#had to edit cause tumblr straight up eat the last paragraph help

[mari-lair]

Question for you, as I've been reading some of your tbhk analysis posts, notably about teru's treatment of akane and your prediction for akane dying soon! Since teru seems to want to acknowledge the human side of akane, how do you think he'd handle something happening to akane, such as him losing supernatural powers/being weakened, or maybe the opposite in losing his humanity and becoming a supernatural fully instead? Do you think the newest chapter may even imply teru having something to do with such a thing happening to akane or being witness to it?

I think Teru would handle Akane being weakened poorly at the start cause he treats Akane as if he is indestructible: No matter how beaten up Akane is, Teru never hesitates to use him as a stress relief, he is his first target whenever he wants to hit something

He understands Akane is seriously injured here, but he will still attack Akane if he feels like it. Regardless if he did it because he was frustrated by his failure of being too late to save them both, and took his frustrations out on Akane, or because he was jealous his (ambiguous af) crush kissed someone else, Teru still shows no hesitation to beat up the stabbed guy that is only alive because he isn't in a human body.

He did it again when they left the boundary and reached the near shore, where people can die.

He obviously doesn’t want to kill Akane, but it is still a wild choice to kick his ass to show he is in critical condition, is as if Teru believes “if I punch him he’ll be in pain” not “if I punch him I’ll cause damage.” despite the confidence Teru has in his own strength.

I can’t be sure what is going on in his head, but I am inclined to say he understands Akane's strange half supernatural powers and how much resistance it gives him compared to a normal human, which makes me think of two things that might happen if Akane gets weaker or lose his powers completely: Either Teru will know the exact limitations of Akane weakened state, or he’ll miscalculate, and end up doing something that Akane would usually be able to brush off, but will genuinely injury or even make him black out: Which would be one hell of a wake-up call.

Teru would lose his biggest stress relief and have to adapt to that.

Fortunately, I don’t think their banter and overall dynamic would be affected, since Akane would not change his no nonsense approach with Teru just cause he got weaker. They seem far more relaxed near each other now too, and we don't see Akane being tied up after the severance. But if Teru still bullies him off the pages, I can see Teru tripping him and doing the 'lighter' bullying, but still being more stressed in the long run since he needs to hold back (please find a better way to relieve stress teru I beg of you).

That being said... Teru’s trust in his power and his willingness to involve Akane in supernatural situations might lower, or even disappear, without his clock keeper powers.

He might get more protective too, since Akane knows about supernaturals, so he lost what Teru considers a normal human’s best defense against them.

And whenever he feels like Akane is in danger he jumps into protection mode quickly.

If Akane gets so weak he ceases to even see supernaturals  (which considering Aoi’s case I find it unlikely) then I can see a disconnect happening. It will be felt far more by Teru than Akane since Akane ignores the supernatural world as much as possible, while that’s Teru’s whole life.  Still, outside Teru feeling a disconnect at times, I still can’t see it drastically changing things, cause they could work together and talk normally when Akane used his enchanted glasses, their talk mostly about Teru’s siblings and Aoi, and they may have gotten closer because of the severance, but they can absolutely bond with nonsupernatural affairs too.

If the contrary happens and Akane dies, becoming a full supernatural, I answered how I personally feel like Teru (+others) might react: Here.

As for the later chapter, it feels like that was a set up for Teru to have a relevant role in this arc, but we don’t have nearly enough information to know which. It could be related to Akane, or foreshadow him meeting the broadcasting club, who knows? The only thing it says for sure is that Teru knows others are interested in Akane, or more specifically, in the clock keepers power.

Which is something he knew for a while already.

A lot of people must be interested in the clock keeper’s powers for him to know the culprit has a tsueshiro, and not immediately assume Hanako is the one behind it.