I appreciate that Akai also suffers from Scotch's death, and not just because Bourbon wants to kill him for it.
That he noticed something like that, even through his rage and grief, is pretty amazing.
I want to dissect Rei's mind tbh. That's the heart of the matter, isn't it? Rei knows how skilled Akai is, he believes Akai could have stopped Scotch's suicide if that's what Akai wanted. And since he didn't stop it, then the logical conclusion in Rei's mind is that Akai must have wanted Scotch to die to further his standing in the BO.
So I can't really blame Rei for being angry here, but it really does read like he has Akai up on some pedestal, when, in the end, Akai's just a human who fails sometimes.
Vermouth: you either want to kiss him or kill him and I don't care which it is. can you just wrap things up already.
Conan: my divorced dads are too busy staring at each other, so let me clue them in.
Akai. What the hell are you doing. You're lucky Rei didn't notice this (or, if he did, that he doesn't call attention to it).
They'd make such a good team if they could get along.
(The fucking knee-high boots and cropped jacket kill me every time.)
I need them back, Gosho. Please. Let them work together.
They way they're both flashing back to Scotch's death throughout this case is just. I love them. They're forever linked by this one tragic event.
I do wonder what Akai had planned here, because he clearly did have some kind of plan, since he says it would be easy to help Scotch.
I'm sure Gosho wasn't really thinking about this at the time, but...
Shooting a hole through the phone wouldn't actually destroy any of that data. Akai must know that, right? So he intentionally left the phone behind for Bourbon.
Let's talk about betrayal, since this is the theme for this entire set of files. Obviously, there's the surface-level "Scotch is a spy betraying the BO" interpretation, but that doesn't cover everything we see. If it were just about Scotch "betraying" the Organization (he isn't, because he was never really one of them to begin with), then every single chapter title including "betrayal" in it would feel heavy-handed.
And the thing is that even though Scotch' suicide is the through-line for both Akai and Rei here, the primary focus isn't on Scotch. It's on Bourbon and Rye, and specifically Bourbon's feelings about Rye, the thing that has been driving him for three years, what led him to show up at the Kudou house and call out Okiya's disguise. What leads him to tell the man he still suspects is Akai Shuuichi, despite all the subterfuge that night, that he wants to kill a left-handed man.
So... did Bourbon feel betrayed by Rye? Is that how we're supposed to interpret this? (Or, I suppose, more specifically: did he feel betrayed when he found out that Rye was a spy? This one is more likely. But even then...)
We're led to believe that Bourbon hated Rye even before this incident. Why? Clashing personalities? We don't know.
But my point is this: they weren't close. And if they weren't close, then Rei feeling betrayed feels misplaced. But, as I've already seen, Rei seems to have Akai up on a pedestal, which would make it that much harder for Rei to accept Akai's failings.
idk, it just always feels to me like there's more to them than we're getting from Gosho. He gave us the groundwork for these complex characters with complicated feelings about each other, and yet all we get these days is "Amuro the friendly waiter" and "Akai's on the phone again."
I need more of their story.
Anyway. Back to the flirting.
Not in public, Rei. There are children around. (I see you making promises for later.)
Also Akai you really need to be more careful. Vermouth is almost looking right at you.
Forever insane about this by the way. Rum who was so sure he had all the pieces, Rum who panics because what do you mean James Black was in the other car, Rum lowkey shitting his pants because if James Black isn't the head honcho then he doesn't have the full picture so who could it possibly be that he's up against?
Screaming crying throwing up. The translation makes it sound like she was going to test the antidote on him without letting him know😭 Hashtag her lab rat
