This is crazy. The outfit, the hair, the pose, the eye colour, the name.

I’ve been thinking about Kiyotaka’s relationships with the different girls in COTE, and I genuinely think Kei is the person who fits him best.

Kiyotaka is naturally quiet, reserved, emotionally repressed and incredibly difficult to read. Kei, on the other hand, is expressive, talkative, energetic and emotionally open. And the LN repeatedly shows that this contrast actually works extremely well for Kiyotaka. Kei fills the silence that Kiyotaka is accustomed to living in. She talks, teases him, asks him things, encourages him to speak and brings out a side of him that almost nobody else sees.

Y1V11.75 is a really good example. During their phone conversation, Kei keeps talking and encouraging Kiyotaka to participate until he ends up talking for much longer than he realised. That’s significant precisely because Kiyotaka isn’t someone who normally “loses track of time” simply because he’s enjoying a conversation. With Kei, conversation becomes effortless. She simply makes him comfortable enough that he naturally starts talking.

And that’s what I think people sometimes miss about their dynamic. Kei doesn’t just understand Kiyotaka. She makes it easier for Kiyotaka to be Kiyotaka.

There are also moments where Kiyotaka is noticeably more vulnerable around Kei. Their communication isn’t always verbal either. The LN repeatedly uses their eye contact and small gestures to communicate things between them that don’t need to be explicitly said. Kei becomes someone with whom Kiyotaka can lower his guard, even if he doesn’t fully understand what he’s doing himself.

There are moments around Kei where Kiyotaka stops being the perfectly composed strategist and simply reacts. He can become flustered. He can lose track of time talking to her. He can be vulnerable. He can communicate with her without having to consciously calculate every word. Even the fact that he can allow his consciousness to drift away around her is significant because it represents the opposite of his usual hyper-awareness and control.

This is also why I think Kei will be important in healing Kiyotaka. She understands emotions in a way that he doesn't, even when he doesn't understand himself. I think there will be things she discovers about Kiyotaka that help him acknowledge problems within himself that he isn't currently capable of recognising.

Their relationship is also far more balanced than people give it credit for. Kei isn’t simply following Kiyotaka around and doing whatever he says. She has her own personality and is perfectly capable of taking the initiative. She teases him, challenges him, demands reassurance from him and can make him the flustered one. The classic example is her teasingly demanding that he tell her he loves her.

At the same time, Kiyotaka frequently takes Kei’s comfort and opinions into consideration. He asks whether she’s comfortable with things and pays attention to her reactions. Their relationship gradually becomes less about Kiyotaka controlling the situation and more about the two of them learning how to accommodate each other.

And I think Kei’s love for him is particularly important.

Contrary to what many people think, Kei doesn’t love some idealised version of Kiyotaka. She knows he’s weird. She knows he’s socially awkward. She teases him for the things he doesn’t understand. She doesn’t expect him to suddenly become a normal, emotionally expressive boyfriend.

One of my favourite examples is the carnival shooting game. Kiyotaka loses, and instead of being disappointed or thinking less of him, Kei finds it cute and pleasing. It’s such a small scene, but that’s precisely why I like it. She isn’t attracted to him because he’s the perfect, unbeatable genius. She likes him even when he’s bad at something.

That’s a recurring feature of Kei’s affection. She doesn’t require Kiyotaka to perform perfection for her.

And then there is the contrast with the other girls.

Take Ichinose. Honami’s feelings for Kiyotaka are genuine, but there are moments where her love becomes tied to wanting to eliminate potential romantic rivals so that she has a better chance with him. From her perspective, that makes emotional sense. But Kei’s approach is fundamentally different. Kei wants Kiyotaka to choose her, but she doesn’t want to possess him at the expense of his happiness. This is shown with Satou, where Kei was willing to help Satou despite it potentially coming at the expense of her own happiness.

The clearest indication of this is how Kei’s feelings are portrayed when she considers the possibility that Kiyotaka might not love her. She is devastated by it, but her fundamental desire remains for Kiyotaka to be happy, even if that happiness ultimately doesn’t involve her.

Hiyori is another interesting contrast. The LN deliberately highlights how different Kei and Hiyori are. Hiyori shares Kiyotaka’s interest in books and is naturally quieter and more reserved. Kei doesn’t share all of Kiyotaka’s interests. In fact, her insecurity about Hiyori partly came from exactly that difference. She saw Hiyori as someone who could connect with Kiyotaka through things she herself didn’t understand.

But that’s actually the point.

Kiyotaka doesn’t need someone who is just like him.

Kei doesn’t need to read the same books, have the same hobbies or think the same way as him in order for him to love her. She brings something completely different into his life.

And then there’s Horikita.

Horikita’s desire to understand Kiyotaka is completely understandable. She wants to know more about him, his abilities and his past. But there is a fundamental difference between Horikita’s approach and Kei’s.

Horikita wants to know Kiyotaka, but she doesn’t always understand his boundaries. That’s not to say Kei doesn’t want to know him—she obviously does, and demonstrates this a lot. But she is much more conscious of his boundaries.

When Kiyotaka behaves unusually or becomes evasive, Kei notices the change and cares about what is happening to him emotionally. In Y1V11.5, for example, she dislikes how unusually wishy-washy he is because it feels unlike him.

She doesn’t need to tear down every wall immediately.

She can be patient and observe.

And for someone like Kiyotaka, I think that’s incredibly important.

Kiyotaka has spent his entire life being evaluated and used. The White Room reduced him to his abilities. Other students often see him as a mysterious genius or a useful ally. Even people who care about him can become interested in uncovering the mystery of who he really is.

Kei, meanwhile, can sit beside him and just talk about stupid things.

And perhaps that’s exactly what someone like Kiyotaka needs.

Someone who doesn’t constantly demand that he explain himself. Someone who doesn’t need him to be extraordinary. Someone who can make him happy, tease him when he’s being weird, notice when something is wrong, and still accept him when he’s emotionally awkward.

Someone who is fundamentally different from him, but whose differences complement rather than conflict with him.

That’s why I think their relationship works so well thematically too. They help each other become better versions of themselves.

Kiyotaka gives Kei the strength to stop defining herself through other people and gradually become more independent. Kei, in turn, gives Kiyotaka experiences that he was never taught how to have: affection, intimacy, ordinary conversation, vulnerability and eventually love.

And the irony is that Kiyotaka initially approached their relationship almost like an experiment. He thought he could use Kei to understand love. But the relationship eventually became something he couldn’t reduce to an experiment anymore, which can be seen in Y2V12.5.

That’s the irony of Kiyotaka and Kei.

He entered the relationship believing that he was studying her.

But somewhere along the way, he became emotionally attached to her without even realising it.

There’s also a really interesting parallel between their trauma.

Kei developed a survival mechanism because of her bullying. She learned that the safest way to survive was to create a persona, adapt herself to her environment and avoid becoming a target again. She became incredibly good at reading social situations and protecting herself because she had been forced to.

And Kiyotaka is, in his own way, doing something remarkably similar.

His survival mechanism was created by the White Room. Instead of becoming socially adaptable like Kei, he learned to suppress his emotions, detach himself from other people and reduce situations to calculations. His “normal” personality is itself partly a survival mechanism. He doesn’t simply choose to be emotionally distant; it’s something that has been conditioned into him.

And this creates an incredibly meaningful parallel between them.

Kiyotaka was the person who helped Kei break out of the survival mechanism that her trauma had created.

He gave her the security and confidence to stop living entirely through the persona she had constructed. He helped her realise that she didn’t have to keep pretending to be someone else just to survive.

But now look at Kiyotaka.

He’s still trapped inside his own survival mechanism.

He’s still calculating. Still suppressing. Still struggling to understand what he actually wants rather than what is strategically optimal.

So if Kei’s story was partially about Kiyotaka helping her escape the person her trauma forced her to become, then I think there’s a beautiful symmetry in the idea that Kiyotaka’s story can eventually become about Kei helping him escape the person his trauma forced him to become.

Kei knows what it feels like to have your behaviour dictated by fear. And because of that, I think she is uniquely positioned to recognise the difference between Kiyotaka’s genuine self and the survival mechanism he’s built around himself.

That’s what makes their relationship so emotionally compelling to me.

Another thing that makes Kei stand out from Kiyotaka’s other major female relationships is that she isn’t defined by her position within the larger political game of ANHS.

Horikita is a class leader. Ichinose is a class leader. Other major girls are heavily connected to class politics, leadership, competition, or some larger strategic role within the school.

Kei isn’t really like that.

Yes, she has influence among the girls in her class and plays an important social role, but that’s fundamentally different from being the person responsible for leading an entire class or participating directly in the school’s political power struggle.

And yet, despite not occupying one of those obvious “important” positions, Kei received one of the most substantial character arcs in the series.

She could have easily been written as nothing more than the popular gyaru girlfriend archetype. Instead, the LN gradually reveals the person underneath the persona: her bullying, her trauma, her survival mechanism, her insecurities, her attachment issues, her jealousy, her growth and eventually her ability to stand on her own.

Her importance isn’t in the grand, political side of things.

She’s important because she is herself.

Almost everyone around Kiyotaka has some kind of function within the larger game. They’re class leaders, rivals, strategists, etc.

Kei can be something completely different.

She can be the person who exists outside of the game. She is the character who exists for emotional and romantic purposes.

I have attached a few moments which demonstrate why Kei is the perfect match for Kiyotaka.

I can't wait for what the Y3 winter has in store for kiyokei.

What a beautiful imagery.

The difference between Kiyotaka's confession to Kei and his “confession” to Hiyori is pretty interesting.

I've been thinking about the contrast between these two scenes for a while, especially after rereading Y1V11.5, Kei's Y1V4 SS, and Y3V4.

At first glance, both scenes can look like Kiyotaka exploring his feelings for someone. But when you actually compare what he wants from each situation, I think there's a pretty significant difference.

The first two images are from Y1V11.5, during Kiyotaka's confession to Kei. The third is Kei's Y1V4 “Thin Presence” SS, and the last is from Y3V4.

1. What Kiyotaka actually wants

In Y1V11.5, Kiyotaka repeatedly talks about praying.

“Was a different future waiting for me?”

Then:

“Not leaving her side, becoming an irreplaceable existence for her.”

And finally:

“So, let's pray.”

This is pretty important to me because Kiyotaka isn't a religious person. So why is he praying for this particular future?

Because he wants it.

He wants to stay by Kei's side.

He wants to treasure her.

He wants to become someone she can't replace.

And most importantly, he wants this to continue into the future.

He even acknowledges that part of him hopes for that future, while another part understands that it might not be possible.

That's basically Kiyotaka acknowledging a desire that he doesn't fully believe he can have.

Then the narration continues:

“Praying at the moment right now – holding an important person in my arms and smiling.”

And:

“Praying, as a young student, swearing that I'll treasure her.”

This isn't Kiyotaka simply saying “I want to understand love.”

He's imagining a specific future with a specific person.

He's wishing to keep that person. This is blatant desire. Look how much he is praying for this future with Kei only.

2. Compare that to what happens with Hiyori

Now look at Y3V4.

Kiyotaka says:

“I wanted to take both myself and the other person apart and seek the answer to the very end.”

Notice the wording here.

He doesn't even refer to Hiyori by name. He calls her “the other person.”

And I think that matters when you compare the two scenes. It's not really Hiyori that is important.

With Kei, the focus is:

Kei → staying together → cherishing her → becoming irreplaceable → future

With Hiyori, the focus is:

emotion → understanding it → gaining knowledge/experience → finding the answer

The person isn't really the destination.

The emotion itself is.

And Kiyotaka basically confirms this when he says:

“When I had learned everything there was to learn about this new emotion, perhaps I would let go of the hand I now held without hesitation.”

That's a pretty huge difference from Y1V11.5.

With Kei, Kiyotaka is praying that he never has to leave her side.

With Hiyori, Kiyotaka is already contemplating letting go once he gets what he wants from the experience.

He's not talking about becoming irreplaceable to her.

He's not talking about treasuring her forever.

He's not imagining a future where he remains by her side.

He's talking about understanding something he doesn't understand yet.

And then he ends with:

“I simply desire it.”

“Knowledge.”

“Experience.”

“Memories.”

That makes the purpose of the entire thing pretty clear.

It's not really about Hiyori as an individual.

It's about what Kiyotaka can learn from the experience of being with her.

3. And this is where Kei's Y1V4 SS gets really interesting

There's another detail that I think makes the Y1V11.5 scene even more interesting.

During his confession to Kei, Kiyotaka thinks about becoming an “irreplaceable existence” to her.

But he also thinks that it probably isn't possible.

He hopes for it, but there's still that part of him that understands it might never happen.

Then we get Kei's Y1V4 SS.

Looking back on her three years of school life, Kei says:

“In my three years of school life, he would become the most important and irreplaceable person, but at this very moment I wasn't aware of it.”

Think about the wording.

Kiyotaka's Y1V11.5 thought:

“Becoming an irreplaceable existence for her.”

Kei's future:

“He would become the most important and irreplaceable person.”

The thing Kiyotaka thought might be impossible is literally what Kei's future self says happened.

And I don't think the timing of that SS is irrelevant either.

It's not Kei saying “maybe he'll become important to me someday.”

It's written from the perspective of someone looking back on her three years of school life, already knowing what Kiyotaka eventually became to her.

So you have Kiyotaka in Y1V11.5 hoping for a future where he becomes irreplaceable to Kei and then you have a future-looking Kei narration telling us that he did become exactly that. I believe that that's foreshadowing for the future and that more of the things Kiyotaka prayed for will become true.

Since Y1V11.5 and Y3V4 hold two confession scenes, you'd think that they ought to be compared. But this is the only sub I see that is doing this. Maybe that's why we are called delusional.🙃

Karuizawa Kei

Sakurako Tsubaki

Asuka Shiraishi

Yuki

I wanted to talk about Kei’s Sleeping Beauty SS because I think this comparison is very overlooked. Throughout the LN, Kei is repeatedly associated with princess imagery so it's no surprise that her story and character have many ties to them. In this particular SS, three fairy tales are mentioned:

Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Sleeping Beauty.

While Cinderella is the fairy tale most commonly connected to Kei throughout the story, I think Sleeping Beauty deserves more attention because it is the story Kei herself focuses on and uses to explain her own emotional state.

In the SS, Kei directly explains why she sees herself in Aurora. She says:

“I didn't like it that much when I was little, but somehow, it overlapped with myself. My heart had also been asleep for a long time, but Kiyotaka woke me up from that sleep…”

The important part of this comparison is that Kei does not identify with Sleeping Beauty because she was waiting for someone to save her. Rather, she identifies with the idea of being emotionally asleep.

In the fairy tale, Aurora is placed under a curse and falls into a deep sleep. Although she is still alive, she is unable to experience the world around her or move forward until the spell is broken. Her sleep represents a state of being trapped, existing, but unable to truly live.

This parallels Kei’s own emotional state before meeting Kiyotaka. After experiencing severe bullying, Kei learned that showing weakness made her vulnerable to being hurt. As a result, she created a carefully constructed persona: the popular, confident, fashionable gyaru girl who appeared untouchable. This version of Kei allowed her to survive socially, but it also became a barrier that separated her from her true feelings.

Outwardly, Kei appeared energetic, confident, and socially successful. However, beneath that image was someone who was deeply afraid of being rejected and hurt again. She was not living authentically, she was simply adapting to survive. In this sense, Kei’s “sleep” represents the emotional shutdown caused by her trauma. Her real personality, her vulnerability, and her ability to genuinely trust others were buried beneath the identity she created.

Just like Aurora remained herself beneath the curse, the “real Kei” was never gone, she was simply hidden. The person everyone saw was a mask designed for protection, while the person she truly was remained unable to fully awaken.

This is where Kiyotaka’s role becomes significant. He does not “create” a new Kei or change who she is, instead, he becomes the person who allows her to confront the parts of herself that she had suppressed. Through their interactions, Kei begins to realize that she does not have to define her worth through other people’s approval or through maintaining a perfect image.

Kiyotaka “waking” Kei does not mean he saved a helpless girl. Rather, he helped her break free from the mindset that forced her to remain emotionally asleep. He gave her the environment where she could finally acknowledge her true self.

Therefore, Kei’s connection to Sleeping Beauty is not just a simple prince and princess parallel. It represents her journey from someone who was emotionally frozen and hiding behind a false identity into someone who can finally experience genuine connection, trust, and self-acceptance.

Kei was never asleep because she lacked strength. She was asleep because she had spent so long protecting herself that she forgot what it felt like to truly live.

I will also just add that Kei and Kiyotaka are true opposites and I was seeing this lots when rereading this SS. While Kei is bubbly, expressive, and energetic, Kiyotaka is more on the quiet, reserved side. And even he has said few times that Kei balances his personality because she talks a lot and is so cheerful. It's very beautiful to see how much they compliment one another. She really was Kiyotaka's light and it's no wonder he is struggling now that she's gone.

In Y1V7.5 Kei asked Kiyotaka about childhood so he told her to take a guess and so Kei, using her deep understanding for Kiyotaka was able to make a very very close guess. But Kiyotaka would not tell her whether it was close or not or what the real answer was. So Kei said she'll make him explain it to her one day. I don't think this should be taken lightly I think it's significant for the future. We know from the future that Suzune found out Kiyotaka's past via third party and Honami heard the name also through third party. It makes sense that for Kei Kiyotaka will be the one to tell her and not anyone else. I believe that will happen.

Reading Y1V7.5 reminds me of so many cute moments of kiyokei.