No Steps Up Ahead, No Way Down Behind. If I Fall, How Bad Will It Hurt?

Not gonna lie I kinda hate the compulsion in fandom to shove every relationship into rigid definition boxes. Every relationship is either parent-child, siblings or romantic. Come on. Relationships are so much more complex than that. Do you at least have friends.

Amane's Death Date

So I recently made a post about character birthdays (see here) in which I mentioned that we know Mitsuba's death month, but soon after making it, I realized we kind of had the same (if not a closer) approximation for Amane and Tsukasa's date of death...?

This might not come as a very shocking post to some of you, and a lot of it is ultimately speculation, but I think I have some interesting evidence to back up what I'm saying!

So let's lay out some facts first:

Amane was last seen alive on July 22, 1969

Amane died in his summer uniform

Summer holiday at Kamome Academy starts after July 22

July 22 should be very close to the beginning of summer vacation, which is a very helpful time frame for us. And luckily, on July 22, we can see Amane's class schedule:

I go into more detail in another post on my blog (link), but we can actually use this class schedule to potentially tell us the start date for Amane's summer vacation. You'll notice that one of the day of the week columns is empty: Saturday.

While it's possible that Kamome simply has no classes on that day, or that students have other activities on that day unrelated to their main classroom, the presence of it on the class schedule itself seems to imply that they have a reason to go to school on Saturday, and that they simply have nothing scheduled that week.

Ergo... what if that's the start of their summer vacation?

Since July 22 is a Tuesday, that would mean Saturday is July 26. And if summer vacation started, then why would Amane need to wear his summer uniform anymore?

What I'm saying here is... what if Amane killed himself between the dates July 22-25, just before summer vacation started?

Now I realize my logic is a little flawed here; students continue wearing their summer uniforms after summer vacation until the weather cools and they switch to winter uniforms, and just because there are no classes marked on the class schedule for Saturday doesn't guarantee that summer vacation started that day.

This is also a minor background detail and it's totally possible that they didn't put much thought into it at all.

...Still, I have trouble imagining Amane waiting to kill himself much longer after giving away his most treasured possession, the moon rock, and he definitely killed himself in 1969 before he switched to his winter uniform at school. That would mean he killed himself anywhere between July 22 up to early autumn.

Ultimately, you can come to your own conclusions, but I personally like the idea that Amane giving Tsuchigomori the moon rock was one of the last memories he had of him alive, so him dying around that time feels appropriate to me.

Anyway, time to get more into speculatory territory...

Since I'm limiting the options to 22, 23, 24, and 25, we have a tantalizingly low selection. There's really no way to narrow it down, though, what with the limited information that we have... So I'll start by describing why each day could work, then declare my personal winner.

First, July 22. This day is pretty appealing as a choice because we see Amane on this day, and he's already acting very suicidal. However, I feel like that makes it a bad choice too... we already had a major event happen on the 22nd. I can't deny that it would be a fateful last meeting for him and Tsuchigomori, though.

July 23 is next, and I can't say I love this day... I do like how it's the day after July 22, so that giving away the moon rock isn't the same day that he killed himself, but otherwise it doesn't stand out too much. The most I can say is that 23 sounds like "ni san" which sounds like older brother in Japanese, and Amane is an older brother. Yeah, that's about it... *sigh*

July 24 is a better one. For this, I'm getting out my auspicious calendar:

As you can see, July 24 is 仏滅 which is the day of worst luck. You might remember this being the same type of day that Tsukasa sacrificed himself. Now, I know I have a bit of a tendency to over rely on the auspicious calendar... but 24 also just sounds like a good death day, you know? 2 twins die, 4 dead in all, 4 is a spooky death number in Japan, etc...

Anyway, July 25 is also a good day. According to my speculations, this would be the last day before summer vacation starts, and would mark both the end of that school trimester and the end of their lives. In addition, the 25th of November was both the day that they were born and the day that Tsukasa sacrificed himself. Also, 25 is goroawase for twins in Japanese.

So in the end, I'm a little torn... even the day I'm not all that jazzed about, July 23, makes some sense to me. I guess for now I'll lean towards July 24, partly because that's the date the Apollo 11 astronauts got back from the moon... but honestly, it's a toss up between all of them.

Considering we don't know the time of day it happened, it's possible that the twins died on different days... and that's not even getting into their parents. There's no guarantee that they even died on the same day that their sons did, only that all four bodies were eventually found in the house, and that it was ruled a family suicide...

Additionally, since this illustration of Amane stabbing Tsukasa has stars in the bg, I wonder if it happened at night time...? Not that it really matters... but if it was after school and Amane stayed late, it stands to reason that the murder could have happened at night. That does lend a bit of credit to it being July 22 as well: Amane definitely stayed late that day.

You might have also noticed a discrepancy between the first image in this post, where Amane is shown poised to stab himself, and the colored one above here where he's hunched over with the bloody knife. Well it might not mean anything, but in the more recent one, the first image, Amane has no visible wounds. It makes you wonder if that's an error, or if his wounds healed before he killed himself. This opens a few possibilities, either that AidaIro changed their minds about Amane having wounds when he died, or that Amane waited a few days after killing Tsukasa before killing himself. Both are interesting ideas, but for now, I'm not going to do anything with them.

Anyway, I hope this post was somewhat informative or at least entertaining. I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't the first person to talk about this detail, though. Thanks for reading!

Mokke drew today this!

Warning: Do NOT leave alone for too long

Individual GIFs under the cut

Bestie I found a Tsukou liker I’m so happy

Yayyyyyyyy!! I’m in such a weird place with ships like TsuKou and TsuMitsu bcuz they aren’t necessarily my favorites but I do like them bcuz I’m a multishipper and therefore I don’t get to talk abt them nearly as much as the other ships I like. Or at least I didn’t before you started sending me asks abt them, thank you for that💪🏻

I know some of my moots are closet TsuMitsu enjoyers but probably not to the extent that they’d want to yap abt them beyond “ooo toxic yaoi so fun.” Luckily my girlfriend lets me tap abt them even tho she doesn’t rly like those ships much herself, she is so sweet :3

And they say romance is dead…

u did follow me i just made an art blog to separate my art from my main 😋😋😋😋 anyways good luck on ur exam 🤩🤩💜💜💕💕💜💕🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳💕💕💜💜💥💥💥🔥🔥🔥🔥💜💜

Day 2: Wish

The fee for your wish is one hefty bill, are you willing to exchange your soul to pay the price?

@pewpewfishh good morning haha wow earlier then yesterday amiright (this one is earlier than twt so it counts as smth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i kept my promise yayayayyya dont burn me alive 💔💔 rn would be 2 hrs before i actually wake up ong💔💔)

(Her own) tell-tale heart

Nene is a romance author in an unfortunate situation. She... may have published a book about her friends and her falling in love. No one else knows of course, but the shame is eating up at her.

Hananenekou... Save me hananenekou... Hananenekou save me...

About Aoi in the Sacrifice of the Grim Reaper arc

I see a lot of people saying that Aoi was drugged and that is why she stabbed Akane. Which I agree...

... and I don't.

Hakubo's reaction to her compliance is interesting. He doesn't seem very keen to trust her (maybe because Aoi is very similar to Sumire and he knows what a handful Sumire is lol) but in the end he does.

(Look at Aoi's eyes and how devoid of light they are compared to Nene's)

At the same time, I do think she was drugged but I don't think it had the same effect it had on Nene.

(if anything I do think Sumire wasn't drugged when she was sacrificed, or as Aoi, it didn't have the full effect on her)

On the other hand, it seemed to have some effect on Aoi, which I think only fed on her insecurities.

Her self-loathing and subsequently, on her hatred for Akane.

It fed into her frustrations, her helplessness when it came to her inability to express herself, while also giving her power she never had in her life.

(Look at her, she's so powerdrunk i love her )

And drugged or not, she had made up her mind. Came to peace about her fate as an offering. And here is Akane– it front of her, a supernatural – something he had been hiding from her since gods know when, as had Nene. He had abandoned her in exchange for power over time and had let their relationship grow cold (sure, he confesses to her but she doesn't trust those words as much as she did when they were kids)

And now? Now when she's part of the action and finally in the known– one of them? Now he refuses to accept her decision.

He's fighting her. Fighting to take her back when she doesn't want to go back–

So she stabs him.

She's not drugged anymore here, yet she doesn't hesitate to hit him where it hurts the most (after she herself patched up his wound).

The stabbing was Aoi. Drugged as she was, it was her intention to hurt him the way he had hurt her by keeping things from her.

Maybe not to kill him and maybe she didn't realise he could die from it, because of the drug or because of the heat of the moment. Or maybe she wanted him dead. Because she wanted herself dead.

And Aoi is selfish– if he's so adamant to take her back, she will not hesitate to give him a piece of her mind first (now that he had seen the worst of her)

this is a silly question sorry if you already answered it but why do you ship aoinene? any canon material you especially like that make you ship them? i like to hear (in this case, read) people talk about their (fav?) ship and see their reasoning ^_^

Omg hi!!!! Thank you for this question, I love talking about this kind of stuff. I know I’ve made a few posts on TikTok about it but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it on here. So let’s get right into it!

The first reason is a little silly so I’ll go ahead and get it out of the way. I have a major femslash bias. This doesn’t mean femslash ships are always going to be my favorites (I have plenty of favorite mlm and het ships as well), but it’s very hard for me to dislike a wlw pairing or to flat out not care about it. Take Bungou Stray Dogs for example, when I was writing for that fandom I was heavily invested in Dazai and all his ships, but Higuchi x Gin (a wlw couple) still ended up being my second most written for pairing in the fandom. And so before I even watched TBHK, when my sister told me Aoi and Nene were best friends and that people shipped them, I knew I was going to be a fan of the ship. However, I never expected it to become my favorite

I had quite a journey with what I deemed to be my “favorite” TBHK ship. At first I was saving that spot for Mitsukou, but the anime made me really adore HanaNene. It was also Sakuhiko for like a day, and I briefly anticipated AoiAoi would take the throne. It’s a little funny to me that before I got into Aoinene, I was so fascinated with their main rival ships. Aoinene became my favorite purely by accident, because of the femslash bias. This is how I accidentally get invested in many sapphic pairings that don’t have much basis in canon, lesbian content is a huge comfort for me and so I end up seeking it out the most in fandoms. Even before Aoinene became my favorite, it was the main ship I was reading fan fiction for. I was also searching up edits and fan art for them far more often than any other ship

Don’t laugh, but I do think it was the fanfics that solidified Aoinene as my favorite. Which is funny to me because nowadays I have a lot of problems with the way they’re typically written. But I still have such fond memories of fall of last year, staying up late every night and burning a candle whilst reading Beecalm’s Aoinene fics. It was one of those times in my life when everything felt right, and so I associate the ship with a lot of positive things

But fanon isn’t the only reason I like Aoinene, far from it!! I have plenty to yap abt with canon Aoinene as well

My favorite ship trope ever is friends to enemies, and though Aoinene only had that arc briefly, it’s still my favorite part of the manga (not just Aoinene, Grim Reaper arc as a whole!). I love the built up resentment between them, how they both hide so much from each other. Aoi wants to tell Nene who she really is, and Nene wants Aoi to talk more about herself, and yet they’re both too conflict-avoidant to realize they want the same thing!

That brand of friends to lovers has always been my favorite, when there’s so much unresolved tension between them wrapped up in a history that both of them feel tied to. They can’t walk away from each other, but they can’t quite stay together unless they talk about things. It puts them at a standstill. Many fans use this as a reason to hate Aoinene but for me it only makes me love them more, that miscommunication is so delicious to me. When it happens with Aoi and Akane we get a little bit of resolution as soon as Aoi lets it all out, whereas with Aoinene that resolution is dragged out more (and their development is expressed through smaller details). Don’t get me wrong, I love Aoi and Akane’s development too, but the subtlety of Aoinene’s conflict makes it sm more interesting to me. Like c’mon, don’t be shy. Tell me moooooooooooore

I also strongly feel that their type of conflict is unique to female friendships. I have had so many relationships like theirs, where you share a whole life together yet you know nothing about each other beyond a surface level. It’s interesting to me how women can just sorta cling together like that, how willing we are to fake it ‘til we make it just to keep our best friends in our lives. I like to joke that some female friendships act like old married couples who are bored of each other but don’t want to divorce. It’s very codependent by nature which is an element I love to see in ships (for the toxicity ofc, if I like a ship for its healthiness I don’t want to see them that way). And female friendships are so layered, the line between platonic and romantic is very blurred. There are women who have fully made out with their female friends and still identify as straight because that was nothing serious or romantic to them. On the other end, there are women who never got o kiss or hold their female friends but were still deeply in love with them. A woman might say her best friend is like a sister to her and then later realize she was misplacing the root of that intimacy. I have had friends go from “she’s like a sister to me” to “we’re best friends” to “when did she get so pretty??”. And that kind of complexity is exactly what draws me to sapphic ships like Aoinene

I like that Aoi so desperately wants to open up to Nene about her true personality, and in fact she makes multiple attempts to throughout the manga. But she’s so terrified of Nene hating her that she can’t bring herself to fully do it. Similarly, Nene does notice that something is going on with Aoi, but she brushes it off because she’s too overwhelmed with her own problems to pay too much attention to what her friends are doing. She also has a highly romanticized view of the world that causes her to see everyone in an idealized light. Aside from Aoi she also does this with Kou, Teru, Akane, and Mitsuba (briefly). There are times when she empathizes with certain characters- she saw right through Yako and Sumire, showed a deep care for Mei, and makes an active effort to understand Hanako. So her selfishness is a lot more nuanced than people think. But when it comes to the people she’s familiar with in her every day life, they become part of a routine. It’s easy for her to develop expectations for how they behave because she spends more time with them. Whereas with Yako, Sumire, Mei, and Hanako, she doesn’t really know what to expect from them. This allows her to approach their problems with a more unbiased view and- okay now I’m rambling

After the Grim Realer arc, Aoi and Nene are still lying to each other. Nene still hasn’t told Aoi about her lifespan, Aoi hadn’t told Nene about her hand. It’s likely Aoi hasn’t told Nene the extent of her problems either, tho they seem more comfortable around each other after their chat in the firework chapter. It seems to me like they’re working through things bit by bit, but they still have a long way to go. Their combined character flaws (Aoi hiding her true self vs. Nene being blind to other people’s true selves) make a recipe for disaster. And as much as I really want to see them struggle with that, I also want to see them overcome their problems together and develop a stronger friendship

I also want to add that I love how Nene interacts with new timeline Aoi. This is an Aoi that doesn’t hide herself; she’s forward about what she wants and her attentiveness towards Nene seems very genuine in comparison to OG Aoi’s fakeness. What makes me hopeful is that Nene really seems to like this version of Aoi!! She looks at her with interest and indulges her clinginess by going to the festival with her, giving her the kind of reassurance OG Aoi needs (actually OG Aoi needs wayyyyy more reassurance but it’s a good start). They seem to be much closer in this timeline than they were in the OG so I am very excited to see where their relationship goes from here. I’m hoping this leads to development for OG Aoinene

One of my favorite things about Aoinene is how they fall into the hero x damsel in distress trope. Nene has had to watch Aoi die so many times, it’s insane. First the Misaki Stairs, then the Picture Perfect arc, then the Grim Reaper arc where Aoi actually was fully dead for a while, and she had to grieve her in the Ghost Hotel au too. I understand why a manga with so much going on doesn’t have time to unpack all of that but I do wish we had a few more scenes addressing the trauma Nene is sure to have from watching her best friend die over and over again (MadoHomu core?). From the way she reacts to seeing Aoi again after watching her die, it’s clear those memories do impact her. And I love love love how protective she is over Aoi as a result. Nvm my favorite parts of the manga are when Aoi gets kidnapped by a supernatural and Nene sets out to find her. They are so classic fairy tale coded (yes I do have a fic about this…technically two…technically three…)

That makes it even more interesting when their hero x damsel trope turns into hero x villain. Ughhhhh the panel of Aoi throwing Nene into the pit is so famous to me, I really wish antagonist Aoi had lasted longer. Her fakeness leading up to the betrayal!!! The ultimate act of her faking her personality, and Nene still doesn’t notice because she never noticed before!!! Rahhhhhhhh they make me ill. There is a reason the Grim Reaper arc is my favorite and admittedly a lot of it is of Aoinene (other elements too tho, I love everything about it). I did not know the “damsel becomes the villain” plot line was something I need it but reading it in TBHK was so mwah mwah mwah, 5 stars I need to see that a million times again

Another thing I like about Aoinene is all the cute details we have about their friendship in the manga. Their character designs complement each other so well, I can’t help but feel that was intentional (like Gojo and Geto). There are so many official arts of them in matching outfits or just doing cute things together. They canonically go to the beach together every summer. They canonically do karaoke together. Aoi canonically buys snacks to share with Nene at school. They are at the forefront of so many AUs, namely HKOM where Aoi tells Nene she loves her. They have been friends since middle school. Aoi initiates physical affection with Nene a lot which often makes Nene stunned or flustered. Aoi shares all her rumors and ghost stories with Nene. We’ve seen Aoi cry in front of Nene and Nene comfort her. I like how panicked Nene gets when she’s trying to comfort Aoi, it’s clear she’s not good at that sort of thing but still makes an effort. I like that Aoi can be passive-aggressive with Nene at times. I just like. Man. I love every single thing about them

Given the Hanako possession scene, I would say the yuri fan service with them is intentional (that scene as gross but it was still very much fan service). The fact that AidaIro have thought of their relationship that way makes me so giddy…I just wish they could fan service them in a way that wasn’t lesbian fetishization and SA but ig beggars can’t be choosers. Ultimately tho idc if this ship has implied moments, as I said it’s just fan service and it’s never going to be canon. It does seem to me like Aoi might have been intended to have a crush on Nene at the start of the manga with the whole “I missed my chance to tell her” thing, but if that plot line was ever considered it’s clearly been scrapped. I don’t need my pairings to be canon in order to be happy, the fun of shipping is getting to make shit up!! And I have so much fun reading into their friendship and fleshing things out. These two have become one of my favorite ships of all time. Possibly my favorite. I am so unwell about them

Anyways, sorry this took me months to answer. I had typed out part of it and then got lazy and let it collect dust in my drafts for far too long. It feels good to finally be replying, I’ve been looking forward to posting this one. Hope this response satisfies your curiosity!!