Titus wrote:Thank you:
Daitengu,
Mirrormn, and
Dawnstorm !
I read your responses over several times and pieced it together. After re-reading Shizune's route before I found the thread discussion exhausted me, at least now I have a cheat sheet
...and...the kiss attempt that was rejected by Hisao, I'll take that as Rin's "confession" or acceptance to Hisao's feelings towards her?
And Hisao got angry at that moment because he thought she was just using him again? To be honest that scene dumbfounded me, the last thing Rin said to him when Hisao said he was leaving was "that's fine". What the fuck, Rin?
If I recall correctly, this kiss attempt occurs after Rin decides she is finished painting for her exhibition, but before the exhibition actually occurs. Yes, I would say that that act is essentially Rin's idea of returning the confession she received from Hisao. However, she still doesn't really get the concept of a relationship beyond the physical (and maybe the superficially social) aspects. So at that point, she's basically trying to say "I'm finished focusing on painting; now I have time for us to be physically intimate". It's not really a confession of
love, per se - I don't think Rin really understands the deeper connotations of love (specifically, the unrequited kindness and comfort that Hisao gives her that she is "afraid" of) until very near the end of the route - but she is comfortable enough with Hisao that she's willing to accept a relationship with him. She does this not because she inherently wants/believes in/understands the socially traditional boyfriend/girlfriend dynamic, but because she thinks that's what Hisao wants, and she does want to make him happy, partly because she simply likes him in the first place, and partly because she feels guilty for pushing him aside while painting. So, she tries to move the relationship forward in the way she thinks is "expected": by kissing Hisao.
Unfortunately, that's not what Hisao is looking for in a relationship. He's much more interested in emotional connection and mutual understanding than physical interaction than a "typical" teenage male would be. This probably relates to the emotional pain of having his friends at extremely-temporary-girlfriend leave him behind in the hospital. That incident matured him immensely, and causes him to be quite desperate for more profound connections than he had in his previous life. He's seen how easy it is for shallower relationships to simply fall away in a time of need. You also have to remember that unlike the other routes, Hisao is struggling with his own feelings for pretty much the entirety of Rin's arc. He doesn't really know whether the feelings he has for Rin are really what traditionally constitutes "love", he doesn't know what actions he should take as a result of those feelings, and he gets very conflicted in his own mind when Rin doesn't respond in a traditional way to his initial advances. He especially doesn't understand Rin's need to focus on her work that caused her to reject his confession; that rejection caused him to very seriously doubt whether Rin actually likes him beyond the point of being a curious interest to her. Even worse, however, is the combination of that flat rejection with the physical intimacy that followed it, especially the night together in the atelier. Taking all these together, Hisao has started believe that Rin is actually far more interested in physical pleasure than he is, and is using him towards that end, but that she does not even have the
desire for emotional closeness, which is what he wants above all else.
So, with the attempted kiss in Hisao's dorm room, you get a cruel double dose of dramatic irony. Rin offers Hisao physical intimacy because she thinks that's what he wants. Hisao rejects it, not necessarily because he
doesn't want physical intimacy (he is an 18 year old male, after all), but because he thinks Rin is trying to use him for her own selfish purposes. In reality, Rin is honestly trying to get closer to Hisao, which
is what he wants, but she simply doesn't know the right way to do so. And as Hisao rejects her kiss and yells at her about playing with his heart, she is devastated. She believes that her efforts to keep Hisao interested in her while she was painting failed, and that he not only no longer has any feelings for her, but actually legitimately hates her (she actually asks later, after Nomiya yells at her, "do you still hate me?").
With regards to the "That's fine" remark, however, I think you may be confusing your scenes a bit. In both instances of Hisao angrily yelling at Rin - either in the atelier during Shards of Ire (bad ending) or in the Hisao's room after the attempted kiss in Demused (good/neutral ending), she becomes visibly upset. Hisao even notes that it's very surprising to see Rin so upset, as opposed to her usual indifference towards everything. She doesn't say "That's fine" as Hisao leaves in either scenario. Instead, she demands that Hisao go away (although when it's in his dorm room, she then realizes that she should be the one to leave instead).
Edit: What I find really interesting about this whole situation is that after this conversation, Hisao isn't really "pining" for Rin like he does in the short days immediately preceding it. In fact, he takes the argument almost as badly as Rin does, and seriously questions whether he should even continue to pursue her. This is why, during the exhibition, there is not really any option to console Rin or make up with her. At that point in the story, Hisao really doesn't think things will work out with Rin. And you can see that mindset in the neutral ending, as Rin says she thought Hisao might be able to understand her, and Hisao refuses to entertain that notion. He even says "All people... are alone. We just use each other to alleviate that loneliness," and then immediately reflects "I wonder why I put it like that." I think this is specifically referencing that he is still bitter about his view that Rin was trying to use him selfishly (either physically or as a creative inspiration). And even though he is angry at the thought of Rin leaving for art school, he's still very guarded about expressing his feelings for Rin again (his response to "Do you hate me" is even "I don't know"), because he's not really sure about them anymore. In the good ending, it's not until Hisao comforts Rin after Nomiya yells at her that he even begins to recover from these bitter feelings, and he's still not completely over them at the end of the route (which is why he responds to Rin's final confession less than vehemently). In the end, Rin's reflections on his kindness finally brighten his outlook on their relationship, and make him believe that they might be able to reach other after all.
