S2Ch09 pages 14~16 + WIP. (Patreon)

Freeze response or even the wrong response does not make you guilty of anything.

Here's some trivia regarding the whole argument of season 2:

It was born from two ideas. One was that I thought "there's no antagonist" while working on S1 and I started creating the idea of Eiji. The other was a personal experience of mine. Years ago I was travelling to Japan Expo in Paris and first I had to take a ship. I was travelling alone and I had my own room, and one of the workers from the ship, after checking my room ticket, started telling me "that I'd be bored alone, that he could keep me company". The whole thing was so surreal that I smiled and politely told him "no, thanks, I'm going to sleep". The guy insisted (even in front of other passengers and double-checking my room number) and I kept telling him "no" with a smile on my face. Then I barricared myself in my room with over 20kg of BL doujinshis right in front of the door because I was terrified the guy would appear in the middle of the night and come into my room (they do have master keys they can open every door with).

Ever since I've tortured myself with these thoughts: why did I smile to the guy to politely decline his offer when I could have glared at him and show him what he was doing was horrible? Why didn't I write down a complain note to the company so that he would be fired for harassing customers? I didn't know how to react that time, everything was new and confusing for me and I reacted in the way I have learned: be kind, be polite.

Some years later I heard news on the TV that a worker from a ship (a different ship in Spain) was found abusing one of the passengers (an underage girl). It made me sick to think "what if it's the same guy? What if I could have avoided this by writing that complaint letter I never wrote?". I will never know if it was the same guy or not. It wasn't the same ship, but that doesn't mean anything (in fact, I don't think I've seen this guy the other times I've travelled by ship, so either he was fired or he was moved somewhere else).

All this is related to the story because I made Izumi go through hell over the fact "he didn't have the best response when somebody did something wrong", and that's what truly tortured him over S2. But I also wanted to tell Izumi, myself and all the other people out there who went through such a situation that it's ok. If I can understand Izumi for freezing, then I can also forgive myself for what happened. We tend to judge ourselves more harshly than we judge others.

Sorry for the wall of text ;;;;;;