Anyway I'd love to hear some suegiku angst from you >:] which of the two do you think would adjust the worst to the other's death? (Not who'd be sadder per se, just who would have the biggest hole in their life if the other was gone ig)
Thank you so much!! This took me a moment to answer (and I had a lot of fun thinking about this, so thank you!), but here I go
Cw for loss and mentions of abuse
Tecchou – I think Tecchou would over all cope better. Like yes, we’ve seen his reaction to Jouno’s disappearance (he thought the murders committed by Gogol were the ADA’s doing, so I completely get his level of worry) but he’s able to rationalise it in the end and clear his head.
It would obviously impact him a lot and he’d try to bury how he feels about it and never unpack it, so I think he might redirect it into things he knows: anger, justice, and fighting. Rather than grief and loss of someone so close to him. Survivor’s guilt is omnipresent and he cares less about if his body lives or dies. Maybe he doesn’t even manage to work through any romantic feelings he’s had in case they never got to talk about it. He acknowledges them, maybe, but thinking of Jouno as someone he was in love with takes him a long while. “Jouno was a friend,” is something he uses to deflect to maybe make it hurt a little less, but it still pains him because he downplays Jouno’s role and influence on his life.
I think Tecchou and Jouno are opposites in that Jouno thinks about himself first, and Tecchou about others. And thus, they balance and contrast each other, eventually meeting in the middle and changing each other. So, to me, Tecchou would be stuck with his unhealthy selflessness and continues to give his body and mind to the Hunting Dogs. He keeps the cycle of abuse going as a Commander himself. Not outwardly cruel, but cruel to himself while not quite being able to see how this institution harms him or others.
All while drowning in a grief he can’t identify as such and not being able to look in the mirror anymore—because is this really what Jouno would have wanted?
Alternatively, I could see him going down a vigilante route! In a scenario where he did begin to question his position and his role within the military (maybe blaming it for Jouno’s death or a general change of thought), and where Jouno helped him become more of a human and person. Where yes, grief does stick with him a lot, but he can breathe.
Jouno – Unlike Tecchou, he doesn’t allow himself to outwardly (or inwardly) acknowledge his feelings at all.
Personally, I headcanon him as someone who deals with a personality disorder, Borderline (and possible Narcissistic), so it would cause a lot of emotional turmoil within him that barely gets any better over months and years. Switching between blaming Tecchou for everything, being angry at him for leaving like that, and violent outbursts; then deep grief; then missing him; then anger directed at himself for depending on someone like that; anger again.
It really depends on what he’s feeling: sometimes he’s a shell of himself when he works for the Hunting Dogs, other times he’s way too harsh to everyone, no matter if they’re an enemy or an ally.
He’d brush off Tecchou’s death because he can’t show that he cared, that’s a weakness he can’t afford, but he gets angry when Tecchou’s presence starts to vanish over time. His desk and room are cleared, the others mention him less and less, and eventually he’s replaced. But Jouno is damned to stay and be the same through all of it, even when he doesn’t feel it.
He wants to save people, and I think that this and Tecchou’s legacy that Jouno burdened himself with (or maybe even Tecchou did so) could keep him with the Hunting Dogs. He can only do it on his own terms though for which he needs structural changes. Jouno wants to be better, and he wants the Hunting Dogs to be better.
He tries to package everything as selfishness when he can’t handle it: Jouno at the centre of everything. Tecchou left him. He will come out on top by rebuilding the Hunting Dogs in an ideal way. Jouno doesn’t care about the new recruits themselves, but he can’t have children drop like flies on his watch.
It’s not that he mourns, tries to build the environment he envisioned for himself and Tecchou, and cares about the lives of others that he needs to protect from ending up like Tecchou. Jouno almost makes himself believe that he’s good at lying to himself.
The core of Jouno remains, no matter if he stays with the Hunting Dogs or becomes a criminal again. The mask stays on, he lets nobody in ever again. He doesn’t speak Tecchou’s name, especially if they never got to talk about their feelings.
Tecchou’s death undoes whatever work Jouno’s put in to better himself. Or at least, that’s how he feels and wants to think, so he can blame one more thing on Tecchou.
