Ho Yay / Tsurune

So often that you'd think The Erotes might be shooting their arrows off-screen.

• Shu is so strongly implied to be in love with Minato that calling it Ho Yay feels like an understatement.
  • The first book includes a scene where the Suguwara twins ask Shu how he got to be so skilled at archery. Shu replies that the biggest reason he works so hard is because there is someone out there who "wants to shoot through [his] heart." The twins ask him if he loves that person, and he pointedly doesn't deny it.
    “So mysterious~. Does that mean there’s someone who was charmed by you that much? No way, could it be that whole 'the greatest hate springs from the greatest love’ thing?”
    “Well, I wonder.”
    Shuu smiled daringly.
    
  • In both the anime and the book, when Shu reunites with Minato he touches the scar on Minato's left flank and leans in close to whisper in his ear. In the anime, Minato looks dazed after Shu touches him. In the book, it's stated that Minato's breath was taken away.

  • In the anime, Shu delivers a romantic-sounding speech to Minato after the preliminary tournament. His request for Minato to continue doing kyudo so they can reach new heights together may be standard for a sports anime, but lines like "You appeared out of the blue and changed my life" and "You need to take responsibility" sound like something out of a romance. Adding to the Ho Yay, Seiya turns out to have been eavesdropping the whole time, and tells Shu not to pursue Minato so aggressively. Shu's response? To tell Seiya that Minato doesn't need him and that he should quit chasing him. Does this remind you of anything?

  • Episode 13 of the anime makes it clear how much Minato means to Shu. Shu looks back on his childhood memories of Minato before he competes, smiles whenever Minato is around, and says he's extremely excited to be competing with Minato (to which Minato responds that he's so happy to be challenging Shu's team, he could cry.) There's also Shu's reason for losing. Saionji states that while Minato is looking at the target, Shu is not, which seems to imply he's watching Minato instead. Shu is also very gracious about his loss, mouthing "Congratulations" to Minato and smiling to himself as he walks away.

  • In the second book, Shu is shown to be possessive of Minato. During the prologue, he thinks "I won't forgive anyone who steals Minato away from me." In a later chapter, he notices that Minato has been watching Masaki and becomes highly jealous.
    Today, he saw that Minato had been constantly chasing after his coach with his eyes.
    A dark flame was lit within Shuu.
    It has to be me Minato is looking at with awe.

  • Shu brushes away Minato's bangs in the beginning of the second book.

  • Although Shu is more clearly fixated on Minato than vice versa, Minato does care about Shu as well, allowing for moments of mutual Ship Tease. In the second book, Minato offers to cook Shu as much takoyaki as he wants, and Shu replies that he won't tell Minato to stop cooking for him "until [his] life is extinguished." Shu also falls asleep on Minato's shoulder while riding the train. In the anime, Minato dreams about his first meeting with Shu, and the next morning he pulls out his old phone to look at a picture of the two of them together as children.

• Seiya and Minato:
  • Seiya is extremely protective of Minato. He constantly defends him from Kaito (including brandishing a sickle when Kaito blames Minato for their loss), he finds Masaki suspicious because Minato shows interest in him, and he shamelessly admits he chased Minato all the way to Kazemai even though Kirisaki has a higher social and academic standing. He also shows jealousy towards other important people in Minato's life, particularly Masaki: in the anime, after remembering a time when Minato smiled at Masaki, Seiya coldly tells Masaki "I hate you". Now, there is an explanation for all this other than romantic interest: Seiya feels responsible for the traffic accident that wounded Minato and took his mother's life, and he wanted to be the one to bring back Minato's happiness in order to atone for his guilt. Still, there's nothing to say there can't be multiple reasons why he acts the way he does.
  • In the anime, the scene where Minato and Seiya reconcile comes across as fairly romantic, with Minato yelling at Seiya that he wants to be with him, and Seiya resting his head on Minato's shoulder while blushing. A sweet insert song plays during this scene, with lyrics that seem to reflect Seiya's feelings, and the CD's advertisement features Minato and Seiya.
  • In episode 12, Seiya calms Minato down by holding his face closely.
  • In episode 13, Seiya makes Minato blush when he says he likes Minato's shooting form better than Shuu's. Then after Kazemai wins the tournament, Seiya smiles adoringly at Minato and takes Minato's hand to stop it from shaking.

• Masaki and Minato have a fair amount of Ship Tease, especially in the books.
  • The scene where Minato first catches a glimpse of Masaki is clearly meant to show that he's absolutely mesmerized by both Masaki's archery and the man himself. The director of the anime describes it as a sort of Love at First Sight for Minato. In the anime at least, the scene is reverse in episode 12 with Masaki watching Minato win the tournament with a perfect draw with the same amount of awe.
  • Minato's behavior towards Masaki is somewhat crushlike. In the anime, he sometimes blushes in Masaki's presence and acts shy around him. In the novel, he's described as being weak to Masaki's smiles, and he frequently admires Masaki's elegant form both when he's shooting and when he's just doing regular things like drinking coffee. At one point, Masaki's hand quickly brushes over Minato's, and Minato thinks to himself that he wants to remember the warmth of that touch forever.
  • Minato's father's comment about people being drawn to the things they love calls back to Minato constantly visiting Masaki while he trained.
  • In the book, Masaki gets injured protecting Minato from an oncoming truck (which is changed to a regular car accident in the anime). Minato cries at his bedside and says that if Masaki had died, he would have followed him.
  • The author takes it even further in the second book, where Minato and Masaki start to get jealous of other people for stealing the other's attention. This is resolved when Minato swears that Masaki will be his only teacher forever, which is phrased to sound as romantic as possible: "My teacher for eternity is you. I want to listen to your tsurune forever. Please take care of me, teacher."
  • An advertisement for the anime has some text explaining things from Masaki's point of view. He mentions how he felt lost in the darkness until he encountered his "light" and helped him through archery. He doesn't name names, but it's obvious he's talking about Minato.
  • One of the volumes has Masaki meet Minato's grandparents. After they grill him on what he's been doing with their grandson, the grandmother then asks Masaki to keep watching over Misato from now on—but in Japanese uses a phrase more similar to "forever" akin to the same promise Minato makes to Masaki in volume 2.

• Although it's not as strongly implied as Minato's feelings are, Kaito comes across as though he has a bit of a crush on Masaki himself. When it turns out that Masaki knows Minato, Kaito becomes jealous to the point where Nanao teases him about wanting Masaki all to himself. Kaito also gets excited when he receives a text message from Masaki telling him to meet up early at the shrine, but when he gets there and sees Masaki helping Minato get dressed, it becomes a classic case of Not What It Looks Like.
  • Shu teases Kaito about Masaki in the second book:
  “Oi, Fujiwara. I’m only gonna say this. Masa-san is our coach.”
  “It seems that Kazemai’s coach is good at shooting through the hearts of archers, since he’s adored by even you.”
  
• In the anime, Kaito acts Tsundere towards Minato, complete with blushing and stammering after Minato praises him for rallying the team together. There's also the bath scene where Kaito notices Minato's scar. It was presumably just the scar that caught his attention, but given how the camera lingers over Minato's body, it can be easily misconstrued as Kaito checking him out. And then there's the post-Episode 10 Kazemai Chat Room conversation, where Seiya jokes that Kaito's animosity towards Minato must mean he's secretly interested in him.

• In the books, Kaito and Seiya have a much more significant relationship than they do in the anime. Nanao teases Kaito about how he's always watching Seiya (which is shown in the book's illustrations), and Kaito dislikes Minato for holding Seiya back from reaching his true potential as an archer. Kaito frequently worries about Seiya, and tells Seiya multiple times that he respects him. Although Kaito's interest comes across as one-sided at first, he and Seiya eventually become friends, and by the second book they're frequently seen hanging out together.
  • It's actually Kaito who realizes Seiya has a fever in the novels and even feels his forehead during practice. He noticed this just by watching when no one else did.
  • Kaito is also the first to figure out that Seiya's devotion to Minato comes from guilt over something and confronts him about it while they're out fishing on Tommy-sensei's orders. Seiya manages to divert the conversation but the whole thing and the added illustration once again show that Kaito is always closely watching Seiya.
  • In volume 2 the team are staying at a hotel and while Minato and Masaki are talking the narrative veers for a second to mention that Kaito and Seiya are coming out of the baths and getting drinks together. In the very same scene a wild boar somehow ends up rampaging through the lobby and Kaito immediately, without hesitation, gently maneuvers Seiya behind himself to protect him from it. That chapter's illustration then goes to show that he doesn't lower his protective stance in front of Seiya even when the boar suddenly turns away and charges at Nanao.
  • In the same volume Seiya casually props his arm on Kaito's shoulder during a conversation, after its been hammered home that he really dislikes Ryouhei hanging off him without permission and shortly after the story tells us that Seiya actually does not overly like physical contact in general and rarely initiates it. This speaks of a level of physical comfort with Kaito he doesn't have with any of the other guys, including Minato.
  • In one chapter Kaito becomes more and more agitated at Seiya mothering Minato so Seiya teasingly suggests Kaito may want Seiya to watch over him to, which Kaito promptly denies. Shortly after the boys visit a festival together and Kaito tries to impress Seiya with his goldfish catching skills before patiently teaching him his methods while Nanao watches. Afterwards Kaito realizes that Seiya isn't concerned about Minato at all in this setting and when he brings it up Seiya teases him about Kaito being more likely to get into trouble so he's "fulfilling Kaito's wish to be taken care of" by Seiya for once. Kaito is supremely flustered by this.
  • Seiya even attempts to cheer Kaito up with a joke at one point. And while it falls horrifically flat given his complete inability to tell jokes its significant that he tries at all for Kaito's sake.
  • When Minato is banned from practice for a week due to an injury Seiya mentions to the others he asked Minato to walk the dog to keep him busy. Despite knowing this Kaito sees Bear on the street and immediately comes over, hoping to see Seiya and is disappointed when it's just Minato.
  • During a training camp the team meet a former senpai of Seiya and Minato who really gets on Kaito's nerves. When he tries to grab the guy by the collar Seiya makes to stop him but the timing is bad so Kaito accidentally hits Seiya's glasses off and breaks them. He feels horrible about this, kneels in front of Seiya to be scolded and then follows every single order of his - making tea, give him a massage - to make it up to him until he falls asleep exhausted. Seiya meanwhile thinks Kaito's sleeping face looks like that of an angel and stays by his side until the others come back to the room.
  • The team get little fireworks to have some fun and when Seiya mostly watches and lights more for them Kaito urges him to join them. Seiya indulges him immediately and they spend the entire time talking amongst themselves, teasing and bickering Like an Old Married Couple.

• In the books, Motomura and Sase from Kirisaki are very easily shipped together. They're nigh-inseparable roommates who act like the team dads and laugh about their "cute kouhai" together. They also massage each other's feet on a daily basis.