#i hope someone sees me in the tag and thinks goddammit she's talking about kou and drugs again

[i-write-hurt-not-comfort]

good evening, diabolik lovers fandom. today i would like to talk about kou and his history of drug use again, because i found something interesting while digging around some Romanian history.

content warning under the cut for discussions of the Romanian orphan crisis and, of course, drugs/addiction.

so we all know how kou used drugs as a kid, right? yeah, if you forgot, here's our two canon confirmations.

the first is from kou's MB manga prequel, and the second is from ruki's lost eden maniac prologue, as translated by @dialovers-translations.

as highlighted by the translator, it's highly likely that what kou/ruki are discussing is related to drugs, being distributed around the orphanages in the Romanian orphan crisis. if you're not familiar with this and the conditions in such orphanages, i suggest reading the wikipedia article briefly.

at one point in this article, it's mentioned that especially in the late 1980s/early 1990s, a substance known as "aurolac" was being distributed and abused both on the street and within these orphanages. the emergence of aurolac as a substance of abuse is highlighted in this article as beginning in the 1980s.

aurolac is a type of paint used specifically by Romanian orphans as an inhalant to produce a high - euphoric, a buzz, etc, though with serious health consequences attached. you can read more about this here and here. though these articles are more recently, the use of aurolac does date back to around the time the mukami's would've been around these streets/orphanages.

solvent abuse isn't exactly rare and is quite common even in the western world, particularly with teenagers due to ease of accessibility and whatnot. i think it's interesting that this aurolac is almost certainly what kou is using, especially when it looks like he's being handed a sniffing bag in this panel.

it's also interesting that children underground, a documentary regarding this issue from early 2000s, shows that aurolac can be addictive and often children/adults using it can be very stuck in this cycle.

this is probably what ruki is referring to when he says people ruined themselves with it. and kou saying he'll only use a little... my baby, that's not how it goes. it's not that easy.

seriously, i love the fact ruki probably stopped kou from spiralling into drug addiction. but with all that aside, i think it's interesting that rejet was onto something with this. maybe it's my dumb drugs fascinated brain but i'm super excited to finally know what drug kou was probably using as a kid.

how does this relate to kou as an adult, you ask? wow that's such a great question. let me talk about it real quick.

obviously given the trauma which kou endured (sexual and physical abuse) it's no surprise whatsoever he sought out substances to deal with that. aurolac is described to have a numbing feeling, and well...

i'd always headcanoned kou as using uppers like cocaine and mdma, but if he was using aurolac as a kid, maybe he'd be seeking out downers more so. heroin addict kou is staring at me right now. maybe i was onto something with that.

anyway, i hope someone else found this anywhere near as interesting as i did. if you have any further questions PLEASE ask me.