Aikawa Kaze had more or less figured out why the remake had deliberately left certain things vague to mislead its readers.
It had included his inner monologue when he saved Sakura to attract fans by giving him an "upright" image.
As for deliberately concealing his real thoughts later and misleading readers into thinking he was "starved for affection," that was meant to create a "poor little thing starved for love" persona and win their sympathy.
In other words, everything ultimately came down to attracting popularity. And once his popularity soared, his strength increased along with it.
At this rate, as long as his characterization didn't fall apart, he would at least qualify as a popular supporting character.
Aikawa Kaze really didn't want to be misunderstood so outrageously, but whenever he thought about the enormous boost those misunderstandings had given him, he fell silent again.
Forget it. Let bygones be bygones.
"Looks like I can't keep treating silence as golden. I'll have to give myself more lines."
That wasn't to steal screen time by talking more. He simply didn't want the audience to misunderstand him again.
After all, judging by the situation, everyone misunderstood him only because he hadn't voiced his thoughts, allowing unscrupulous editing to mislead them however it pleased.
He could live with his friends misunderstanding him. Given what he knew about Megumi and Junpei, they were too close to see clearly, and their rose-tinted view of him probably wouldn't shatter anytime soon.
But the readers had the god's-eye view of the omniscient perspective. Surely they would discover the truth sooner!
Mystery invited curiosity. If he became more talkative and wasn't "beautiful, powerful, and tragic," his popularity might drop, but Aikawa Kaze thought that was worth it.
"Come to think of it, there was something really important I urgently