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muthaz-rapapa · 1 year

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A Brief Study of Loneliness Analysis #4 - alone against the world

To be honest, I’m questioning if I’m mentally well enough right now to do a proper analysis post. And this isn’t the topic I intended to write about either (that post will be published later) but something I decided on this morning after I woke up feeling too many emotions from thinking a lot these past few days.

Since writing is often an effective way for me to purge my state of mind…I owe myself this space to release some of that turmoil. So feel free to look the other way if this bothers you. And plz don’t interact with CLAMP-related commentary or whatever cuz that isn’t what this post is about.

{TW: mental illness, depression, topics of abuse}

Loneliness. Solitude.

These are the things Kaito has always known as far back as he can remember.

Isolated because of his powers, he was always alone. Even the few who genuinely reached out to him weren’t able to lift that belief from his mind.

Because he’s been carrying this emotional and psychological trauma from his childhood for so long that the thought of connecting with people, trusting others, is greatly damaged as well.

The only exception to that is Akiho. She had to endure abuse similarly to how he did so he could relate to her suffering. But she was also always beside him as a positive, healing influence and that helped alleviate some of that pain he felt.

However, it didn’t erase it because there were many things that kept that wall up between them.

He had to hide the fact that he is a magician from Akiho in order to not frighten her. Because every other magician she knew had only ever hurt her for not having magic. Kaito didn’t want that. He wanted her to feel safe, to grow up feeling that she can be treated normally. So he never used magic in front of her (or, at the very least, not in any way she would notice) so that she could interact with him without being afraid.

He hides his schemes in the shadows because he doesn’t want her to become aware of what her clan and the Association did to her, what he’s trying to fix right now. Finding out that she was turned into a magical artifact would be the ultimate thing that could destroy her heart and she’d immediately lose her soul to the spells carved into her body from the magnitude of that revelation.

He deflects her concern for his rapidly deteriorating health for the same reason.

“Don’t ask, don’t look this way, please think of yourself first”

All this is done for Akiho’s peace of mind.

Kaito shoulders the heavy burden of secrecy, his own massive guilt, anxiety, and despair so that Akiho wouldn’t have to. So that she wouldn’t worry and can be free to be happy like he wants her to be.

And that in itself is another loneliness for him to bear.

The loneliness of being at the top by yourself.

The loneliness of taking on a goal only you can fulfill, one that you absolutely MUST fulfill. A task that you can’t trust or rely on others for and are running out of time to complete.

The loneliness of not being able to be your true self, especially in front of the person you love most. Because that just might be what breaks her and you lose her forever.

The feeling that you are up against the odds, the world, alone.

“You’re on your own, you always have been”

Even when half of these issues are dealt with and made better post-climax-finale-whatever, the fact that Kaito had felt and experienced this pain won’t ever change. It will remain buried deep in the corners of his mind and at times, it will come back to haunt him when he’s at his weakest and most vulnerable.

Because it’s already part of him, what made him who he is now.

It is a pain unique to him so…even Akiho will never fully comprehend why or how he feels this way.

That’s just how humans are. It’s very difficult and perhaps impossible to completely understand one another because others can’t be you and you can’t be anyone but yourself. That’s the barrier that sets us apart.

And it made me realize something at the end of the latest chapter (68).

Knowing his story, his background, I have always stood on Kaito’s side and prayed for him to achieve what he wishes for (i.e. saving Akiho’s life). So from that position, I have to also come to understand how he perceives the world and how (he assumes) the world perceives him.

The world (or the majority) will typically side with the protagonist, the hero, the one considered “sane”. Like the boy holding up his sword right in front of him or the heroine Kaito placed in this story he wove. The side that is overwhelmingly painted as “good” and in that effect, sheds a negative light on the one standing opposite of it.

The “good” side (talking in general here, not Sakura) is willing to accept things they consider clean-looking. “Pure”. Sanitized.

So it’s easier for them to accept Akiho because despite her problems, she is shown to behave in what many still think as the “proper” way (by keeping her head down to herself and not starting any trouble).

The reaction and the reception towards Kaito’s actions, however, is more alienating and wary and outright hateful even with the bigger picture there to illustrate why. Even though he has good reason to explain his behavior (he acts sneakily and drastically precisely because he’s been pushed into extreme desperation), he will always be deemed as crazy and harmful and by some, even “evil”.

Because those people can’t register in their own brains the extent of the suffering in someone else’s mind and how that affects whatever that person does. So they shun them. They shun what they can’t understand and automatically label it as “bad”.

When in reality, most people who are mentally ill don’t have it in them to look and behave in the ideal standards that others ridiculously hold them up to.

It’s already a huge struggle to get up in the morning and to act normal before those we have to interact with. It’s already a constant and exhausting fight with yourself beneath the surface to not let your inner demons win.

Once something breaks that fragile façade, what do you honestly expect to see? Cuz it’s definitely not a perfect angel. It’s the broken and the ugly but still very much human part that we’re doing our best to reconcile in ourselves.

That, I believe, is a way to describe another loneliness Kaito possesses.

Nobody but him understands the conviction he has to hold onto as he faces every obstacle that blocks his way. Nobody knows what it’s like for him to do everything on his own for the sake of this plan to save Akiho. Nobody can comprehend the terrors that he and Akiho escaped from, that magician society that he had to likely fend off regularly while making sure the plan in Tomoeda goes accordingly without a hitch.

They just see him as “wrong” because they don’t want to accept what he’s gone through. What he is going through right now. Cuz it’s easier to blame something they don’t understand.

And it’s sad because Kaito believes this, too. That he is wicked, “evil”, and that there's no saving him.

That’s not true at all. He’s just doing his best in the limited ways available to him to ensure that Akiho survives.

And if life didn’t fuck him up like this, if it didn’t shape him into someone who couldn’t trust others, if he weren’t still so affected by his trauma and factors beyond his own control, do you honestly think he would go to such dangerous lengths just to poke in someone else’s miracle fountain? When there are probably safer ways to save Akiho out there?

No.

If a person’s mind was clear and healthy, mentally stable…they wouldn’t be viewed so derogatively. But when they aren’t those things, they’re thought of as less than a person. That it’s their fault they are that way.

It’s no wonder why he said “I am alone”.

Indeed, he may not be completely alone because Momo will not stop trying to make him see otherwise and most importantly, Akiho will never abandon him for anything and already loves him wholly and unconditionally…and those two are all he’ll ever need to go on…

…but he has known and experienced too much to ever forget this feeling.

The loneliness that nothing can totally cure, that nobody else but he can really understand. Because again, it was born within him, exists only within him and will always be a part of him.

But even so, even if the loneliness never vanishes, I will still be on his side. I don’t think his actions were “wrong” because if I were in his shoes with not many choices to pick from, I’d probably be pushed to do the same as well. I want to try to understand that much about him at least.

And of course, I want him to succeed in his plan, whatever it is, because I don’t believe for a second it can be malicious in any way.

More importantly, I want him to survive this ordeal and live to see better days. I want him to have the chance to overcome that loneliness because it’s not always going to be like that and he has the right to know what that feels like as well.

Because nobody deserves happiness more than Kaito. Because nobody in this entire goddamn story worked as hard as he did and actually put their life on the line and suffered through hell after hell after hell as much as he did.

#i hate depression #it messes up everything on my schedule #but i ain't so weak that i can't fight for my boy #going to bed now plz give me space thx #yuna d. kaito #🕰️🌾🐇

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