Emma and Draken:
Figthing for love VS Protecting out of love
Please, before you read, consider that, as always, everything I'm about to say is just my humble opinion based on my personal interpretation of the characters and their story, it's not necessarily true or correct. So, let's start.
Chapter 108: Emma urges Hina to go to Takemichi to make up (since Takemichi had broken up with Hina after meeting her father). Here's what Emma says at some point:
This got me thinking. If I decontextualize these lines for a moment, there's more to them, as if Emma was obviously giving her friend a good advice, but she was also implicitly expressing how she'd like the things between her and Draken to go. She's probably the kind of person who would put transparency over everything else, especially when it comes to feelings. And she actually acts like that, she has no problem admitting and showing her love for Draken throughout the story. This also made me think that Emma possibly oscillates between the fear that he doesn't love her back and the benefit of the doubt, since sometimes Draken does things that leave little room for interpretation. I mean, when Emma tries to make him jealous she says that he's only interested in Mikey, bikes and fights, implying that he's not interested in her, whereas when she gets the birthday present from him her reaction is crystal clear, she senses that Draken's gesture is not one of a person whose heart has no special feelings for her. What I'm trying to say here is that Emma is not totally oblivious, she's confused by Draken's behaviors, she just can't tell whether he loves her or not. She's probably more convinced that it's an unrequited love, yet not completely sure about it. This interpretation seems more likely and realistic to me. I mean, human beings are never so radically and firmly convinced about things, no matter how desperate they are, they can tell when something's there, even though it's just hope that makes them delusional or even though they don't know how to call it. Come on, I think Emma wonders why Draken goes out with her, gives her birthday presents and goes back to arcades to win some pretty teddy bears she wanted, as much as she wonders why he's so reluctant to express his feelings, the point is that she ends up thinking that he's not interested in her, because it's the simplest explanation. How happy would she be if Draken confessed his feelings? How happy would Emma be if Draken fought for their love the way she's always tried hard to win his heart? Little does she know how much Draken struggles, too. The thing is Emma has her own idea of love: apparently, according to her, love is something you fight for, and indeed shortly before in the same chapter, when Hina tells her what happened between Takemichi and Mr. Tachibana, Emma answers:
Here Emma acknowledges what must've been Takemichi's difficulty in that circumstance, yet in the end she doesn't accept the possibility that someone doesn't go against everything and everyone for love, she eventually puts fighting for love over sacrificing one's feelings for the sake of the other. If I bring back my own theory (according to which Draken doesn't confess his feelings in order to protect Emma because otherwise she would become a more easy target for delinquents than she already is as Mikey's sister) and if I consider this theory true for a moment, then I can state that Draken's logic when it comes to love is diametrically opposed to Emma's. She'd rather fight for love, he'd rather repress his feeling of love in order to protect her. These two basically love each other, taking paths that, by their nature, can never meet. Tragic, isn't it? And, indeed, when in chapter 109 Hina and Takemichi have finally made up before their eyes in a cute and dramatic way, Emma genuinely cries out of happiness for her friends, but I think somehow she's also externalizing her wish to experience the same joy one day, that joy only one person can give you, the person you love saying they love you back. I mean, look at how Mikey teases her...
Also, look at Draken's reaction. By comparing Takemichi to Shinichiro, he is implicitly saying he admires him, his "weakness" in fights and when it comes to women is nothing when you're a person who's got friends' back and never gives up. He acknowledges this, but the fact that he uses words such as "weak" says a lot: Draken still thinks that showing feelings is a weakness, he still has this toxic conviction.
In Draken's character two factors coexist: feelings make people weak and loving someone when you're a gang member could put the other in danger (please, note he never specifically says this, but it's a thought I think is very likely for him to have, if I look at the scheme of his actions and behaviors throughout the story). And even so, he highly appreciates and admires who's brave enough to fight for love. It's not the first time he manifests such mindset. Looking back at chapter 6, here's what Draken says twice:
Here he is probably and literally referring to the general honor there is in fighting for a strong ideal. But, ultimately and implicitly, when he looks at and talks about Takemichi, he's very aware there's honor in fighting for love. It's just that he doesn't see showing feelings as an option for himself. That option would be a weakness, because sadly he has this mindset, but also in the sense that it would put Emma in danger. I think that when he imagines Emma as his girlfriend, he also consequently sees hordes of delinquents trying to easily get to him by hurting her. Being in a relationship in his current situation might cause pain to what he holds most dear. And this is something he highly abhors. In Draken's opinion, people who are not part of their world, can't and mustn't be casualties (he expresses this way of thinking when he and Mikey go to the hospital to visit the girl, in chapter 12). So the difference between Takemichi and Draken when it comes to loving someone doesn't lie in the quality and the quantity of their feelings for respectively Hinata and Emma, it just lies in a different and totally personal perspective from which they act. Whereas Takemichi fights for Hina, just like Emma fights for Draken to win his heart, Draken gives up his feelings both because he thinks they would be a weakness and not to make a victim out of anyone. In the end Emma falls victim of an entirely different situation Draken's feelings have nothing to do with, she loses her life cruelly and tragically, but surely not because of Draken's love. So, all his efforts went wasted, all their suffering for not spending their time together openly loving each other when they still had the chance went totally wasted. That's why Draken's attitude might be considered wrong in some respects, yet still a form of love (but I think this judgement is up to the reader's opinion, for example the way I see it, Draken, as mature as he might be, was still too young and inexperienced when it came to feelings to fully figure out what was the right thing to do in his position, of course I think he should've expressed his love, but I can see why he didn't, literally he never even experienced family love in his life, of course he didn't know how to properly handle feelings and he considered them a weakness).
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