#i hope this makes sense... i wrote this right before the shinee fanmeet yesterday so my then tired eyes didn't proofread v well OTL

[beldaroot]

skip and loafer chapter 52: the act of being selfish

one thing i greatly admire about skip and loafer is the way it takes qualities usually deemed by society as "bad" or "wrong" and instead gives it a more gentler and nuanced approach. and in chapter 52, we see that the act of being selfish can also be an act of selflessness and that both can be appreciated without being contradictory.

we first see this exemplified through mitsumi:

what drives the whole story's plot has always been mitsumi's desire to excel in toyko. but while this may be seen as a selfish dream, we know that mitsumi wants to leave so she can help her entire prefecture from depopulation in the future. furthermore, while fumi thinks going to toyko will "revoke" mitsumi's prodigy status, mitsumi happily accepts this fate, showing that this decision isn't motivated by a selfish ego.

and speaking of fumi:

due to what fumi believes as mitsumi's selfish desire to go to toyko, fumi in turn allows herself to be selfish and openly express her discontent to make mitsumi worry and feel guilty about leaving her alone.

and we see that both their selfish attitudes cause a rift and period of silence between them. but in an act of selflessness, they put aside their pride and apologize, mending their relationship because they recognize each other's honest feelings. many years later, fumi too realizes in time that even though she selfishly wanted mitsumi to stay, the distance between them was inevitable and that it is actually okay. the most important thing is that she had mitsumi's friendship at all and that includes those moments of selfishness and selflessness.

now, we have maharu:

again, because of mitsumi's desire to go to toyko, maharu, like fumi, creates a resentment towards mitsumi and selfishly desires her own chance of leaving.

but we then see that fumi specifically states that maharu's feelings are not selfish. fumi most likely sees herself in maharu and knows that while on the outside someone would consider maharu selfish, what maharu is actually expressing are honest feelings; she's not just thinking about herself but what others think about her as well. given that maharu actually doesn't have a concrete reason to leave the prefecture, it's likely that her feelings right now are a conflicting mess of being jealous of mitsumi but also just missing her elder sister. and again, like fumi in the past, maharu chose to lash out at mitsumi and storm out rather than discuss what was bothering her in a selfless manner.

and finally, shima:

shima is interesting because fumi is actually laughing at shima for not being selfish enough. throughout this story we see again and again shima sacrificing his own feelings to be selfless; he thinks he's "worthless" otherwise. and here you have fumi reading him like a book and saying shima hasn't been fully attuned to his real, honest feelings. and that's the irony of it all because it feels contradictory to shima, but fumi is basically stating facts by asking: how can you be truly selfless when you don't even know what is selfish? shima has been putting mitsumi's feelings of him as his own and whether mitsumi actually is right is something he needs to figure out himself and that means actually centering himself for once. by doing this act of selfishness, he can genuinely start to be selfless to those he loves.