Yaichi is forced to analyze his attitude during the weeks Mike spends with them, especially since Kana doesn’t think there’s a problem with Mike-she ADORES him. And since Yaichi is being kind enough to let Mike stay at his house (begrudgingly) he can easily see that as a sign of him not being all that homophobic, cuz if he was, he wouldn’t give him space in his home, right? This ranges from Yaichi wondering if he should walk around without a shirt now that Mike is staying at his house and wondering if he should leave Mike alone with his daughter, Kana. This isn’t the “defacing your property with slurs” kind of hate, this is full-on “I don’t mind gay people BUT-” homophobia. Yaichi’s assumptions are ones that I, a queer person, know are harmful, but many people outside the community think it’s perfectly fine because they aren’t being extremely hateful. I know that kind of animosity exists, but I think there should be more stories that focus on the unconscious things folks do that are homophobic, the things that, to them, don’t sound all that bad because they haven’t been challenged about them. This isn’t a queer story where the protagonist is cartoonishly homophobic. What I like about Yaichi is that he isn’t overly malicious. The story is very much about Yaichi facing his preconceived notions about Mike, furthermore, it’s about him looking back at the way he treated his twin brother (Ryoji) when he found out he was gay.
