#and then when kinji reaches out like three years after graduation. tsurugi goes ....?

[yomiurinikei]

soooo hard for me to verbalize my thoughts on tsuhara but to me its like. they're not Loving and Affectionate. it's not about someone who makes your heart flutter and causes you to kick your feet. sometimes the best person to have in your life is someone you don't feel strongly about because they just bring a feeling of contentness. it's about safety and stability. tsurugi and kinji are both characters who have the capacity for grand emotional moments, but are very controlled (i chose the word Controlled for a reason. restrained.) when they don't have something pushing on them. i think their relationship is about having someone to bring up those more button pushing issues with, who'll remain calm and unaccusatory while you discuss them.

obviously this lends the best to kinji being the one to work tsurugi through his issues in non despair (wherein i think kinjis skills with conversation helped a lot, letting tsurugi get Upset, but not returning it in kind or icing him out, just letting tsurugi say his piece), but i like to think of how this'd apply to future settings too... smthn ive said before is that i think kinji would end up re-evaluating his relationship with the church and what faith means to him, and while i don't think he'd ever turn away from his beliefs, i do think he'd change how he interacts with religion a bit? broadens his world beyond it... and i can see tsurugi being really helpful there. tsurugis issues were more Pressing because his situation was Explicitly Harmful, and knowing what tsurugis dealth with versus where he ended up helps give kinji a frame work for how he feels about his own experiences, and how he wants to handle them.

anyways. its just about a constant, steady presence. someone who can serve as an anchor point/stay strong when you're losing it. and when you've both kinda rearranged yourself, while using that other person as your shoulder to lean on, there's a sense of familiarity that comes with being around them. safe, content, stable.