answering these two together! Under the cut because LONG and EMBARRASSING
Im amused by the thought that things were off to a surprisingly normal start. Nijisaki was fresh out of college and got a job at Cradle. He probably didnt think he would be staying very long. He was kinda aimless at this point in his life (this expands on some more headcanons about his background)
But then he started hearing interesting things about Hongou. Cradle's youngest executive, a few years older than him. Big ideas and a magnetic personality, plus he was attractive and likely very rich. Yeah, Nijisaki was interested, professionally and personally. Hongou didn't even know he existed at the time, but his ambition eventually got him noticed (not that Hongou is often very interested in people, but there was some mild curiosity).
Their personal relationship was exciting and messy, it was one hell of a weird situationship for a few years. They got along like a house on fire in many aspects but Hongou kept his distance. Nijisaki would eventually shoot his shot, Hongou rejected him, then realized he could string him along for fun and personal benefit, of which Nijisaki seemed aware but decided he wanted to play his game... and then Hongou ended up actually catching feelings. The sexual tension was easy enough to take care of, but them being the kind of people they are meant that the emotional tension between them was something they couldnt resolve so easily. I dont know if they ever truly did even after all their years of being "officially" together. They weren't good people and they weren't making each other any better, but they also still cared about the other even if they couldnt name it.
Sorry, elaborating a lot on the personal dimension of their relationship! I like the idea of these bastards being capable of loving (or whatever they want to call it)
As for Nijisaki's involvement in the Nonary Project, I think Hongou brought him on board during the initial negotiations with Gordain's Heirs but perhaps he was a bit secretive about what they were really scheming. However, Nijisaki was the only person Hongou ever told about his actual goal of "curing" his prosopagnosia. I think Nijisaki was a bit overwhelmed and skeptical about the whole morphogenetic field thing at first (and I mean, it does sound like insane pseudoscience) but Hongou had never let him down. But besides his personal commitment to him, Nijisaki supposed something like this could make them very powerful if they managed to understand it. I don't think he would have been necessarily interested in getting richer thanks to it. It was the kind of knowledge they would potentially need to control and monopolize if the experiments worked. He felt that staying in Hongou's side was a good call.
I like to imagine that the Nonary Project turning out like that was a gradual thing. Perhaps it started with innocuous enough voluntary tests (Snake does mention that Hongou learned about epiphany and danger via previous experiments) but it would eventually devolve into more and more questionable science and finally it was decided that children would be the perfect subjects for an experiment modelled after the death game Hongou had once played. I think Nijisaki found it easy enough to be at peace with the things they were doing. Didnt enjoy it, but he had little regard for the wellbeing of others as long as the end justified the means. If he was ever in disagreement with Hongou over something, it was possibly the legal consequences of messing up that worried him the most. But also, as the perfectionist he was, and being in charge of the logistics, he was confident nothing could go wrong.
Well... so much for that 👍
