Responses
Exactly. You took my thoughts right out of my head. To me, Kengo is a very lonely kid with a terrible household experience that doesn't really know his feelings not to talk of saying them. He just expresses them in ways that seem complicated but isn't. "You're my toy, for life" to me and to him is simply a marriage proposal.
Just my two cents about the story of Kengo and Shinobu. First of all, I am so glad this is not another sappy romantic story (I really hate them from the bottom of my heart). It's rather angsty and psychological and that's just what I like about yaoi. It's not a work of high artistic merit, of course, but the idea is interesting. I think their sexual relationship, although being sort of S/M, is something they both enjoy. The seme, being dominant as he is, is very passionate and never forgets to make his uke feel good by kissing him, sucking, licking etc., so that the boy always comes like crazy under him (which is not something one would usually do when being forced to sleep with a person he hates). Their verbal communication is a failure at the same time. It is very hard for both of them to confess their feelings because they both suffer from psychological complexes. Kengo is a very lonely boy from a rich family who knows that people obey his power and money, and he just doesn't believe he can be sincerely loved without constant necessity of violence. It's quite obvious that he is madly in love with Shinobu who is literally the center of his world, but he prefers to tease (the "toy" thing) and subjugate Shinobu fearing that otherwise he will immediately leave him. Shinobu, on the other hand, has very low self-esteem and also can't believe in Kengo's true feelings (hence his constant fear of being thrown away like a used toy). He prefers to think bad of Kengo and always blame him because it allows Shinobu to feel less shame about their "wrong" gay relationship and his overall humiliating "toy" position. It seems to me that to some extent Shinobu even enjoys this humiliation due to his masochistic nature, but sometimes he decides to break free and tries to run away from Kengo, although in the end he feels lonely without him. In other words, their relationship seems very complicated. The last part (where Kengo says "I like you") gives some hope though.