Doomed siblings have me on a chokehold in a way no trope can ever achieve. Something so gut wrenchingly beautiful about two kids going through unimaginable trauma and coming out damaged forever. I always eat it up. Maybe they stay together and find solace only in each other, used and kicked out by society! Maybe they end up on opposite sides of the war! Maybe they end up betraying one another! Maybe one of them dies haunting the narrative forever! Maybe one of them destroys the world for the other! So many endless tragic possibilities!
Oh man, what I wouldn’t give to get a horror spinoff manga that dives in to Kenjaku/Jin/Kaori situation. There’s so much potential there and I just know it would absolutely gut me 😩 (like Jin probably was)
edit: I don’t know what came over me I didn’t mean to write all this afsgdh I’m so sorry
TW below for suicide and SA
Like watching Jin slowly lose it while a creature wearing his dead wife’s skin suit like a bathrobe walks around their house and everything about this is so wrong wrong wrong, but he already felt like his life ended when Kaori died. His body and soul knows it’s not her but his mind is clinging so hard onto this illusion because it’s the only thing keeping him going
Kenjaku knowing his struggle and absolutely taking advantage of it to manipulate him. The gaslighting anytime Jin weakly protests something, the manipulation when he sees the logic starting to peak past the emotions. Using Kaori’s memories to know just what to say to bring him back down before he can break out of the fog
The silent wars with Wasuke, who tells Kenjaku to get out and crawl back to the pit of hell of crawled out of. He tries to put up protective wards, but they’re so weak that Kenjaku just laughs, endlessly amused by dangling his son over his head and know there’s nothing he can do if Jin doesn’t want to leave.
The sheer horror at finding out they’re having a baby (Which almost definitely resulted from Kenjaku’s coercion and manipulation of a hesitant, emotional Jin). The brief thought that there’s no way a creature like this could bring anything but another monster into this world. Having every intention to kill this abomination, and then it’s born and oh. He’s transported back to the day Jin was born and the instantaneous overwhelming love he’d felt then comes rushing back, and there’s no way he could ever harm his grandson. His last ditch attempt begging Jin to leave is fruitless.
Kenjaku leaves not long after, not interested in playing housewife anymore. He might not have even killed Jin. Yuji has a few vague memories of him, so must’ve been around when he was 2 or 3 at least. Kenjaku tells Jin he “has business to take care of” and to “be good for me”. He checks in occasionally to monitor Yuji’s growth, always telling he’ll be back soon. But the visits grow less and less frequent until he stops coming back entirely.
Jin stays in denial for a while, but eventually the illusion falls. He can’t convince himself anymore that everything is okay, that any of this was real. His mind shatters and can’t handle the stress. Wasuke knows he’s crumbling and goes to check on him, about to insist that he’s moving in to help with Yuji.
He gets there only to find a hungry, dirty, hysterical toddler sitting outside his Jin’s locked bedroom door, tiny fists thumping against it begging for his daddy after being left alone for 12+ hours. His blood runs cold and in a feat of paternal strength his aging body manages to kick down the door, and he instantly knows he’s too late. Jin had taken his own life, laying on his back in the bed, clutching a framed photo of his and Kaori’s wedding, rigor mortis already setting in and making that death grip permanent. Wasuke sweeps Yuji out of the room before he can be anymore traumatized and calls the police, exhausted and his brain at war with itself because “it didn’t have to be like this” but knowing deep down that “it was always going to end like this”.
A few years later, Kenjaku pops in again and finds out Jin’s gone and Yuji’s in Wasuke’s care. A part of him that felt some twisted imitation of affection for Jin is disappointed at the news, loving the attention his husband gave him, how fragile and easily manipulated he was. Remembers an emotionally exhausted Jin passing out his lap and how he’d stroked his hair, thinking that this sham of a relationship isn’t so bad actually.
But oh well, he’d have to just keep tabs on Yuji from a distance now since Jin is no longer there to act as a buffer between him and Wasuke. On to the next thrill for now.
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