Nene and Aoi’s friendship doesn’t change and it is a problem.
Aoi is the first friend Nene makes at the academy, so they have known each other for a while.
Nene is sweet to Aoi, she consistently worries for Aoi well being when she is in danger, and shows great care for her, always going for Aoi when sharing her romantic woes.
The manga shows mostly Nene venting about love, while Aoi engage but never bring up her own problems. Aoi is guarded and rarely vulnerable with Nene, something that over the years, we are told Nene have noticed.
But when Nene says “Sometimes I think that she only gets close to me,” She is severely overestimating how much she understands Aoi, most of her interactions with Aoi are with a friendly persona.
When I say ‘friendly persona’, I do not mean Aoi is faking liking her, her friendship with Nene is genuine, Aoi only have two people she is deeply attached to at the start of the manga, and Nene is one of them. I just mean Aoi always shows off her cute and cheerful side, even when she isn’t feeling like the ‘cheerful girl’ she displays, her approach is always the same.
Her words here are condescending as hell but she still acts cutesy and friendly: It comes off as superficial. And a lot of what she says is pretty fake, just things that people expect a popular girl to say, things we know she doesn’t believe in or relate to:
“It’s all about experience!” “why don’t you date him just to try it out?” as if she ever dated someone, or viewed love and relationships as something to try out and move along, instead of a concept she is scared of.
But no matter how different from her personal beliefs Aoi’s words are, no matter how long Nene have known her, she always falls for the ‘popular girl’ approach.
Nene is confident Aoi is the girl everyone loves: She always pictures Aoi with a cute smile, oblivious in her throne, able to get any guy she wants.
And yet, even with that mental image, Nene doesn’t know what being popular really means.
When Aoi visits the stage, Nene is confused as to why she would ever go here.
Akane is the one who gives Nene an exposition on Aoi, dropping hints that her life is not a sea of roses.
When Nene hears this, she ignores that her friend was put in situations where she was pressured to do things she doesn’t want to, often in isolated places, to the point she constantly need to be protected, or how Akane looks troubled that this is a recurring problem. Instead, she focused on Akane’s devotion.
Nene’s fantasies of popularity are sugar coated, so she subconsciously undermines Aoi’s troubles and focuses on Akane’s behavior, which fits her personal reality that being popular is amazing and “Boys will do anything for Aoi, she is so desirable!”
Attention is attention, and since Aoi gets lots of attention, Nene puts Aoi on a pedestal: Give her a life devoid of issues.
Her view is in part Aoi’s fault. There is truth to what Akane said here:
Nene doesn’t ask about Aoi’s life, or go in dept about her own, but Aoi is the one that consistently plays along, she is the one that keeps the focus on superficial topics and make an effort to only shows Nene her cheerful and cutesy side. It makes their interactions feel empty: there isn’t a single instance in the manga where they have a talk that isn’t about boys, or school rumors, which are always used to move the plot along, not expand on the basis of their established friendship.
There is a mutual lack of interest to change what they have: Nene because she is content with the way things are and see no need for change, and Aoi because she is Aoi.
With Nene’s view of Aoi in mind, the lack of depth in their interactions, and Aoi’s playing along with the cheerful popular persona, I am not surprised Nene didn’t notice there was something weird with Aoi on the Grim Reaper Sacrifice arc.
Of course Aoi is so chirpy and playful after being kidnapped by a demon, nothing can phase her! Of course she knows the exit, that’s a popular girl for you!
The cute and smart Aoi is the only Aoi she knows well, so unlike Akane, Nene fully trusted her words and reasonings, falling in the hole.
Somehow, something as big as this betrayal doesn’t change her view on Aoi.
The only Aoi focused thought we get outside a chapter recap is “Sumire looks like Aoi.”
Which clearly has the “cute girl everyone can’t help but love” in mind.
When she does think about Aoi in the severance/rescue arc is always about the lifespan dilemma, not Aoi’s strange behaviour or why she acted like that. There is no wonder as to how Aoi feels, or if she did something wrong herself to be ‘thrown in the trash’, there is no thoughts at all about this other side Aoi have shown. No reflection.
Her view hasn’t changed in the slightest, just look at the way she talks about Aoi with Katakuri in the red house.
And we know that’s not true.
Nene is still her friend, she may be oblivious to a lot but she has been by Aoi’s side for years, so she knows more about Aoi than an average person would. She noticed Aoi genuinely loves and is proud of her plants.
She also knows Aoi has a crush on Akane and the knowledge made her discard him from being a possible crush option despite once upon a time finding him cute and worthy of dating.
Nene values their friendship more than any crush: Notice how Akane doesn’t show up on ‘Nene’s type’ list at all instead of dropping to ‘not her type’, subconsciously deciding he is not an option. Aoi’s feelings are more important.
This genuine care make the way she refuses to change her views on Aoi very sad.
Nene is so sure they are close and she gets Aoi, that she doesn’t understand that the Aoi she knows, who treasures her and loves plants and can feel distant, is just a fraction of the real Aoi. A very small fraction considering how long they have been friends, yet it’s understandable: Nene consistently covers her eyes when Aoi acts out of her persona and shows slivers of personal problems.
She doesn’t want her ‘universally loved’ best friend Aoi, and the Aoi that threw her in the trash to be the same people. She want thinks to stay the same, simple and sweet. To Nene, the cruel one was a brainwashed fake. That’s it. There is nothing else to it, no reason to think about it.
We never get hints that imply the drug made Aoi do something against her will. Even after she completely snap out of the drug effect, Aoi owns her actions. She regrets it, deeply, but she also connects with it: She knows herself.
It’s because Aoi wasn’t faking it that she was so scared to apologize to Nene in the first place. She is shaking and anxious because it was her, an ugly part of her she isn’t fond of, but still a part of her: Still Aoi.
Nene saw her more unpleasant side. That terrifies Aoi.
This fear that Nene will hate her once she realizes who she is have been around for a while.
One of the few times Aoi was vulnerable and honest with Nene was in chapter 29, when she assumed Nene avoided her on purpose, because she ‘suddenly’ decided to hate Aoi.
When Nene heard this she is distressed, she doesn’t like seeing her friend sad, but there is no “I wonder why Aoi would think that…?”, no matter how unusual this insecurity is from Aoi’s ‘oblivious in her throne’ image, Nene doesn’t question it. We aren’t shown a single panel of Nene thinking about it.
But we are shown her thinking about the way Aoi makes people’s hearts race, which happened only two pages later, but is something Nene can easily fit into her established view on Aoi.
To Nene’s credit, Aoi is trying to distract Nene from her moment of vulnerability here, but it’s sad that it works so well.
“Is this a popular girl skill?” Aoi’s personal mannerisms, no matter how distinct are always connected to that of a “popular girl” in Nene’s head. Is not malicious, but it shows ‘popular girl’ and ‘my best friend Aoi’ are interconnected in her head.
“Is this how you win men over, Aoi?” She doesn’t even suspect that Aoi isn’t a fan of all this attention, that unlike her, Aoi doesn’t want to ‘win over’ any of the boys, even after Akane explicitly told Nene this attention is a problem in chap 24.
Aoi is aware of Nene’s simple view of her. It’s hard not to.
That’s why she wasn’t honest in chapter 96.
We all noticed how scared she was of Nene’s reaction, she even flinched when she went to apologize
But Nene doesn’t ask for an explanation of why Aoi did it, she doesn’t address what happened, she doesn’t want to know about any of Aoi’s problems, truly just chalking Aoi’s actions as “Not Aoi” and being done with this to have her cute bubbly friend back;
So Aoi doesn’t address it either.
Aoi is super relieved that she isn’t outright hated.
She doesn’t go over her emotions about the events, you can feel Aoi’s walls coming back: She falls back to her friendly and cute persona.
She wasn’t putting hearts and flowers in her speech before her apology to Nene.
And Aoi may be naturally cute, a girl that enjoys cute clothes and using cute speech, but she never talks with hearts and flowers when she is vulnerable and honest about her feelings.
We can see how her speech ties with her vulnerability best when she talk cutely with Hanako on the far shore train to distract herself from her bleak situation, but the moment she shares her honest view on Akane her tone change, she drops it.
Aoi is genuinely happy that Nene still sees her as a friend, but when she say she is fine on chapter 96, she goes over the events without adding any personal thoughts, and change the topic the moment she finish giving exposition. Something Nene accepts and doesn’t question further.
Once more, she is giving Nene the perfect problem-less cute friend Nene wants, and their talk feels superficial.
Akane behavior changed drastically after Aoi’s rescue (no confessions, no compliments every second, more physical contact, and so on,) because he confronted her, forced Aoi to open up, and listened to what was the problem, what he had been doing wrong, and did his best to adapt accordingly: He took her off her pedestal while still showing her the attention and affection she craves.
Nene’s behavior is exactly the same because she likes what they have, and she refuses to change it: Aoi is the same cutesy popular queen as always so she is also the same Nene as always. Their major arc did not change their dynamic in the slightest.
She truly considers Aoi a dear friend, but an unchanging one.
She blinds herself to Aoi’s problems, so she can’t confront Aoi, and Aoi is too cowardly to have an honest talk with Nene that she is convinced could lead to Nene hating her.
They are in a stalemate where Aoi can’t be completely honest with Nene (with far more than Aoi losing feeling in her right hand) and I hope something changes.
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