*Spoiler* Character analysis for Hira and Kiyoi's internal conflicts for Season 2.

This 2nd Season is so fascinating with how it brings up different issues between the boys compared to the 1st Season but yet maintaining its continuity and coherency, it's really a marvellous piece of scriptwriting. The thing that struck me the most was just how believable and realistic the boys' struggles and insecurities were. Yes, I found them extremely real and relatable.

In the 1st Season we see the boys circling each other, each having their own thoughts and interpretations about how the other party felt and neither really quite understanding each other because they didn't know what made them tick. But then all this was resolved at the last episode when they opened up their thoughts and their feelings to each other and started dating.

Now, 2 years later, we reconnect back with these boys and find that their own internal issues and insecurities have taken on a different form. I found it so interesting that the 2nd Season kept banging on about 'forever' or 'eternal' which dominated the thoughts of both Kiyoi and Hira, and I have come to understand the brilliance behind the drama's way of both showing & telling why. Let me see if I can explain...

HIRA

Okay, in order to understand where Hira is now, we're going to have to revisit his thoughts and ideas about Kiyoi from Season 1 because context is everything. It seems to me that there are essentially 2 things about Kiyoi that have completely captured Hira :

1) Kiyoi's aesthetic. This was the first thing that Hira noticed straight off the bat. He himself said that up until Kiyoi showed up, he never found anything beautiful, neither man nor woman nor even objects. He took photos of things but he never found any beauty in them hence his relative indifference when Kiyoi asked him if he liked photography. Hira just liked being on the other end of the viewfinder where he was invisible and separate from the world he saw through the lens. So, for 17 years, it was as if everything he saw was in grey-scale and when Kiyoi walked into the classroom on that fateful year in high-school, that grey-scale suddenly bloomed with colour. But it was only and exclusively Kiyoi that had colour. Everything else aside from Kiyoi was still in grey-scale. This vision held true then, and I believe it still holds true now in the 2nd Season, because the only thing Hira actually wants to take pictures of is still Kiyoi. It has always been Kiyoi and it will continue to be Kiyoi. I just loved how, at that last episode in Season 2, when Kiyoi said that it would soon be the season for cherry blossoms, Hira responded with, "yes, beautiful" but then the next sentence clarified that it was "Kiyoi under the cherry blossoms that is beautiful". See, it's a nice touch by the scriptwriters that re-enforces this message that, to Hira, Kiyoi is still the only beautiful thing he can see. Everything else is just a supplement, or just a placemat, to Kiyoi's beauty.

2) Kiyoi's 'kingly' attitude. Kiyoi's beauty wasn't the only thing which captured Hira's attention. It was also Kiyoi's indifferent, 'cool' and arrogant attitude which he admired. As someone who had always seen himself as being at the bottom of the pyramid and invisible to others, it seemed to Hira that those at the very apex of the pyramid should have qualities which effortlessly commands the attention and respect of everyone below them. Qualities such as being selfishly domineering, of conducting oneself above others and not playing to the crowd, of being aloof, cold, commanding, even tyrannical, were qualities Hira felt a king should have which he felt Kiyoi had in spades. Hira himself could never ever carry any of those attributes as a bottom-feeder but Kiyoi appeared to naturally wear them, as though it were a set of royal robes fitted for him. It made Hira look up to, admire, and worship Kiyoi, the way a humble subject would pledge his entire loyalty to his charismatic king. Not only that, being Kiyoi's servant gave him a sense of purpose, a sense of his place in the world, and a sense of identity. Belonging to Kiyoi the way a subject belongs to a king, gave him a reason to anchor himself in a world where he was drifting like that rubber duck in the dirty canal. Hira himself said it in the 1st Season, that it was Kiyoi who saved him, that it was Kiyoi's selfish and brazen and domineering attitude that gave him the strength and the reason to move through life even though it was stale and difficult.

So, all this exposition, for what purpose, LOL? Well, it made Hira feel that he could only approach Kiyoi with awe and reverence. Kiyoi was someone Hira felt was always above and out of his reach, and he never thought he would have the privilege of being able to touch Kiyoi, what more have any meaningful relationship with him. I liked Hira's analogy about the stars and the people viewing them. Kiyoi was like that untouchable star or sun in the sky while Hira himself was just a person on the ground who could only view him, admire him and love him from afar. But then, the end of Season 1 happened and this untouchable Kiyoi now came down from his high place and is willing to be in a relationship with him.

Hira's issue has now morphed and taken on a different hue. Hira was afraid that this untouchable dream which has suddenly become real, wouldn't last. In the first episode Season 2, he felt that he had done an unforgivable sin by touching a god but he was greedy and did it anyway. So, Hira henceforth lived in constant fear that one day this sin of having & holding someone he shouldn't have in the first place would one day descend on his head and he would have to reap the consequences, which is loss & separation. And we can see that in his constant fear of losing Kiyoi. It dominated Hira's thoughts throughout all of Season 2. To Hira, time with Kiyoi was a limited and precious commodity because there were no guarantees that Kiyoi would stay with him for long (because he just cannot see why Kiyoi would want to stay with someone like him. A person at the top of the pyramid should associate with those at his level, not with a bottom-feeder like him, so it is only a matter of time before Kiyoi realised this and discards him).

I found this fear very realistic, believable and utterly relevant. The conflicting struggle Hira had with his current happiness, with wanting to please and serve Kiyoi so that Kiyoi would keep staying with him, and with fearing the day when it would all end, is real. To him, it's just a matter of time before his happiness collapses but the problem is, he has no idea when and the uncertainty of it was killing him.

See, this is why Hira is desperate for a 'forever' ('eternal, eternal, ETERNAL!'). He doesn't believe he deserves Kiyoi but he wants to have Kiyoi for as long as he can, if possible stretching into eternity. I love how the 2nd Season depicts this.

I know some people feel that Hira's character had no or very little development in this 2nd Season but I wonder if they realise that his problem or his struggle is actually different from that in Season 1? The symptoms might be the same, but the problem is different. And that makes everything different.

KIYOI

Similarly with Hira, in order to better understand Kiyoi's fear and insecurities, we must again go back to Season 1 and understand his backstory.

I think it's not too difficult to understand why Kiyoi is desperate for permanency (i.e. 'forever') with regards to his own personal happiness. Because he never had it.

His family life wasn't one full of the warmth and security most families had. He was often left alone by his single mother, with only the TV as his constant companion. Even after his mother remarried, the warm and happy family he had was only for a short space in time. Once his step-siblings came into being, his personal happiness evaporated and he went back to being neglected and ignored, and the TV was once again his best friend. One can understand his craving for attention, for being idolised and loved, because he hardly ever received those things, and the craving for attention ate at him, drove him to tolerate the company of others even if he knew that they were just using him. See, with Kiyoi, he was afraid of being alone, unlike Hira who seemed to revel or prefer it.

This was also why Kiyoi was so captivated with Hira. Because Hira was the only one who seemed to always pay attention to him, who was the only one who wanted to be around him all the time, and who was the only one who stood by him even when everyone else abandoned him. The love and attention Kiyoi had always wanted, it seemed that Hira was the only one who could fully give that to him.

But then, even Hira had let Kiyoi down. After high-school graduation, after summoning up his courage to face Hira, after even a kiss initiated by Kiyoi, Hira still left him, still abandoned him for years. I wonder if we can really properly understand Kiyoi's emotions at this event. I can't quite imagine how devastating it must have felt to come to the realisation that nobody really wanted him, at least, not for long. Even the person who seemed to adore him to the exclusion of all else was a sham. The reality Kiyoi must have been facing at that time was that, no matter how beautiful he might seem to others, no matter how much other people seemed to love and adore him, no matter how fevered their desire to be with him, in the end, every single one of them still left him. Permanent happiness, permanent contentment, permanent fulfilment seems but a pipe dream, an unattainable reality to him.

So, it is no wonder that, having now gotten Hira to himself, and having now a semblance of happiness and contentment with him ('The boy I love cooks for me and waits for me. This is my happiness.'), Kiyoi is now fearful that this sort of happiness won't last ('Hira, can you really give me 'forever'?') because, past track records never gave him any reason to believe that it will.

This was why Kiyoi went crazy over the thought that he might lose Hira to someone else, he was scared of being abandoned, was scared of being left alone. This was why, inwardly, he craved for outward assurances that Hira would want to build a more concrete and permanent relationship with him. He looks for signs of Hira's commitment, and he gets antsy and upset when Hira seems to avoid any semblance of commitment or permanency with regards to their relationship (which, from Hira's perspective, is also understandable because Hira himself doesn't believe it will last, aiks, these two!).

But what I really like about Kiyoi is that he is someone who doesn't run away or shy away from difficult issues or conversations. He opens up about his internal fears with Anna (his fellow senior actress) and he knows that if he wants his happiness to be permanent or 'forever', he will have to try and build it with his own two hands. His happiness with Hira is one which he feels is worth fighting for, is worth making sacrifices for. Because he's fighting for something he never had. A forever, an eternity.

I'm really looking forward to the movie. Am really hoping that both these boys find their permanent happiness, their 'eternal', with each other at the end.

this was so well written oh my god. its like you took all the things floating around in my head and wrote them with an incredible amount of grace and coherency