they are trying to claim the dungeon for themselves. The dwarves/gnomes are preparing for war with the elves to resume.
Kabru clearly expresses that he is only pushing Laios to conquer the dungeon as a temporary solution, and that he will figure out what to do with Laios later, once the threat of the long-lived races is over.
Meanwhile: Laios does not want to rule a dungeon, an island, or a country.
He ran away from home to avoid having to run a small village, and though he wants to help Yaad, the people of Merini and the orcs, he does not want to be king. He's hoping that he can somehow help them and leave afterwards.
Laios doesn't pay attention to politics until the orcs and then Yaad make him start thinking about them. He most likely has never thought about global politics, and has never imagined a world where tall-men hold power outside of small, rural kingdoms with no international influence. For most ordinary people, such ideas would probably seem revolutionary, crazy and impossible.
At the end of the manga, the island has suddenly lost its primary value (the dungeon). It is no longer essential for the long-lived races to immediately control it. They can wait and see what happens next, if the dungeon is going to come back or not, and make their next move whenever it suits them.
Laios becomes king because he is the only person that all the groups involved can agree upon. Allowing a tall-man to rule is just a return to the status quo of the past, which the long-lived races were happy with for a long time.
Most likely the long-lived races think that Laios is no better and no worse than any other random tall-man they could allow to rule the territory. They would have been equally happy with the old governor, or Yaad, or anyone else. The only benefit of choosing Laios is that they don't have to force the Golden Kingdom, the orcs, or the huge amount of armed adventurers who have suddenly become unemployed (and probably outnumber the elves and the dwarves/gnomes) to accept him.
They want to keep the mob pacified, and themselves out of a war.
But none of this is because anyone aside from Yaad and the orcs, and a few random adventurers think that Laios is particularly wonderful. Yaad believes in a false prophecy that says Laios should be king, and the orcs believe that Laios is the only potential ruler that won't eventually carry out a genocide against them, so of course they support making him king.
(It is, apparently, considered normal for humans of all races to kill orcs on sight, so Laios' revolutionary new policy of "leaving the orcs alone" obviously makes him popular with the orcs.)
To all of the world leaders, Laios is simply convenient and will allow them to back down from the war they were about to start, but didn't really want to be fighting.
NOW, to return to Kabru:
When the threat of the dungeon appears to be neutralized at the end of the story, Kabru returns to his original secondary goal: he wants a tall-man to take over the Golden Kingdom, rather than let the elves, dwarves or gnomes have it. The new Golden Kingdom's access to the remains of the dungeon may provide political leverage in the future, since nobody KNOWS that the dungeons are actually neutralized and that they'll never come back.
Laios is the only person Kabru can push to take this role, the only one that all the groups involved will accept, and Kabru doesn't care that Laios doesn't want to do it. So Kabru and Yaad immediately recognize that they want the same thing, and they both start pushing Laios to be king together.
It should be noted though, that even though Kabru makes this choice, during the feast he still has doubts! What if making Laios king leads to the new Golden Kingdom becoming a haven for monsters? What if Laios was the wrong choice?
And Kabru says he will continue to worry about this for the rest of his life. Meaning that he's planning to stay in the kingdom and shepherd it to success, but also that he will never fully trust that Laios won't accidentally cause a monster-fueled massacre. If there's no dungeon to magically breed monsters, maybe Laios will just start importing them the old fashioned way! There's lots of ways an antisocial king that loves monsters could cause problems.
So..... in conclusion: Kabru and Laios aren't playing chess against each other.
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Now, there are two characters that DO play mind chess in Dungeon Meshi: Kabru and Mithrun.
They do this for exactly two chapters, and then they immediately switch to playing cooperative pairs tennis instead, because they realize they (mostly) want the same things, and working together will be more beneficial than working against each other.
Reminder: I am not saying the fact that Kabru and Mithrun play mind chess is "canon proof of yaoi", or the fact that Kabru and Laios don't play mind chess is proof that shipping them is wrong. All I am saying is that Laios and Kabru do not play mind games against each other, and Mithrun and Kabru do. That's all!
I could keep going but I will stop lmao.
If you got this far and you liked reading what I had to say, you should check out my pinned post about the other Dungeon Meshi stuff I write/do.
You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.
The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.
For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.
I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.
Like, this
is funny.
But this?
Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.
The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.
I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:
Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.
And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.
"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.
but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)
mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…
the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.
every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.
first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic
which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.
which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.
the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.
walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?
well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.
you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?
it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.
when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.
and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.
kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.
yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.
The son of Baba Dochia (another folkloric being in our mythology), Dragobete is the patron of love and bringer of spring. His coming is awaited with flowers. His calling is to kiss the girls on this day, 24th of February, because the girl who isn't kissed shall remain single the whole year.
Dragobete, or Dragomir by his first name, is a young god, beautiful, a lover by nature, strong and charming, bringing joy in people's lives. Because no one knew who his father was, they assumed it was the Spirit of the Mountain.
When our loverboy was born, four ursitoare (fairies godmother) came to offer him the most generous of gifts. The first one, Spring, blessed him with love. Summer, the second one, gave him the sweetness of ripe fruits. The third one, Autumn, gave him a flute, to bring joy to those who hear him play, while Winter, the fourth fairy, offered him a white coat, adorned with diamonds and a red belt, sewn with pearls. The coat was designed to grow with the boy, never getting dirty, no matter how much he wore it. Because of these gifts, Dragobete managed to make every girl he wished, fall for him.
As he grew, he took the path of mountains, hearing the call of his parents, to learn all about plants and animals. Which is why, in the folk belief, Dragobete is also the protector of birds and herbs.
Another belief have him turned by his mother into a medicinal plant called Năvalnic. The plant is used in love spells and treating wounds.
to celebrate Dragobete, the girls go in forests and plains in search of the first flowers of spring and hang them on icons to be young and beautiful and keep away all jealousy and bad thoughts sent their way. dried flowers are thrown in a running water on Sânziene day, so all the evils will go away with them. if they found ripe berries, they'd take the flowers and make bouquetes that were put in their water, as they washed their hair while saying „Flori de fragă
Din luna lui Faur
La toată lumea să fiu dragă
Urâciunile să le desparți”. (Berry flowers of the month of February, make it so that everyone likes me, cast away all ugly thoughts and wills from me)
the boys would pick ghiocei (snowdrops) and bring them home, because an old saying goes "as many flowers in your house, as many chickens in your farm"
those who are single on Dragobete, or don't manage to kiss, or the very least touch, a person of romantic interest, are doomed to another year without finding their soulmate.
those who have a partner and spent even a second with them on this day, will be together the whole year.
if you dream of your crush the night of Dragobete, speak to them and their heart shall open for you.
anyone who sees a pupăză (hoopoe) on this day, will be lucky all year long and if you see a pair of birds, you'll always be loved (birds are known to chose a mate this time of year).
early in the morning, young women would also search for remaining snow, melt it and wash their hair and face with it, to have clean skin and healthy hair.
another belief says that if you go on a date on Dragobete and don't kiss, you and that person will break up
as a boy you have to drink a special tea, made with sour cherry brenches to have a chance at love the year that's to come.
if men are mean or fight with women on this day, their spring will be filled with bad luck and they'll have an awful year
everyone should be happy on 24th of February, to honor Dragobete and convince him to bring them a lover
in some places, girls would put busuioc (basil) under their pillows to dream the face of their soulmate
in other parts, girls would run, chased by boys. if a girl was caught and she liked the boy, they'd kiss as everyone watched, which symbolized their wedding in the fall.
and some other places sent their girls – who haven't eaten or washed that morning – to pick popelnic (a type of wood) and wash their hair with it, leaving behind as an offering to the god, bread with salt and eggs. in the meantime, the guys dance in horă (a type of dance where people hold each other in a circle and, well, dance) and pick ghiocei (snowdrop)
Dragobete is, as you might have noticed, quite a pretentious god. on top of it all, he doesn't like you killing or sacrificing animals on his day. nor does he want you to sow, wash anything, iron clothes or work the field. the only work he allows is a deep cleaning of the house
Ok maybe I need to reblog this and put my propaganda in a post and not just the tags lmao anyway...
Where to even start with Kabumisu...
The ending of the manga... Chapter 94. The comic in the new world guide where we learn Mithrun is staying in Merini to protect it from monsters, the one thing in the world Kabru fears above all else!
Kabru, who has never had a home he belonged in, getting to help build a country where he won't be an outsider and treated like a pet, or like garbage... And Mithrun, who DOES NOT have any reason to stay, staying so he can protect that dream. He's not being paid. Nobody asked him to do this. He's going to make sure that this place is safe... Because Kabru is there. Because Kabru saved his life.
Mithrun saying "luckily for us, we've met people who can fill the holes in our hearts..." Obviously he's talking about the rest of his unit, but he's also talking about Kabru, the man who was able to listen to him and understand him, even when everyone else in the world had decided Mithrun was a lost cause, a hollow shell incapable of anything but hatred.
(If Mithrun was only talking about his unit, why did it take so many years for him to get better? If they had filled the hole in his heart, why wasn't he already okay before he arrived in the dungeon? What changed? He met Kabru. He spent a week with Kabru.)
Mithrun learns that he doesn't need to be whole or perfect to deserve to live. And neither does Kabru. They can be imperfect together, and see the beauty in each other's flaws and scars, they can be honest and blunt with each other and not afraid of rejection the way they fear it with everyone else on earth.
Mithrun is going to learn to cook… I wonder who he might like to cook for…. Remember most of the other canaries are leaving unless other arrangements are made. Pattadol probably travels between the two countries. Fleki is possibly staying as Mithrun's household servant, so she'll be helping to cook, not getting cooked for.
Maybe Mithrun wants to cook for Kabru, who tried so hard to make food for him in the dungeon, even though he didn't know how and had no resources to work with? Maybe Mithrun wants to make noodles (and other things) for Kabru?
Yes, Kabru was being blackmailed to feed Mithrun, but he DID NOT have to tell him about his mother (his real mother!!!), or try to make the food good. He knew Mithrun wouldn't care and would eat whatever slop he gave him. But he made an effort anyway. He shared something personal with Mithrun. He was kind to Mithrun.
That obviously meant something to Mithrun, since at the end of the manga when Kabru talked to him he listened even when he wouldn't listen to anybody else.
Kabru tells Mithrun: you are not broken beyond repair and everyone who tells you that is full of shit. I spent a week with you in hell and I can see that you have feelings! I can see that you're alive and you have so much potential! So please, won't you try? Just try to live.
And Mithrun says ok. I'll try. You're right. Maybe I can help someone else, and maybe that's enough reason to keep living.
It is one of the most important story arcs in dungeon meshi: recognizing your bad traits (obsession and self-neglect) in someone else and realizing you can help them…. and by helping them, realizing that YOU also have a problem, and that you can't keep on living the way you have been.
Maybe Mithrun doesn't just want to make the country safe, maybe he wants to help make it a home for Kabru (the person who helped fill the hole in his heart...), where someone who cares about him prepares him meals and looks after him every day.
Mithrun has never had a loving home either. Just a cold family with judgemental parents that neglected their oldest son because he was disabled and not beautiful or smart enough to be worth their attention... and Mithrun, who tried so hard to be perfect, and then also became disabled and "ugly", and became worthless to the family. A family where love is conditional, and if you can't fulfill your role, you're ignored and thrown away.
Maybe he dreams about making a real home in this land of short-lived people, where he met a strange tall-man who said "Please don't give up. I want you to live."
They can become each other's homes, they can understand each other on a deeper level than anyone else, because of how alike they are.
Kabru is NOT "an evil nice guy" like some fandom people 👀 claim him to be. Yes, he talks in a manipulative way, but WITHOUT any ill intent. He's definitely NOT evil. Words have meanings.
His actions are carried out for the better good, his bane of existence is sacrificing himself to avoid a dungeon massacre at all costs!!!!!!! He's never quite living for himself, nor saying what he actually feels deep down in his heart, he's in a constant survival mode. THAT is why he goes "I need to kill Laios". He doesn't hate him, he doesn't feel anything for Laios in particular, he only has the goal of protecting humanity from monsters in his mind.
And if Laios is a wild card he can't really understand (and therefore constantly thinks about), Mithrun is his only hope. Mithrun was the first one who actually listened to him, who TRUSTED him, who SAVED him from the shadow governor and KEPT ON BELIEVING IN HIM.
THAT is why Kabru jumped down to save Mithrun. That is why they talked together SINCERELY. FOR THE FIRST TIME THEY COULD TALK WITHOUT ANY NEED TO HIDE THEIR TRUE FEELINGS. That is why they took care of each other beyond the obligations. They both finally found the one who could truly listen and give meaning to THEIR WHOLE EXISTENCE.
They are not just surviving to kill the demon or to save humanity, now. They're finally alive for themselves. They found the reason. They found love ❤️
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