Yofukashi no Uta - Ch. 168 - Hesitant

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It looks like Kiku is talking to Nazuna's mom in one of those memories, so either the mangaka screwed up the timeline or Miss Detective's dad must have been pining for Kiku for decades. And I don't believe it's the former.
 
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To contribute some things I think people are missing from this chapter. Pay attention to the panels since the wife's hair also looks like Kiku-san's, the outfit is the giveaway.

The dad was a smoker, that's why he had the lighter, why "responsibility" is paired with the a man smoking. It explains how and when he actually MET Kiku-san, at the hospital for lung cancer treatments he was hiding from his family as BadmanBlues pointed out. It also explains why his blood is in a hospital refrigerator and the image of his blood being drawn, most likely for lab tests for his cancer. His "despair" while being confronted by a doctor is him being told it's terminal, he won't recover.

THEN we see "repentance", but he'd done nothing wrong in these memories yet right? Unless he was already with Kiku and cheating with her, but he also became a vampire in the end, which tells us she'd bitten him already by then and he'd fallen in love with her as well. You can see at "honesty" that her eyes go wide, then she looks away, dejected. She was the one who HE rejected, not the other way around. The "...? pain" here is his confused emotions, since we know he actually loved Kiku since he became a vampire but broke it off with her anyway. She was also meeting with him on the rooftop, which I imagine she wouldn't be willing to do with a patient she had no interest in and would reject herself.

"Determination" and "atonement" showing the apartment building they lived in, he was determined to atone to his family, "gratitude" with a picture of his wife, thankfulness that she was really willing to forgive him. Then "bonds" and the picture of the lighter his daughter had given him that he loved so much it became his weakness. Then "let's start over". He was a vampire, he would almost certainly live despite his cancer. He loved his daughter more than he loved Kiku, so he left her and wanted to live as a vampire, hiding it, and love his wife and daughter. It also explains a lot of his behavior right before he killed her and died himself.

The alternative path is only slightly different in that he actually thought he was going to die from the cancer, cheated with Kiku because he thought he was dying, fell in love, got bitten, and then got the news he was actually going to LIVE. The despair is from realizing he's cheating on his wife for no good reason, and that what he did was selfish and undeserved. He then breaks it off with her, same as the other option. Some very minor details that effect only a few things in the order of events and motives.

One thing for certain is he broke up with Kiku instead of the other way around as he said he had in chapter 81("I broke up with them, I honestly remembered what was important to me"), and that he was truly planning on being there for his family after repenting and feeling guilt over everything he'd done. He also kept smoking, so it's most likely he wasn't worried about the cancer anymore, plus he said he'd "never felt like drinking blood before (then)" so he was also banking on himself being a vampire.

EDIT: It also explains why Kiku-san remembered him and as the detective said "left an impression" on her, I imagine it wasn't often she was the one getting dumped. It also explains why she knew her name in chapter 156, he told her about his wife and daughter and that she was why he was breaking up with her.
 
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[a very big brain post]
I generally agree. It took me a while to reach some of those conclusions. Not sure when you started writing this but I edited my original post with my revised conclusions as I thought of them.
THEN we see "repentance", but he'd done nothing wrong in these memories yet right?
At the very least, he lusted after Kiku to the point that he felt guilty when looking at his own wife. That guilt indicates he believed he had something to repent for.
The "...? pain" here is his confused emotions, since we know he actually loved Kiku since he became a vampire but broke it off with her anyway.
I was going to dispute this point and say it was ambiguous, but as I considered your citation, I realized I couldn't argue with this point. He must have been bitten later than the memories show. The determination and atonement were part of his committing to become a vampire, not a response to him becoming a vampire.
She was also meeting with him on the rooftop, which I imagine she wouldn't be willing to do with a patient she had no interest in and would reject herself.
This is a really good insight that I wish I had made.
One thing for certain is he broke up with Kiku instead of the other way around
I agree with that. Took me embarrassingly long to figure it out. In my defense. I got no sleep because I had to get up way early to get my truck serviced.
as he said he had in chapter 81("I broke up with them, I honestly remembered what was important to me"), and that he was truly planning on being there for his family after repenting and feeling guilt over everything he'd done. He also kept smoking, so it's most likely he wasn't worried about the cancer anymore, plus he said he'd "never felt like drinking blood before (then)" so he was also banking on himself being a vampire.
And then he brings it home with an actual reference to the text, cinching the debate. That clears up a lot of ambiguity about Meijiro's intentions, and it indicates he knew he was going to be a vampire - Kiku didn't bite him out of pity, without explaining anything. He didn't wake up cured and respond to his circumstance, he knew what he would become. Hell, that explains why some of his blood was preserved: so that, like Kabura, he could keep his memories of his family and past life intact. Kiku probably left it as a grave.

Fuckin' bravo my dude.
 
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One thing for certain is he broke up with Kiku instead of the other way around as he said he had in chapter 81("I broke up with them, I honestly remembered what was important to me"), and that he was truly planning on being there for his family after repenting and feeling guilt over everything he'd done. He also kept smoking, so it's most likely he wasn't worried about the cancer anymore, plus he said he'd "never felt like drinking blood before (then)" so he was also banking on himself being a vampire.

EDIT: It also explains why Kiku-san remembered him and as the detective said "left an impression" on her, I imagine it wasn't often she was the one getting dumped. It also explains why she knew her name in chapter 156, he told her about his wife and daughter and that she was why he was breaking up with her.

This makes no sense when we where shown that Kiku would immediately abandon every single guy she bit the second they turned into a vampire shown in chapter 100.

The only way I can see that working without deviating from how she has acted for hundreds of years is that he somehow miraculously:
  • loves Kiku
  • Knows she is a vampire
  • Asks her to turn him and she complies
  • Either before asking to be turned or immediately after says he chooses his family over her
  • He runs off to be with his family before Kiku either has the time or can't be bothered to teach him about the weakness and rules of vampires.
Either something like this or she abandons him, he does not even realize this and chases her down to "break up" with her and this maybe being the first guy to do something like this "left an impression".
 
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He learned nothing new? We literally knew all that at least we got some shots of Kiku in a nurse outfit
i think the main point of it was to just show the dad's emotions and allow kou to attempt to sympathize with/ understand the Dad. The entire time didnt they think he was a spiteful man? Yes, we knew of these events, but having the firsthand just adds more to it ig
 
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Dang i love this manga, i wonder if it will be brought to closure or if there will be an arc of him becoming a "proper" vampire before the 1 year mark is over.
 
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This makes no sense when we where shown that Kiku would immediately abandon every single guy she bit the second they turned into a vampire shown in chapter 100.
She does that most of the time, but not all the time. The yakuza she saved, the glasses guy - he said she stuck around for a bit to teach him about how to be a vampire. But once that was done, she vanished. Page 5, chapter 114, "I was taken care of."

Kiku drank his blood "in commemoration" of him because she "found it cool" that he tried to save her (114 pg. 18). He just happened to love her.

So, she doesn't just drink blood for love. And her leaving isn't necessarily immediate either. There's at least one exception, the yak, and I think two: Kyouko's father.

The other thing you'd have to explain is how post-vampirization memories ended up in his blood? If Kiku felt nothing and discarded him like the rest, why did she see him as special? Why did Kiku bother to keep his blood in a solitary fridge in a former hideout?

It's more easily explained that he expressed his deepest feelings to her when he realized he was dying. And those feelings were not about her. They were about his wife and daughter. So she, in a moment of pity, offered him a way out. Kiku certainly could feel pity, infrequent as it may seem. She pitied the boy who stood in frustration by the street day after day, and volunteered to help him of her own accord. And we also must conclude that he was not a vampire before getting his diagnosis, because he would not be concerned otherwise and it probably wouldn't diagnose either. So she could not have turned him earlier in their relationship.

The rest of the memories in that sequence are the lead-up to vampirization. In fact, we can be sure that the final memory of little Kyouko is pre-vampirization - because she's smiling in the sunshine. He wouldn't have been able to stand in the sunshine as a freshly turned vampire. The blood in the fridge was intended for Meijiro himself, to keep his memories, as part of a plan that he formed with Kiku. Him keeping his most special possessions in a drawer because of his clumsiness works out in his favor, and he can replace any old possessions which could be problems by saying it's part of him reinventing himself.
 
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