#the way dunk weaves dao's expression and the look in his eyes in and out of anger and hurt and rage and resignation again

[secriden]

@boygirlcrisis, I hope you don't mind, but I suddenly remembered your SIMM liveblog post about episode 5 and remembered I intended to respond a while back and forgot. So I hope it's okay that I'm shamelessly using this to distract myself from the pain that is THK by talking about my darling comfort pair, KluenDao.

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theyre not very good at communicating are they. but depending on how old they are (im not sure?) i cant really blame them.

They're both first year university students, so they're both 18. I hardcore agree that it makes a ton of sense that they're bad at communicating at this age. They're still more boys then adults and moreover had one single interaction and then didn't see each other again until the start of the series. You really get the sense that half their journey was just figuring out how to actually TALK to each other (and jsyk this totally gets paid off by the end of the series!!!! TwT)

its realistic, ive done similar things before, -its very often that two people misuderstand each other and drag things out even when theyre actually on the same page

This right here is one of my favourite things about the misunderstandings in SIMM -- as frustrating as they are, they're also incredibly believable and realistic and, most importantly, character driven.

Both Kluen and Dao are aware and acknowledge the reality of Dao's confession, but the problem is Kluen doesn't see his response as a rejection while Dao does. As a character, Kluen is incredibly straightforward, but simultaneously not very verbose, so his non-answer to Dao's confession was exactly that: not an answer. There is a certain logic to this understanding -- Dao even explicitly defines what a clear rejection is:

...which Kluen specifically did not do.

So when he hears Dao talk about the pain caused by his confession, Kluen doesn't understand that Dao is talking about a rejection. Instead, what he hears is "confessing caused me pain" and "loving you has hurt me". There are reasons why this is extremely significant in severely undermining any confidence Kluen has about pursuing Dao (which comes to light later in the series), but the point I'm trying to make here is Kluen takes this to mean something very devastating: that there is something fundamentally wrong with him (Kluen) such that loving him leads to pain and misery for Dao.

It doesn't help that he seems to have all these confirmations of how terrible he is for Dao, how he's not worthy of Dao. And if this is the truth, if Dao's feelings for Kluen is the source of Dao's misery and Dao wants to move on and wants to throw his feelings for Kluen away; if there is someone else who can step in and take away that pain, who won't cause Dao to cry -- what can Kluen do but apologise and let him go?

And oh, my poor darling he tries so hard to mean this. He wants Dao to be happy so, so badly and if all Dao needs - for whatever reason - is to have Kluen's blessing, Kluen is determined to give it to him.

And Kluen will rip his own heart to shreds if it means Dao gets the chance to forget about the hurt Kluen never even knew he was causing Dao. Kluen would break his own heart a thousand times rather than continue being the source of Dao's tears.

Only because Kluen and Dao are talking about the same thing but with wildly different nuances, it sounds to Dao like Kluen is saying that his feelings for Kluen don't matter. Like he's callously telling Dao to get over his feelings because they're just an inconvenience or annoying or stupid or a myriad of other things that make sense for Dao to think but Kluen absolutely does not mean.

And to Dao, this is a nightmare come to life. Because he never wanted his love to be a burden to Kluen, never even wanted Kluen to KNOW about his love for him. And definitely never meant to cause Kluen to feel so uncomfortable with Dao's love that he's begging Dao to move on. It's why Dao wanted to pretend like there was no history with Kluen at the beginning -- his feelings for Kluen were always something that was Dao's to treasure. Dao has made peace with his love for Kluen being unrequited as long as it's something he gets to keep in the secret, soft spaces of his heart.

So to be told by the very object of his affection to throw the tender feelings which he's spent so long carefully protecting and tucked away in his chest -- it was more than Dao could bear, which is why he lashes out the way he does.

And the night leaves both our boys brokenhearted but in a way I really adore, because this misunderstanding is completely and beautifully realistic and believable because of who these characters are and what they've been through.

But also it's precisely because of moments like these, and the journey they take to learn to communicate through them, that the love they share at the end of the series feels so beautifully and wonderfully earned.