ok so i've speculated on what kind of home environment[s] mimuro and mei might have before but like the kind of home environment that produces people who just like lie like that. well. smiles.

okay so i've been mulling it over in my head about who was breaking up with who and i think i might be coming around to the mimuro interpretation partly because the phrasing of it is really soft for something nisei might say and in japanese ("悪いけど僕はもうつきあってあげられないかも // だってメイがいるから", literally "I'm sorry, but I might not be able to hang out with you anymore. // Because Mei is here.") it's a little softer and i think the phrasing is slightly more direct. it's also a little softer than kamibana's imo (though kamibana's "maybe we shouldn't see each other anymore" is really good in that it sounds way more intense and kind of romantic which i appreciate. these bitches get it.) but regardless, i think both interpretations are interesting and i'm going to yell about both. smiles.

in the event that it was nisei saying it it's like wuogh, it's sad.... like it's sad in either case but if nisei said it i think it shows a degree of care for mimuro and even mei and i think nisei desperately needs a little bit of humanization outside of his backstory and outside of his relationship with seimei (thought it's delightfully tragic if he doesn't too because that means his humanity hinges on seimei. smiles.), but also it's like wow, nisei has spent his entire life pushing people away and now seimei has gotten him to push away to the one person who he couldn't shake, the only person he's ever said he enjoyed spending time with..... but on the other hand, the opposite is true if we go with the mimuro interpretation and it's just......... woof.

like he specifies mei in this situation, which is interesting because their entire deal as fearless is that they aren't afraid of each other getting hurt, but.... he clearly is! he's clearly afraid of mei getting hurt, and with good reason! but again, it's putting your name above anything else, which we've seen framed in a condemnatory fashion in loveless again and again, so i do think we're supposed to think mimuro is in the wrong to some degree here. and like, he's clearly not happy about it. he's worried about nisei, he cares about nisei, even if it's ambiguous how much nisei cares about him, if at all. mimuro is clearly like guiltmaxxing about the whole thing, about his failure as nisei's senpai. it would also be a good lead in to my theory that mimuro will try and find nisei without mei in an effort to help him, and this this..... will not go well for mimuro and nisei might even maul him due to The BPD. because like. if mimuro did leave him then.... that's everyone isn't it? he's successfully managed to drive away literally everyone in his life. all of his relationships end, and that's clearly something he's terrified of, we see this in the way seimei manipulates him in the boat scene, telling him don't worry we can't break up because we're stronger than that, we have a relationship stronger than any of that, again conflating the names with power, which nisei wants because he feels so powerless. i can imagine there's a feeling of betrayal, even if it was something he to some degree expected, like.... idk, when mei says nisei doesn't care about mimuro i think she's to some degree right, but more than him just being like, cold and callous and manipulative with mimuro (which i do think he is), i think it's something more like, he's throwing up walls and doesn't register mimuro liking him as him like. ACTUALLY liking him, i think he sees it as just a way he can manipulate him because he doesn't realize mimuro actually cares about him, possibly because of the way mimuro tries to exert power over him sometimes also the weird internalized homophobia deal but this ain't about that rn ANYWAY. i think nisei has convinced himself he's the sort of person who's unlovable and so he sees any affection towards him as either fake or a threat, which is why seimei feels almost like a comfort to him. like soubi's kissing with ritsuka, nisei's submission towards seimei is a comfort seeking behaviour "if i'm good this person will love me, this person will give me what i want, this person will give me power, this person won't leave me, this person will see my value" it's his parents all over again. they literally never cared about him. he was what like six? i think probably the same age as soubi was when he lost his parents, but by then nisei was already tacitly aware that his parents didn't care for him at all. he states it-- they weren't coming to that shed. they weren't coming looking for him. soubi lost his parents; nisei never had them at all. mimuro says he's strayed from his path, but was there ever a path for him at all? i also wonder what the last straw for mimuro would've been. showing up with his broken hand? that's so awful, haha, like imagine getting your hand broken and your friend leaves you over it. like even if you deserved your hand broken that's kind of fucked, right? and i can imagine nisei thinking he did deserve it, mimuro leaving i mean. you know, like, "well of course he left, this is my path, and i don't need him anyway". nisei is falling to his fate-- this IS his path, mimuro is wrong, he isn't straying at all. again, it's the nietzschean amor fati, eternal recurrence.

i just hope nisei can break out of his fate, because we've seen it! we've seen it with the female zeroes, and i think we're beginning to see it with soubi if loveless doesn't go for the straight up tragedy route. well, even if soubi dies, i think that could be a catalyst for nisei to understand what's truly going on. in any case, if nameswap theory is real, i do have some hope for nisei-- the idea of ritsuka gaining power by learning to love his name, his fate, as loveless, a name that rebukes the power of bonds, which is exactly what seimei wants, while seimei and nisei are burdened forever with knowing love and forgiveness, the things they denied the power of........ god the irony would be sooooo good lol. i think nisei can change. i don't know so much about seimei, but nisei and soubi are so alike, i think it would be really powerful if soubi could inspire nisei in some way. i mean yun kouga could also just kill all of them and be like LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS. LOOK AT IT. but i think the former is more interesting haha....

edit: i also wanted to say that i think nisei has trouble understanding the concept that like. relationships aren't perfect. like we see that even the female zeroes who have decided their own fate and decided to live their lives on their own terms, they're still struggling sometimes. like he has a very black and white way of thinking, unlike mimuro, especially in a series with such heavy grey and grey morality. seimei is also like this. i think this sort of ties into the idea that nisei is a person who's been told "no" his entire life to the point where "no" effectively has no real meaning to him, not entirely dislike soubi, and interestingly, sort of the opposite of ritsu, who has been told "yes" his entire life to the point where "no" has no meaning to him.