#anyways going back to the original point: YES RITSU AND TERU'S FRIENDSHIP IS SO GOOD THANK YOU I'M GLAD I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS SO

[enpr-ss]

#idk I just think a lot about the bit with tokugawa where he's like ''I'm just a perfectly ordinary middle schooler''#and tokugawa says ''yeah those don't exist''#I feel like we acknowledge the fact that he had to fill the honor student/perfect son role a lot#but he ALSO had to try and blend into the background (which tokugawa attributes to him acting like his brother)#and I think an important part of his development is acknowledging these negative parts of his personality#like. he can be arrogant! and aggressive! and kind of a shithead!#but he's also a loyal friend and very brave and such a good brother#such a theme of this series (especially the final arc) is about being honest with and about yourself#and accepting both your flaws and the good parts of yourself#and I think it's important that teru and shou saw him at these low points for him#also!! I'm thinking about his fight with shou#and how there was no way he was gonna win against him but he fought him anyway#and then how that's repeated when he fights shimzaki to buy shou time#idk. he's a brave kid.

actually I'm not done thinking about teru and ritsu's friendship. I think teru might be one of ritsu's first real friends. ritsu isn't like,, the most social kid in the universe, and I think he has plenty of superficial friends (see: "I talk about the weather with pretty much anyone") but I think the only real close friends he has are teru and shou. and I think it's bc both of them are people he met without his Perfectly Ordinary Middle Schooler mask. he has to fill the role of honor student, perfect son, doting brother, etc. all the time while ALSO trying to blend into the background and be inconspicuous, and that's part of why he lashed out like he did during the cleanup arc, but with teru and shou, his first encounter with both of them involved him being an arrogant little shit that's willing to pick fights, which contradicts the perfect kid act AND the perfectly ordinary middle schooler act, and is in fact much more honest bc he's not hiding this kind of nasty side to himself. and that honesty works out for him with these two! teru sees himself in ritsu because he's also kind of an arrogant little prick, and aside from initially trying (and succeeding) to intimidate him, teru looks out for him and risks his life trying to save him and they genuinely get along pretty well! and with shou, he sees that ritsu is willing to fight him on his own and he's like "oh you're fucking nuts, we need to be best friends now" and immediately respects him a lot just because he's not gonna run away from a fight he's certain to lose. idk, I just think it's important that ritsu's first real friends are ones who saw him in rather ugly circumstances and wanted to be friends with him anyway