probe | TL;CR MEME

TL;CR MEME

1. Comment with your character.
2. Receive comments from others.
3. Reply to their comments with long ballads and explanations of your characters' relationship throughout the game.
4. Suffer as we have suffered over your CR.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i will do my best...........

lmao

why the fuck are you first

goes to reread our pcs i'm making you wait

God, Week 0 was so long ago.

So like I've said, White is very weak to people being nice to him. But for it to become, like, real attachment, it has to be a meaningful kindness—the kind that comes with actually knowing who he is. (This is why he would not go to Tokyo to date Ichika even if she's girl Mineo, sorry Ichika.) The other thing that doesn't really come up but actually did with Mineo a few times is that as much as White knows he's an awful person, he hates, haaaaaaaates people judging him for making the shitty choices he did in his life.

This is probably a little hypocritical when White also tries to deny being a good person, but White finds a reason to be annoyed about anything. Anyway! At first Mineo was just a funny dude that was kind of fun to talk to, since White actually doesn't interact with guys his age a lot (hilariously, he has probably talked to women far more often). But the first step to a long journey in which White was fucked in every way except literally was Mineo, in response to White being randomly violent, saying, "I'm just saying everyone's got problems, 'cause life isn't easy. But I'm not saying it's your fault or you're bad or anything."

The thing is that being a Deman is a moral judgment on your character. Not necessarily unfairly, given that yeah, their society went and committed genocide so their victims have every right to be salty. (And also a lot of them actually are just sociopaths?) But it pisses White off when a) he personally did not ever ask to be one, and b) he also knows that circumstances drove some of them to becoming one just to survive, so he resents being blamed for a choice a lot of people probably would've made in their shoes.

Obviously, Mineo did not know the whole scope of what he was saying and how it applied to White's life. But when White knows that he has to kind of immediately be combative around humans, it was the first sign that maybe he could let down his guard around Mineo—that Mineo might get it and not just write him off.

Mineo was also just really bizarrely nice. Like, what the fuck? People aren't just that openly friendly!!!! He also appreciated that Mineo could fight back (verbally too, I mean), because White is weak in general to people having the things he lacks—since for all that he argues, he tends to cave rather easily in the end. So, honestly, Mineo being able to articulate who he was and what he wanted was, unfortunately, attractive even if not in a romantic way or anything back then because White was hetstuck.

In a way, this is also why White wanted him to have a backbone, after seeing Mineo obviously feeling a little hurt over some of the things he said but not saying so? White has torn feelings on just taking these things, because he did for most of his life and encouraged others to do so if they wanted to survive, but at heart it was never how he wanted to live and he admires people who are able to stand up for themselves. It wasn't his really place, given that he barely knew Mineo at the time, but after basically seeing his two sides, he wanted to encourage the more strong-willed one?

WHY AM I NOT EVEN PAST THE FIRST SATURDAY I HATE THIS

Oh on Sunday Mineo went out of his way to get him ice. Unfortunately this was also extremely endearing. I did tell you that White developed a crush partly because Lucy patched him once and she wasn't even nice about it. Anyhow, White actually had, like, meaningful conversations with Mineo right off the bat, which also jumpstarted their CR, because it's easy for White to avoid serious topics (not necessarily intentionally) by virtue of the fact that people don't really take him seriously but he actually does have a lot of thoughts stirring in his peanut-sized brain.

And then Mineo EXPLICITLY SAID HE'D TRY TO HELP WHITE EVEN IF IT WAS DIFFICULT and oh he was

so

doomed

White had to immediately try NOT to be touched, because he knew it was probably just Mineo's natural niceness and he would say that to anyone he met, White wasn't special. But it was very sweet!

anyway moving onto monday wow honorific upgrade already

"You know you don't need to convince me that violence is cool or anything, right? You're fine however you are." AGAIN MINEO JUST FUCKING SAYS THINGS I'M SO MAD AT HIM AND AT YOU no one in White's life has ever said this wow except Lessa. At this point I think it's obvious that Lessa is basically the no. 1 in White's life, so reminding White of him is really just. mashing the correct button. Selecting the correct dialogue options in White's otome route and Mineo didn't even nearly kill him first!

But yeah, White's self-worth is. waves hands. He's cocky in a lot of ways and I wouldn't say all of them are a lie, per se, but he's so arrogant in part to compensate how everyone else has treated him—he's the only person who will give himself any kind of dignity. Even among the (high-ranking) Demans, he was looked down on for his behaviour, so. Mineo wasn't wrong in a later tag where his judgment of White was that White is comically aggressive like he has to hurt others before they hurt him! Again, his literal purpose as declared by Ares was "kill your mentor before he ends up killing you", so Mineo was in fact reading White very well and to the end he probably understands White better than anyone else for it.

(To a more minor extent, and not in a way White would be conscious of or anything, it was also sweet that Mineo offered to spar with him? Back home, White had only ever done it with, well, his lifelong abuser who also doubled as his mentor who trained him, aka he was the only thing White associated it with. But now, after sparring with Mineo so many times, he has a better association yaaaaaaay since he'll probably keep it up even in a world where he no longer has any enemies to fight. Something I thought I would mention because this thread reminded me.)

oh this is when the murderer reveal got dropped whoo boy

This was absolutely when White was expecting this budding friendship to be nipped. White expects people to abandon him! He did not let himself get too attached to Mineo for this reason, despite [gestures to all of the above that took place across the span of three fucking days, Dana]. This is why White doubled down on the "do not expect any sympathetic reasons from me" attitude because he didn't want to give Mineo a way to overlook his crimes; give himself hope that Mineo would accept him, in case Mineo later took it back.

It? Didn't work???????????

With that said, it actually helped that Mineo changed his mind on White being okay the way he was and decided that no, he wasn't chill with White being a murderer. It comes off differently down the line when it's "I accept you because I just don't really think about the moral implications of what you did and who you are" versus. gestures some more. Even Lucy and Lessa judged White at first so again Mineo is really setting off the reminder alarms here even if personality-wise he's nothing like them. Terrible.

And then White called himself a monster and Mineo immediately jumped to his defence? What? THE FUNNY THING IS White wasn't even really trying to be self-deprecating! It was more a comment on others' view of the Demans. At this point, White is actually pretty assured in his own humanity, though he does consider himself trash (even if he doesn't feel that guilty for it) so maybe Mineo wasn't that far off—but again the fact White wasn't even trying to be that sad made it all the more surprising that Mineo was like HEY WAIT A MOMENT!!!

They'd known each other for three days by then and admittedly that's actually a decently long enough time for White, hilariously enough his amount of interaction with Lessa would really only fill about 1-2 days and White is still so fuckin devoted. BUT YEAH THREE DAYS and Mineo already confidently declared that White wasn't some kind of psychopath. And he was correct, but. WHY. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, MINEO!!!!!! At least Lessa cheated with knowing lore and god omniscience, so White could not fathom how Mineo had come to this conclusion about him. And it just ended with Mineo trying to beat him up and not shoot him or whatever? Wha???????????

In fact that thread got stupid very quickly and Mineo also concluded they're both virgins, horrible. This is so dumb.

AND THEN MINEO ACTED LIKE HE WAS THE MEAN ONE FOR YELLING AT WHITE ABOUT BEING A MURDERER? God. Yeah, at this point, White's loyalty was about a step away from being sealed. Mineo could've asked anything of him and White probably would've done it, just for that moment of learning that he was a horrible person and obviously not being okay with it but still trying to think well of him and think he didn't deserve abuse.

PHEW ONTO THE DRUNK WEDNESDAY THREAD aka both of us trying to drop dead lore hints at each other and not knowing it. "Never regret anything with you, White-kun. Even if I wanna punch ya sometimes but thaaaaaat's friendship!" MORE ON SHIT MINEO JUST SAYS that gave White platonic dokis. There's a lot of these.

i

i need to eat lunch now that's it goodbye

no i'll get back to this later you can have this as a treat for now i GUESS

NO ONE HAS EVEN DIED YET I HATE THIS

oh i was right things happened on friday too goddamnit

This was when they argued again, because Mineo implicitly accusing White of not caring (which, okay, fair—he wasn't torn up over Tamaki dying) and then. "And then what? You stab them back before they can get you?"

BECAUSE OH DEAR

I think I mentioned this in the lore plurk idk if you read it so gomen if this is rehashing: there is a scene in canon where White and Lessa are arrested by the human militia in the immediate aftermath of the Demans' defeat (because Lessa has an annoying NO KILLING HUMANS, WHITE!!!! policy), but eventually the humans piss White off to the point where he goes on the offensive and attacks back! It looks like he's going to kill them! And Lessa has trauma from Ares so he's about to kill White but before White even sees this, the twist is that White himself stands down and spares these people when he has no reason to.

And then he turned around and saw Lessa with his sword out and it kind of soured their relationship for a while until waves hands but yeah—that's basically what happened here with Mineo. Mineo had a fair point, because he wasn't necessarily wrong in that that was how White was thinking (or at least how he wanted to seem like he was thinking).......... but White still felt defensive anyway because he existed in a weird headspace of not wanting people to think he was a good person but also getting offended when they thought he was horrible even though both are accurate? I'm so sorry, White is a nightmare to deal with sometimes and Mineo got to experience that more than anyone here.

That is, this is when White was about to go "okay, he does see me as a terrible person, good to know", except. Mineo apologizing helped fix things (especially considering White knew Mineo wasn't necessarily even in the wrong), although White was still a little guarded after that. More than anything, it was his honesty of how he didn't think White was evil but wasn't trying to look at him with rose-coloured glasses either. (Because again, White wants people not to judge him for what he's done, but sweeping them under the rug with no real thought feels insincere.) as an edit i realize my wording was weird here I MEAN HE APPRECIATED THE HONESTY the honesty is not what made him guarded

At this point, White was endeared enough that after the trial, he sought Mineo out because he knew Mineo would be taking this hard! I thought this was going to be a simple thread because I forgot what they talked about but oh no Mineo set off platonic dokis in this one too? I hate this.

AFTER EVERYTHING HE STILL ASKED IF WHITE COULD DEFEND HIMSELF AND STAY SAFE and while White tried to act very casual about it, he was touched? He liked Mineo, but he would not have held it against Mineo if Mineo's opinion, on the other hand, was "I get along with White but I wouldn't be sorry to see him dead given that he probably deserves it." So, Mineo wanting to know that he could protect himself and thus suggesting he wanted White to stay alive, despite everything, meant a lot! And this undid the bit of damage Mineo did on Friday and like I said, if Mineo was a girl or if White wasn't hetstuck, he'd be crushing on Mineo by this point.

oh thank god we didn't have a pc on sunday I'M FINALLY DONE WITH WEEK ZERO

ONTO WEEK ONE but there is less drama this week honestly

Oh, but I'll be honest—when White got hit with the effect of having to hold hands, this is where the held-hostage-by-hetstuck dokis were coming in. While it was partly because who knows a timeline of when White discovered the effect, I think Mineo is the person he had the most extreme reaction around (i.e. trying to flee before it could happen) because of his subconscious going "oh no"? He was actually more embarrassed holding Mineo's hand than he was compared to all of his other handholding sessions? This is how you know Mineo's infatuation strategy would've worked,,,

Anyway, yeah. That thread was actually White's increasing gay panic but before he could recognize it as gay panic. Fun facts!

Moving on. Wow, Friday was the start of Mineo never telling White anything. He was maybe like 0.1% hurt by it but brushed it off because he's used to not being told things.

That aside, when he and Mineo talked about what Mineo would kill for and Mineo was like "I don't know if I would" and White called him soft... Mineo was right, White was trying to be nice. He gets annoyed by Lessa's pacifism but then turns around and takes a page out of it, so he actually did admire that Mineo didn't want to kill if he could help it. Buuuut—he was also very cynical about how things would turn out, and he knew that Mineo's ideals would likely break here, which is why he didn't try to encourage this (on top of his general allergies to goodness).

This is partly why he avoided answering when Mineo asked what he would pay to win! He didn't want to encourage that Mineo kill. (He also didn't want to admit that he wasn't really willing to kill because it made HIM look soft.)

And then Mineo just kept casually saying nice things about him? Stop that? In particular: "Just because you've hurt people before doesn't mean you got any enjoyment from it, right?!" Mineo just makes so many confident assumptions about who White is and was, and he's like. Usually at least half-right. It was sort of jarring for him, actually?? He wouldn't say that comment of Mineo's was entirely correct, but it did strike close enough to home that it's just.

Again, Mineo arguably understood White better than anyone else here, because he made that effort to read him, and it's why they're best friends down the line and also why Mineo is one of the few people White is more willing to be emotionally vulnerable around—because Mineo can already kind of see through him even without White saying it.

I am trying not to just make this an AND THIS IS WHAT WAS GOING ON IN EACH AND EVERY SINGLE PC and in fact have skipped at least one but we did not have a lot of PCs in these weeks where nothing happened i'm crying

oh no it was week 1 when Mineo declared his trust in White. never mind i take it back this was not a drama-free week i fucking forgot

i'm stopping here goodbye i'm taking a nap

Edited 2021-04-05 20:19 (UTC)

okay continues

Yeah, that moment sealed it for White. I don't actually know if anyone has ever expressed to White that they trust him (except Lessa, in his own way)? That's why, uh, he almost had a breakdown right there and then. It was very much the kind of kindness where White was just "I literally do not know how to process this." As far as he was concerned, he'd done nothing to earn Mineo's trust (if anything, everything about him should've sent Mineo running in the opposite direction)? and didn't see anything about himself worth trusting.

But yeah, congrats to Mineo, because he won over a loyal attack dog that day! I don't know what it would've taken to break that faith at that point short of Mineo going lol jk at him? Tbh I don't know if even that would've completely killed it, I think White would've still followed after Mineo except just a lot more brokenly because he's, like. JUST learned how to settle for reality rather than fake happiness so it would still be very tempting to cling to that bit of warmth even if he knew it wasn't real.

Anyway MOVING ON FROM THIS HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO THAT NEVER HAPPENED, White pretty much decided that he was never going to betray Mineo's trust if he could help it (including not murdering). He obviously said none of this out loud because that's embarrassing.

i'm really praying for a nice normal week at this point but week 2 was memshare!

White learned Mineo was dead, and things started clicking into place. I wouldn't say it changed anything right then and there other than deciding Mineo really needed his wish now, although he did feel awkward when it then got doxxed that he was also dead. He remembered Mineo talking about how he wants to go out in a non-lame way, and as far as deaths go, White was about as content with his as he could hope for. He chose it and it served a purpose? To that end, he was never desperate to get his own wish granted here, because him being here was more of a "well, what could it hurt at this point"—so actually, if he'd had to pick Mineo's wish over his own, he would've done it in a heartbeat! If he would've hesitated at all, it would be because the first and foremost priority of his survival was to ensure Lucy and Lessa's safety and he wouldn't exactly choose Mineo over them then (he still wouldn't because he's a loyal bitch, although he cares more about Mineo than he cares about Lucy), but he also does believe that things will probably work out even without him, so.

And then the next day.

Dokis happened.

It was so stupid. He was already emotional from the (simulated) scene in general because, well. It's canon that White got emotional when Lessa made it so that he could temporarily walk out in genuine daylight; as Lessa put it, "there are memories in sunlight". It's essentially a reminder of back when White wasn't quite as broken? In the case of what Mineo did, it's more like... a combo of feeling very sappy over a scene someone else wanted to show him + the kind of scenery he never got to see ever in his life.

And then Mineo started talking about wanting to put his head in someone's lap with this view and White was like "uhhhhh it sounds like you want a girlfriend in other words"—and then it was a math lady meme of like

huh this is kind of a romantic scene

he should bring a girlfriend here and not a guy friend like me

but this is not harming my fragile masculinity (these are obviously not direct thoughts of white's)

............... would I not be opposed if this was an actual date (which I know it's definitely not, but)??

AM I MAYBE NOT COMPLETELY STRAIGHT??????

And that's why he suddenly got very flustered for the rest of that thread. The end!

sighs why am i only on week 2

So yeah the rest of that week was White having a crisis of sorts. Like, I wouldn't say the crush was fully formed yet, as so much as he was evaluating whether he had a crush on Mineo or not (so funnily enough the jail pc helped with that because it was really where people (Gojou) kept teasing them and White was like OH NO).

But in a non-romantic vein, this is when White's loyalty was also blossoming into a need for approval too? He was actually nervous when he confessed to cursing Douman because he would've secretly been an ashamed puppy if Mineo told him "you shouldn't have done that", and it's why he was giving Mineo all of his cards when otherwise he's a bit more secretive about what he's capable of. Again, though, this is all embarrassing as heck and it got worse when, according to Mineo, Endorsi and Takeru didn't tell him things (?) and White just had to go like

IS IT NOT NORMAL TO TELL YOUR ALLIES THINGS OH GOD AM I BEING A SAPPY LOSER HERE

(The embarrassment did not stop him, though, because he really... did want to be helpful to Mineo specifically........... Pretty much every single thread we had that weekend was White tripping over his own feet to help Mineo/cheer him up/earn his approval in some way, actually.)

If I had to pick a moment that White's feelings solidified into a definite crush, I'd say... the moment he was picking shards out of Mineo's hand? In particular, the moment Mineo laughed and said he was lucky [to have White]. SHIT MINEO! JUST SAYS! White doesn't actually blush over a lot of stuff unless it's something with an obvious romantic context (e.g. getting randomly kissed) or if he himself is having dokis so. Yeah. Good thing Mineo didn't know that or he would've figured out White's crush earlier!

But he definitely had a crush by that Sunday AS MINEO SUGGESTED HE GO SEDUCE MOLLY, GOD. White hates this man so much. Suffice to say that this entire weekend thoroughly convinced White that Mineo was not into him at all, which. Wasn't necessarily a bad thing, because White never intended to say anything in the first place—they were both dead with no guarantee of their wish and from different worlds, he knew he it would never work out. So yeah, he was a little jealous of the hickey (but more so because of the Week 3 effect when he asked) but mostly he was just curious and also wanted Mineo to be happy with whoever it was.

god now it's week 3 just shoot me

week three but what if i just don't touch the confession

Before that, though—this is when they had the convo about how White kind of prefers it when Mineo doesn't hold back. Which is true! He didn't even really mean fighting, even if that was the context. White got the feeling that Mineo held back a lot in general and it's not like he doesn't understand why he chooses to do so. But at least around each other, White prefers that Mineo be wholly who he is, whether it's nice or not (not unlike how Mineo prefers White's brutal honesty than hiding what he thinks).

And then lore came out and White just admires Mineo even more? Sure, Mineo kind of gave up, but the fact that he cared and wanted to try and do better now even after everything is, as White put it, more than the world deserved from him as far as White was concerned. The whole notion of getting back up after the world beat you down hard enough to stop trying i the first place is one that strikes very close to home for him, and. being able to do it is a turn-on. sighs deeply

Mineo is also one of the few people White actually, like. Explained a lot of his lore to? (At the very least, he's definitely the one who got the most.) A lot of people got the memshare and politely looked away or got the general surface deets after prying a little, but. White is part of the club where if you don't ask, he won't give, since it's a lot easier to talk about his crimes than things like the abuse or why he's called White or the things in general that led him down this path.

also "If it's something about you, of course I'll remember." more on shit Mineo says!

Anyway.

Unfortunately, White is so, so obvious about dokis, and so we get to the confession.

White really didn't want to say anything! If he was ever going to, it probably would've been at endgame just to let Mineo know he was glad to have met him, except in this AU Mineo and Takeru would presumably be dating so jk he definitely wouldn't be saying that.

But then Mineo guilted him into it, and again, there's White's need to make him happy coming into play here. He weighed his options, realized this could go horribly wrong (namely in terms of burdening Mineo with his feelings), but decided that leaving Mineo to think that White was hiding something and how it fed into his issues was worse.

He wasn't expecting anything! He wasn't asking to be a relationship! If he expected anything, it was just to be rejected, because Mineo was clearly straight???? So the fact that Mineo actually wanted to talk it out was a bit of a surprise? Still, White took the non-answer as a no, in that he figured that even if Mineo ended up thinking about it some more, he would still not be into White (even putting aside that White wasn't asking for a relationship or anything).

In the end, it was kind of a relief to get it out? Mineo laid out what he wanted/didn't want, and White was fine with that. He's great at lying to himself, so all he had to do was pretend he didn't actually have a crush or at least not be so obvious about it/let it interfere with anything. There were also probably various times where he just tried to permanently undo his crush entirely, but those obviously ended in failure.

But at the end of the day, he could shove down some dokis for the sake of not making Mineo uncomfortable! When it came out, it was mostly in gestures that at least toed the line of romantic/platonic. In fact, White was apparently excessive in how much he tried not to show his feelings BECAUSE APPARENTLY MINEO WAS FINE WITH IT SHOWING? Too bad White didn't know and this is why they ended up never banging.

Also, his friendship with Mineo really did matter much, much more than any crushes, so. I've said this before, but at this point, when White isn't really looking for a relationship as so much as a sense of peace, confessing is more of his way of saying, "I'm glad to have met you."

It is so funny that this week ended with White nearly eating poisoned evidence, wow. If it'd been anyone else who got angry at White, he probably would've gotten defensive and not learn his lesson, but. Again, Mineo's approval means a lot to him and honestly that entire bit with Mineo scolding him was one of White's most actively miserable moments in the game up to that point. MINEO BEING MAD AT HIM AT THIS POINT REALLY HURT A LOT. Unfortunately made him fall even further for him too (since the anger was mixed in with care, and like White explained, it's not a reaction he's used to getting from people when he screws up like this).

Actually, this was the week where it was kind of getting to White that people weren't telling him things, so even if that also applied to Mineo, White really appreciated Mineo trying to assure him that he helped? He saw the memshare, so you know that White's last moments involved him feeling like he didn't do enough and it's something that kind of sits him with him even now. He's not necessarily ashamed of not being all that smart, but being useless is another matter.

One or two other people did assure White that he wasn't actually stupid, but Mineo was usually the one who consistently encouraged him to think better of himself. :pensive:

REALLY DIDN'T HELP WITH GETTING RID OF DOKIS THANKS

WHITE REALLY JUST WANTED TO GO THROUGH ONE CONVERSATION THAT DIDN'T REMIND HIM WHY HE LIKED THIS IDIOT

phew week 3 is over now

thank god it's the break weeks now

Love arrows happened! And it was awkward, because White still liked Mineo while being in love with Molly, but TRUE LOVE DEVOTION meant that even if there were emotional-affair-adjacent moments, ultimately he was like "well anyway goodbye mineo i have to go pine after molly right now."

This is why he still wanted to go with Mineo on Thursday! Suddenly changing his mind this week would've suggested there was a problem => there was something between him and Mineo when there wasn't??? Regardless of any dokis on White's part, they were just bros being bros......

Romance stuff aside, this is probably when White actually started thinking about morals, thanks to watching Mineo? Not in the sense that he developed any, exactly, but seeing Mineo try so hard to figure this out made White realize that once everything was over, this was also probably the kind of thing he should ponder over instead of just being "welp not going to bother thinking about it."

Basically, Mineo's presence did help lowkey encourage White to try, like... going through the motions of being a good person, at least.

But yeah, for these few weeks, nothing in particular changed. White was stable in shoving down his crush and just trying to support Mineo, even if not always nicely—but he really was just "god I wish Mineo saw himself the way I saw him because then he would (mostly) never have a self-esteem issue again??" Not in that he saw Mineo as perfect, because he absolutely did not, but he didn't know how to make Mineo realize he didn't need to be his own worst critic 24/7 so he just settled for awkward encouragement.

Then they talked about trust and whatnot and Mineo asked if White expected anything from him, and ohhhh, that was a hard question to answer. In the end, he didn't want to say no, because a) he thought it would hurt Mineo, and b) that wasn't exactly true.

BECAUSE I KNOW SOME PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT THIS [COVERS EVERYTHING WITH MY HANDS] LET IT BE KNOWN

I WASN'T LYING ABOUT THAT CR CHART ENTRY ABOUT WHITE PLACING HIS HEART IN MINEO'S HANDS!!! IT WASN'T MEANT ROMANTICALLY!!

Mainly, it was meant as... all-encompassing? If White took a close look at himself, he'd have to face the truth that he did expect things from Mineo. In particular, he expected Mineo not to hurt him, and that is honestly a terrifying realization for him. To stay any semblance of well-adjusted, White had to normalize the idea that his life wasn't worth anything to anyone, so for him to hope for otherwise from Mineo was him giving Mineo so, so much power over him.

The single most devastating thing that could've happened to White in the game would've been if Mineo betrayed him. Like, as a kid, White wanted at least one of two things down the line: real friends or love, because those were the things he associated with a normal, happy life. At this point, White has pretty much given up on the second one, but friendship is no less meaningful to him?

Mineo is the person who makes it clear he's happy for White's company no matter what, who wants to hear anything he has to say even if it's not kind or easy, who wants to know about his life for him and not just out of simple curiosity, who drops what he's doing if he has reason to think White feels lonely. As someone who's always been expected to give more than he takes, he's kind of baffled that Mineo, after already giving so much, still thinks White deserves more? The gist of it is that Mineo is one of the few people who (openly) sees him as a person with a meaning—so the worst thing Mineo could do is take that back.

Best friends!!

... And then along came Mineo killing Childe.

First, the more minor issue: that Mineo didn't tell him anything and in fact basically lied, even if primarily by omission, and kind of manipulated White into solving it. As White's said, he's used to being kept in the dark, whether here or back home. So, given some time, he would and did get over it. But in previous weeks, Mineo had wanted White to expect more from him than that, and deep down, White did. He suspected Mineo at least knew something based on the way he acted Friday, but he was torn between the belief that if it was important then Mineo would tell him versus this just being another thing Mineo couldn't tell him because it was secondhand info from someone else.

Which... it was not, and that's why this time especially stung even though White has always known that Mineo doesn't tell him things.

White moved on, but the end result of this mess (and Endorsi also ruining his night, because why not learn that ALL your best friends lie to you in one fell swoop) was that White went back to believing that never mind, keeping his expectations at the bottom like he initially did was the better way after all. Because Mineo said it wasn't about trust and White accepts that, but it made him feel like the butt of a bad joke that multiple people asked if he knew and inadvertently punched him with the implication of "people thought you two seemed close enough that he would tell you these things, but apparently you're not."

The more major thing: though he was hurt, his loyalty to Mineo absolutely came first (it's not like he actually cared about Childe's murder itself) and thus he still tried to reach out even though every reflex was screaming that he was tired of people that night. He didn't want Mineo to think he hated him now or anything! To which, from White's view, Mineo responded by discouraging him from being on his side—it felt like Mineo was trying to walk away from him, or at the very least put up a wall between them.

In return, White was basically protecting himself/testing Mineo by giving Mineo permission to go, except emotionshare made it pretty obvious that what White wanted was the opposite; heck, even without emotionshare, White was already being a lot more openly vulnerable than usual. Like I've said before, if Mineo had left, it would've been... not great? I don't know if White would've acted any differently afterwards, since "logically" it would've just been Mineo exiting to get some space, but it would've broken his trust in Mineo. Not irreparably, but White sure wouldn't be saying anything about it either, since he tends to clam up when he's genuinely hurt, rather than just angry.

It'd be hard for White to put it into words, and it's possibly self-centered and hypocritical of him, but when he was already blindsided by the deception? In that exact moment, he was lost on how Mineo saw him and he was terrified that he'd somehow found the limit to their relationship, and not even over something White did (at least, not deliberately).

Thankfully, Mineo did not leave, and in fact made it clear that he'd always want to stay. Once he did, there was really no doubt that White would completely forgive all of this, even if it'd take some moments to get over the hurt.

Oh, yeah. The second kiss! By now, White kind of figured Mineo probably wasn't straight after all! It only took, what, seven weeks? But he'd realized Mineo and Takeru were probably banging, so Mineo's straight label was already peeling off and then Mineo asking to kiss, without any notion of indulgence, was the confirmation.

Did White think it meant Mineo was actually into him specifically??? Ehhhhh. It set off a few question marks in White's head, but he didn't want to get his hopes up, so his mental gymnastics were that Mineo was apparently smooching a million people* so maybe this was just... how Mineo showed affection in general now... "Mineo was trying to pour how much he liked White through emotionshare" yes White got the idea that Mineo really liked him as best friends. That uncertainty Mineo felt? Clearly him not wanting White to read anything into this kiss, so White... didn't.............

*did not realize Mineo didn't usually initiate kisses

So. Yeah.

Moving on! By the time of endgame, White had accepted and made his peace with the awareness that he and Mineo would go their separate ways and probably never see/talk to each other again. Nothing ever lasts in White's life, good or bad (but mostly the good), so of course the same would apply to his relationship with Mineo?

It's why it's still hard for him to shake off this mindset, even now that they have crossworld communication and travel. He doesn't plan on ever cutting off ties on his end, because again Mineo has found himself a very clingy puppy now, but he is lowkey paranoid that Mineo bonded with him only because of their situation and once he's home he'll move on and find better people to talk to. Especially considering, well, White is still a giant mess, so he wouldn't blame Mineo if he decided that nope, he has enough problems to deal with and he's going to cast off what isn't his obligation.

Because Mineo has a future, and it's all ever White wanted for him, whereas White... doesn't? The irony is that Mineo is both the best and worst thing to happen to him here. Being around him has made White feel like a normal person who had a shot at happiness, but once the high wears off, it's left White even more starkly aware that he's not and doesn't have these things; never really will even once he returns home and gets everything sorted out. (But seeing how hard Mineo worked here does make him wish he could put in the effort, at least. insert "you make me want to be a better person" remarks here)

By the end, all his exhaustion has caught up with him, and what he's dodging in their last thread is that, past the half-hearted plans he's making up for his future, he's pretty burned out on living. At least for a long while, he doesn't have the energy left to be invested in his own happiness, when it feels like a dream that's already over, and would rather focus what he has left on wishing for Mineo's, as his gratitude towards the person who gave him a taste of it to begin with.

So, it's fine if Mineo doesn't have an answer to give him? What Mineo gave him during their time here has been enough, and White'll hold onto it as among his happiest memories.

OKAY I'M DONE FOR REAL SLAMS THIS DOWN also yeah the unfortunate reality is that they could've banged but then they were both bottoms so they didn't

Edited 2021-04-07 00:30 (UTC)