#poor touko

[anicastes]

Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?

[anicastes]

That’s a great idea!

[justselfloathingthings-blog]

This is really interesting. I think that it might explain why she is so incredibly enthusiastic and affectionate at times when it comes to Yuu; on some level, she is glad that she has something to herself, something that as far as she knows, her sister didn’t have. Something that doesn’t necessarily quite fit the role she set up, because people are more complicated. 

[justselfloathingthings-blog]

Touko doesn’t really care about Yuu loving her anymore. At the very least, that isn’t her primary issue. Her primary issue is that if she loves her when Yuu doesn’t, she’ll run away from her. Just like everything else feels like it has.

And Yuu notices, of course. Because she’s one of two people that knows Touko and cares about Touko enough to pay that sort of attention. 

[justselfloathingthings-blog]

And there’s the punchline.

To think, you go on this journey, potentially sacrificing everything, pouring your soul into all of it, only to find out that you weren’t becoming your sister. You were becoming better than her. 

“Superheroes were born in the minds of people desperate to be rescued.”- Jodi Picoult

[justselfloathingthings-blog]

Coming from, almost certainly, in a cordial conversation with the first person she’s casually met that worked with her sister, you can tell how deep that comment cut. 

[justselfloathingthings-blog]

It’s a little fascinating. Touko is always the one, more or less, to escalate the relationship. She’s the one that wants to push the boundaries and get Yuu closer to her, even if she doesn’t want to get her that close. So her first reaction is that this comes across as rather strange. 

But it actually makes sense. Prior to this, Yuu consciously didn’t particularly seem to care. But this seems to be something that affected Yuu. There honestly is little reason to think it effected Yuu in a romantic sense, because none of the other stuff did. Her thinking that maybe she finally pushed the boundaries a bit too far, especially after Yuu decided she really didn’t want to kiss Touko, isn’t even unreasonable. 

I think that Touko is, ironically, really regretting showing her love and affection when Yuu is most consciously receptive to it. Because things have been the same for so long, Touko assumes that this is, on some level, very similar, and that the cause of Yuu’s new feelings is simply a new slight distaste for Touko. At heart, Touko doesn’t hate her personal self I think, so much as she thinks other people hate it. And she doesn’t want the one person she still shows it to actively to turn on her too. 

[silenceandcallousness]

Komaru: Come to think of it, do you dislike the dark because you’re scared of ghosts and monsters, Fukawa-san?

Touko: …Are you making fun of me? There’s no way I’d believe in something as unscientific as ghosts or monsters. My heart may be with the liberal arts, but only liberal arts that make sense in reality.

Komaru: In that case, why can’t you handle the dark?

Touko:  …You’re digging it up.

Komaru: Digging…?

Touko: When you say you’re digging something up, it can only mean illegitimate births or trauma! I started hating the dark after I experienced being locked in a dark, confined space!

Komaru: Ah, did you do something bad and get put in the closet? I’ve experienced that as well. It’s surprisingly scary, how dark and cramped it is.

Touko: This is my trauma we’re talking about! There’s no way it would be something so soft! I was locked in darkness for three consecutive days and nights… in a place I didn’t know.

Komaru: T-Three days?!

Touko: Naturally, I didn’t even have a single piece of bread to eat in that room. Ever since then, something inside me has unconsciously linked “darkness” with “pain”. Uuu, even remembering it now gives me goosebumps all over…

Komaru: Who locked you up… and why?

Touko: ……Uuuu… j-just remembering it…!

Komaru: I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have asked… Another Episode, Chapter 3. Credit to Warusou.