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imadhatt3r · 2 days ago

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I've been trying to nail down what exactly Aoba's problem with Koujaku's fangirls is. It's not like he feels emasculated by not having a gaggle of girls following him around- Aoba actively doesn't want to draw attention to himself; Rather, I believe that it's something slightly different: he's jealous.

Aoba always seems annoyed by the way they crowd Koujaku whenever he's working, how they throw themselves at him, how they invite him on dates... Because he want to be like that too, but he can't. He wants to be someone that Koujaku pays this romantic attention to, he wants to tell him about how cool he thinks he is, how much he means to him... But he can't. Aoba's very private, unassuming, and has much too much restraint to do something like this. He feels annoyance towards these girls, maybe even anger sometimes, because they get to do all the things he wants to do, and the worst part is that it works- they're the ones who get Koujaku's attention, affection, and time.

And sure, Aoba knows sides of Koujaku that nobody else does, so he takes refuge in that; He might not get the kind of attention he wants, but he gets a special kind of it that only the two of them share. I think that's the part of the reason as to why he was so shaken up by the Platinum Jail situation- because he realized that the bond they share might be a lie, and that he doesn't know Koujaku after all- so the fleeting tenderness they shared untill now might've been a lie after all too.

This sense of inadequacy doesn't even go away after they start dating. In the re:connect scene, Aoba mulls over how he still has a suspicion that Koujaku is inviting clients to his house. He also thinks about how the fangirls would eat him alive if they found out that Koujaku's dating him, like he is somehow a worse pick than any of the women who are infatuated with Koujaku. Among his reasons he lists his gender, which opens up a whole can of worms on how queer people are treated in-universe. We don’t see any overt queerphobia, but there clearly is some sort of a difference in how queer vs cishet relationships are treated if Aoba sees his gender as a reason he might be a "worse" pick. It's hard to say how much of it is based in actual in-universe queerphobia, and how much it's just something Aoba's blowing out of proportions due to his anxiety. I think that it's more of a "he could've had a normal, more standard/traditional life with a woman" kind of thing.

I think that he mostly just needed time, as in the drama CD that takes place after re:connect he approaches the fangirls more like mild inconveniences, and not reasons to put himself down. Perhaps he finally saw that Koujaku was serious about him and he started to trust him more as a romantic partner?

I guess I just like this slight background arc Aoba has in this route. It's presented at first as if he's annoyed about Koujaku being a flirt, but really, it's just more that he wants Koujaku for himself, and he doesn't like the idea of sharing him with anyone else, even if he isn't fully aware of it.