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Kamui And Subaru Naked With Chocolate Sauce
Or, Why Our Favorite Uber-Bishounen Should Abandon Their Obsessions
with Evil People and Run Off Together to Barbados*
[Requires familiarity with pretty much all of TB
and X up to current issues of Asuka.]
Okay, let's face it. After Tokyo Babylon, Subaru deserves a break.
And ever since the heads started rolling in X, Kamui has had a pretty
rough time of it, too. Of course, the parallels between these two
have been ragingly obvious from the start, so I don't think I need to
list them here. The boys have certainly gravitated towards one another.
The question is, just what is CLAMP intending by having them bond so
cutely over their respective tragedies?
I was ready to let most of it slide as gratuitous eye-candy and
service to slobbering fangirls, until what I refer to as the "tying
the tie" scene in Vol. 14. For those who haven't
seen it, a brief summary: after recovering from his most recent
wounds, Kamui starts to get ready to go back to school, but still
has a bit of trouble putting on his uniform tie. Subaru, who has
apparently been hovering close by for most of the time since he was
injured, steps up to do it for him. And then we have the tying the tie
picture, which crackles with more sexual tension than your average
shippy episode of the X-Files. (Ki no sei ja nai yo.) (My
goodness, Subaru, was it really necessary to stand quite THAT close?)
So now I've decided that CLAMP has gleefully set out to torture
their audience, much as they torture their characters. The repeated
cute, heart-wrenching scenes are going beyond fanservice, and I'm
seriously wondering what they've got up their collective sleeve.
Let's look at Touching Bedside Scene #2, the one where Kamui wakes
up to find Subaru with him. (Touching Bedside Scene #1 takes place
in the hospital, after Subaru gets his eye poked out.) The first
time I read it, I thought it was cute, and not much else, but after
the tying the tie scene, I was prompted to go back and re-examine,
ignoring the dialogue and paying close attention to the pictures.
It was then that I noticed that their hands are all over each other,
and that Subaru's actually sitting ON the bed. Most significantly,
watch what he does when the other Dragons come charging into the room:
he jumps up and backs away several feet. Now why would he have
done that if he had nothing to be embarrassed about, hmmmmm?
Interestingly, Kamui has a habit of "reminding" Subaru about where
his obsession is supposed to lie. More than once, right in the middle
of their cute bonding moments, he'll say something like "But the only
person who can make Subaru happy is that Sakurazukamori." The most
recent time he did it (during Touching Bedside Scene #2,) Subaru
looked distinctly surprised. Now, how to interpret that expression?
We know he's not surprised at Kamui being understanding of his
situation, since he himself revealed it to Kamui in order to draw Kamui out of his trauma after Kotori's death. I'd like to think that for a little while, in the midst
of worrying about Kamui and focusing his attention on that, to say
nothing of the hand-holding, Subaru had actually forgotten his own
misery for a while, and even forgotten the person who caused it.
And then there's all the Seishirou-Fuuma business going on, which
seems difficult to classify as anything other than flirting. (An
eating tour of Tokyo? And it
was Fuuma's idea! Wasn't Sei-chan always trying to fatten up Subaru
back in TB by taking him out? He ought to be grateful for a date
with somebody who truly appreciates food.) If the tortured but
pure-hearted good guys are meant for each other, maybe the boys on
the dark side ought to hook up, too. They'll have fun trying to
out-evil one another, with no need for pretense whatsoever. I'd say
that Sei-chan certainly seems intrigued by the idea of somebody who's
just as enthusiastically evil (and just as polite) as he is. We all
know that opposites attract, but how often do polar relationships
last? Common ground, my friends, it's all about common ground.
Now, I love TB, and I'm as much a Subaru-Seishirou fan as anybody.
I agree with the esteemed Nat-san that their relationship is almost
mythic in proportion. Being an optimist, my hope is that by bringing
the two of them back in X, CLAMP is going to give them a chance to
come to some more satisfactory sort of resolution than the end of TB
did. However, looking ahead, I just can't see Sei-chan getting any
less evil, and I can't really see a space (like the one Nat-san has
envisioned so beautifully in "Sakura and Snow") in which the two of
them will be able to meet on level footing and begin to work things
out. That said, I also can't swallow the idea that CLAMP intends
nothing for Subaru but torment and more torment, followed by a painful
death.
If, however, Subaru had to be destroyed in TB so that he
could understand Kamui better than anyone else, and so that the two
of them could find refuge in one another, then bring out the hot
fudge and whipped cream.
*Barbados has no particular significance; it is merely my standard
destination for proposed romantic getaways.
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