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ボク達の生存逃走

mizuki event but also mafuyu.

the status quo for the past two weeks has been that mafuyu will directly send kanade lyrics, and niigo can all meet up for food in real life, but he hasn't logged onto nightcord at all.

the scene flashes back to right after kanade spoke with mafuyu's mother. they tell ena and mizuki about what happened, and the both of them are stunned and appalled. ena asks if they shouldn't talk to mafuyu about this--maybe if he knew exactly the kinds of things his mother was saying behind his back, he would realize just how wrong she is--but kanade still thinks that he just wouldn't believe it. not yet, anyway. just look at how he reacted to kaito pointing out the truth; he clearly still wants to believe that his mother has his best interests at heart, even though there's an ever-growing part of himself that does see the reality of the situation. if niigo were to talk to him about this, it might just hurt him even more and drive him further into the corner he's already trapped in. instead, kanade proposes that they all think about some sort of concrete way to help him, without bringing up his mother's beliefs. this at least gives them all something to focus on...

but it's been two weeks now, and they haven't been able to do a thing. the best they've been able to muster is meeting up for food every chance they get when mafuyu is on the way home from school in order to lessen the amount of time he has to spend at home, and kanade has upped the pace with which they're writing music, but... that really isn't doing anything. they haven't done anything to fundamentally change his situation; this is just a band-aid slapped onto a gaping wound.

luka points out that this isn't working, and they need to take more drastic measures if they want to actually help mafuyu. like, say, telling him everything his mother said to kanade. sure, it'll hurt him to hear that, but you can't fix this without causing him a little bit of pain. it makes sense that they wouldn't want to cause him even more pain than he's already dealing with, but what else can you do?

mizuki knows she's right--they aren't going to just stumble across a way to fix mafuyu's situation without causing him any strife, and wrap a neat little bow on the whole thing. that just isn't how life works. and it's not just that, either. the longer they take to do something, the further mafuyu's mother will drag him away from niigo. what should they do?

back on her own, mizuki thinks about what mafuyu must be going through right now. the most contact he can get with niigo over nightcord is sending short messages here and there, like in the scant few moments his mother isn't hovering over him that's the best he can manage. what must it feel like to live in a house where your every action is surveilled? for mizuki, her home was the place she escaped *to*, to get away from the outside world that shunned her. it was the only place she could be herself. but mafuyu doesn't have that; he isn't free in the outside world *or* at home, and now even the time he would spend with niigo has been taken from him, too. he has nowhere to escape to.

mizuki hates it. she hates that mafuyu has to live like this, and she hates how powerless she is to help him. there has to be *something* she can do to help. she just wants him to have more time and space in which he can be himself, like what her family did for her when she needed it. (they're really hammering on the "niigo as a family unit" vibe lately.)

the idea that she comes up with is to change niigo's working hours from the middle of the night to when mafuyu is on his lunch break at school. it's a difficult circle to square, as he's busy with all sorts of stuff at school (student council, club practice, studying, random students asking him to do stuff, teachers asking him to do stuff...) but, if he can stay muted while listening to their voices and pretend that he's studying, he can at least try it out. mizuki's just jazzed that she's given them all something positive to try.

but, of course, when it comes time for mafuyu to try and get away during lunch the next day, a teacher comes up to him and asks him for his input on this year's school trip. (bitch! that's your job! he's just a student!) surprisingly, he's able to put his foot down and say that he's busy... his voice sounds pretty strained while he's masking, too. like it's taking a lot of effort to maintain.

so, it works. niigo's able to get their work done during mafuyu's lunch break, and they're all having a lot of fun. well, we don't see mafuyu's point of view, and he's just speaking through text (which sounds terse as always)... but mizuki can tell that he's having fun. but... it's just on his lunch break. that isn't very much time. niigo's used to staying up all night to get their work done, so it feels like as soon as they hit their stride they have to call it quits. mafuyu wants to keep doing this, though, so he's going to have to keep carving out time during lunch like this. who knows how long that will work, though...

and that's really only a temporary balm, as mafuyu still has to go home after school. now that his mother has a voice and a portrait, it makes the scenes with her feel even more tense. so it hits you even harder when she tells mafuyu that finally she threw out his synthesizer today. she realizes and understands that he'll still want to play music in the future, of course, but for right now, when he needs to focus completely on studying for his exams, having an instrument in the house would only distract him. this is better in order to cultivate a productive study environment, you see. and he already said that he'll stop, anyway, so better to just throw it out now!

this prompts mafuyu to make the most pained expression we've seen yet. he can't even keep the mask up anymore, but she either doesn't see the cracks or simply doesn't care. as he holds back tears he agrees with her, says that it's fine because he doesn't need it right now, and she just smiles and is happy that he agrees with her. it's obvious that this is the most painful thing his mother has done to him yet--up until now, he could at least hold on to the hope that he could get back to his synthesizer as soon as his mother was satisfied with his studies... but now that's gone, too. what else does he have? the ability to type up lyrics on his computer and send them directly to kanade?

oh, but he doesn't have that, either. it just so turns out that his mother had to "borrow" his computer again today and, wow, she spilled her drink on it. then it wouldn't turn on, so she sent it out for repairs. that's a real shame. what if there were homework assignments on that that he needs to submit? she could always just talk to the teachers on his behalf, if so. why did that happen today, of all days? i wonder if she's been doing this every day? maybe looking at nightcord every day, just to keep tabs on him? maybe she saw their chat log from today and decided to throw out his synthesizer and destroy his computer all at once to put him back in his place? regardless, mafuyu is very quickly losing the ability to just smile and keep his head down.

so, the next day at school, he goes onto voice chat during lunch and tells niigo about this directly... and also apologizes in advance in the event that he stops being able to contact them all entirely. (he's obviously just referring to the idea that his mother might take his phone away, but he makes it sound a lot like he's going to be killed, which... is true in a metaphorical sense.) mizuki scrambles to remind him that they can all at least meet out for food and chat in person there, but ena isn't content to just leave it at that--she argues that, with things that important to him being tossed out with the garbage, that's equivalent to his mother throwing his own self in the trash. if he keeps displaying to his mother that he's willing to let this shit go, where will it end? does he think she's just going to stop? if he doesn't get seriously angry with her, she's going to break him irreparably.

but... he can't do that. he's terrified of her. (he briefly thinks back to when he got lost at the amusement park as a kid, and how terrifying his mother was when she got angry with him.)

he has to leave and go back to class, then. after he hangs up, ena reflects on her outburst; she knew that she would hurt mafuyu by yelling at him like that, but she did it anyway. she's only acting like this because she's worried about him, though. she just can't sit there and watch as mafuyu lets himself be destroyed.

this isn't just a mafuyu event though. mizuki, on her way home from school, comes across some classmates of hers--these are the two that, wayyy back (i don't even remember which event it was, at this point), talked behind her back about how, if she's tired of people treating her weird, she should just "come to school dressed normally." (it's obvious that they're referring to wearing the male uniform.) they're super nice to her and invite her out to go shopping, mentioning that they've missed her lately because she's been at school so infrequently. mizuki thinks to herself that, oh, they weren't talking like that out of malice. it was just out of ignorance. of course some random cis teenagers who think that mizuki is a boy aren't going to understand. they think they're just extending a friendly hand to her, but they don't realize that asking her to hang out might as well be asking her to self-harm. that's almost worse.

she extricates herself from the situation, and as soon as she's back home she breathes a sight of relief... which just makes her think about mafuyu again. for mizuki, though she may feel like she's on high alert when she's at school, at least she knows she'll be able to relax when she's at home. mafuyu, on the other hand, is at high alert all hours of the day. thinking about that, she's really wowed by how resilient he is. whenever mizuki runs into anything painful, she just runs away from it. she runs from everything, even people who she loves and wants to trust and come out to, like ena. even when ena specifically held out her hand and told mizuki she would be willing to accept anything and everything about her, mizuki couldn't bring herself to say it.

on that note, could she even give mafuyu a place to escape to in the first place? she isn't like kanade or ena. she's still "hiding" a major part of herself from all of them. she's still escaping, herself. does she have the right to try and save mafuyu at all?

now she's just spiralling, so she goes to sekai to try and cool off... but it doesn't really work. luka is there, too, and she has a funny way of seeing right through lies and obfuscations. she immediately pins down that mizuki wasn't thinking about mafuyu at all--she was thinking about herself. it's pointless to hide anything from luka, so mizuki comes clean. without mentioning the trans part, of course. she just thinks... kanade is driven to help in a concrete way, and ena will wait as long as needed for her friends to open up on their own. they both seem so much more capable than mizuki feels. "oh," luka says, "you sure are a coward." and, yeah, mizuki agrees.

luka continues, "there is something you can do for mafuyu precisely because you are as you are. [...] it's because you've always run away from what you need to face that you can offer something of your own. [...] mafuyu is, regardless of choice, being forced to face his problems head-on. and you of all people should know just how painful that is, mizuki. [...] when you were at your breaking point, what did you do? how did you protect your heart?"

this makes it click for mizuki. what did mizuki do when her self-expression was denied, she was bullied, when no one tried to understand her? she ran from school. sure, she caused a lot of worry for her family... but it was what she had to do in order to protect herself. and she kept running, and running, until she met niigo.

so, what can she do for mafuyu? she can tell him that it's okay to run away. that once he escapes, there's a safe place for him.

the scene changes to mafuyu's perspective, and it's late at night but he can't sleep. he figures he might as well get his phone out and use it to write lyrics on, but as he's up looking for it, he hears footsteps approaching. correctly figuring that it must be his mother, he rushes to act like he's asleep, and... yeah. she opens the door, calls for him, and when he doesn't respond, assumes that she must have just been hearing things. like she stays up late at night now to hover just outside of his room make sure he isn't getting up to anything. she's just hovering because she's worried about him, right? ena must have been wrong about her, right?

it's here that mizuki shoots him some messages asking if they can meet up and talk in person any time soon. preferably as soon as possible. so, they meet the next day after school. mafuyu figured they were just going to talk, but mizuki actually drags him out to the sports center and forces him to play a bunch of sports games with her... and then to the mall so he can go shopping with her. she spents ages agonizing over buying a single outfit. (damn, women be shopping.) it makes mafuyu smile, though, and he feels a little bit better. this is what mizuki wanted to get across to him--sometimes it's okay to run away from your problems and focus on having fun for a little bit.

mizuki explains, in as vague terms as possible, how she struggled throughout middle school. ("some stuff happened, people started looking at me weird and treating me like a walking joke... but going home, watching anime, and making videos helped me make it through." [until she had to drop out of school entirely.]) mizuki knows that this didn't solve any of her problems, but it did make it so that she could drift through life until she met niigo... so it's probably the best thing she could have done for herself.

from mizuki's perspective, running away to a safe place like she did helps you to shore up some mental energy that you otherwise wouldn't be able to have if you were living in constant fear and suffering. it's a way of prioritizing your own well-being over all else. and then, with that energy, you can later face your problems properly. sometimes you just need to run so you can stay alive.

but... where is mafuyu supposed to run to? mizuki doesn't have the answer to that; she just wanted to tell him that he has the option. that's enough, though, for now. he thanks her for today, and she reminds him that niigo will always be there for him.

mizuki tells ena and kanade about the day; she clearly feels guilty about having went off and had such a serious conversation with mafuyu without telling the others about it beforehand. there's some residual feelings that her opinion doesn't mean as much, that's for sure. kanade thinks it's a great idea, in particular--mafuyu can always run away to their house, if he needs to. (ena offers to talk to her mom about it, but kanade's proposition is the more important one here.) so... mizuki is glad that she put herself out there and offered her own voice to mafuyu, instead of just following kanade and ena. in the end, it's up to mafuyu to make his own choice... but she's given him a little piece of herself.

these past three events--願いは、いつか朝をこえて, イミシブル・ディスコード, and ボク達の生存逃走--have tackled each person's own relationship to mafuyu and what they have to offer him. ena, while she's prickly and sure as hell doesn't hold back when mafuyu says something totally out of pocket to her, truly loves him and wants what's best for him. in her view, mafuyu needs to stand his ground and tell his mother off. she maintains that this is the right choice for him to make, even though it seems to be the one least likely for him to pick. regardless of what he chooses, she's going to be there for him. for kanade, who's the most obviously driven to protect mafuyu with their own body on the line if need be, they want to convince his mother that she's wrong. this didn't work out, as previously exhaustively detailed... but they came out of that with a better understanding of just what he's dealing with, as well as even stronger convictions. and finally, for mizuki, she was able to get over her own self-doubt and offer her own perspective to mafuyu, despite initially being convinced that she had nothing to give him. all three of them influence mafuyu in their own ways, and they all have their own opinions as to what he should do, while at the same time knowing that the ultimate outcome will be up to him. they love him.

it's plain to see that mafuyu is a key figure in all of their lives, even if he feels like he's not even a person. them being there for him doesn't fix the yawning emptiness at his core, but they offer a little bit of light in the void. they can't fix all of his problems for him, but they can give him the tools he needs to do it himself. mafuyu himself realizes how much they mean to him, even if he can't really articulate it beyond saying "thank you" and smiling a little bit. this is months and months of real-world time spent setting up the confrontation between mafuyu and his mother, and it's a masterful execution of the storytelling potential that a live service game can provide.