oh high and low... such an amazing, important story for midori and everything to do with his arc. i haven't read it from start to finish in a Long while (though i do want to give it a nice look again now that ryuseitai is #healing) so i think i'll be missing some stuff AND i'm going based off memory with the quotes, but i'll mention the things that personally stood out to Me about high and low

high and low basically answered a LOAD of questions left hanging since comet show and especially since submarine. before the story was released, i was very upset that submarine completely glossed over the woes midori was facing, and how it was showing us tetora feeling so upset without any proper context, and all along high and low was going to be the answer to why they were so emotionally unstable in submarine. (and supervillain prologue explained the OTHER half of why tetora was so emotionally unstable in ryuseitai)

things we learn thanks to high and low:

• the massive misunderstanding that brewed between tetora and midori (and chiaki) post-comet show. namely, we learn that tetora misunderstood midori's actions in comet show as midori "proving with words and actions that he prefers chiaki over tetora as the leader", and this hurt his already crippling self-esteem and even made him feel insecure that midori doesn't care much for him. it also made him extremely upset with midori because he perceived midori's negligence in the unit as contradictory to his actions in comet show (after all, in tetora's eyes, midori is the one who pushed them to go to back to the original ryuseitai, so midori not trying hard for the unit felt sorta like a climax v2 moment to tetora)

• midori feels like he failed saving ryuseitai post-comet show. comet show midori is his most shining hero moment in !! era, where he put EVERYTHING and fought with ALL HE HAD to keep ryuseitai together. and then immediately after... ryuseitai falls into a huge tense disarray and it really ruins him. he begins to have a very skewed perception of himself, as someone who "hasn't grown", hasn't been able to accomplish much, and just overall venting for the majority of the story because he's just Not Doing Well

• midori deeply misses yumenosaki days ryuseitai. So Much. those days of happiness mattered so much to him, and sometimes he wishes he could go back. but what we also learn is that midori understands that's impossible and that he and ryuseitai just have to make do with the current reality. one of the most precious things he mentions is how it's thanks to ryuseitai that he knows that happiness can be found ANYWHERE, so he wants to believe that ryuseitai can find happiness together even in these current struggling moments. this is why watching tetora and chiaki hurt themselves by hurling themselves at a wall (this wall is the "deadend" that ryuseitai was stuck in for a while) hurt him deeply, because he wishes there was more focus on just sticking together and figuring out a means of happiness together instead of them blaming themselves for not doing enough.

• the story HEAVILY explores midori's perception of the world and his psyche. stuff like how he's aware he's got a disposition that irritates others (cough... tetora was literally the example in the story lol but it extends to fans and society too), how he tries to comfort hajime when hajime feels overwhelmed by how Big ES is getting by telling him "there's only so much we can do as human beings, theres no point thinking past our capabilities" (he repeats a similar sentiment to tetora in the epilogues, telling him that midori "can only focus on lining up the vegetables in front of him"), and so on and so forth.

• despite all of midori's doomerisms throughout the story, especially with what's going on with the group that's stuck in the middle of nowhere and how he's avoiding tetora like the plague, he latched onto the hope that tetora can be saved the moment he saw the opportunity... highlighting how midori always, no matter what, will prioritize saving his beloved ones

• tetora comes to realize midori has always cared and loved him the same way midori dearly loves chiaki, and this is all it takes for a lot of tetora's worries to disappear. i think it highlights how subconsciously, tetora desperately wanted midori to prove his perception of things wrong, and midori did so not by talking it out, but by showing it through his actions: coming to tetora's rescue as soon as possible. it's part of why they're doing a lot better by the epilogues, despite them not being on the same page At All when talking to each other.

(there is so much more. this story is So Fucking Good for midori and to understand midori and tetora's relationship)

some foreshadows:

• the whole "we can find happiness again even in our current state" thing was a foreshadow of how ryuseitai Does find a new form of happiness, different from their yumenosaki days, by the end of supervillain

• the contrast between how tetora considers midori a hero who came to his rescue (+ how hajime constantly thanks midori for comforting him), and how midori barely recognizes his own feats throughout the story and brushes it off as "luck" or "i didn't do anything"... this one is so #pain because it goes back to how midori perceives himself and his own capabilities/accomplishments... so even though tetora felt SO saved and comforted by midori, in midori's eyes he has barely accomplished or changed at ALL ughgh...

my personal interpretation of this is because midori's growth is heavily tied to chiaki. in the epilogues of comet show, midori expresses how he feels like he didn't get to be a proper hero and that frustrated him. so he goes rogue and takes on a decision on his own in hopes of saving ryuseitai (trapping ryuseitai in a show together). then at the end, he felt extremely triumphant that he successfully got to make chiaki prioritize ryuseitai's happiness (which means chiaki's happiness) and keep ryuseitai together.

midori Really Thought that he succeeded in saving ryuseitai and helping them find their way back to happiness. but then it ALL falls apart right after comet show when chiaki starts shutting ryuseitai out by blaming himself for everything, and tetora starts desperately trying to do everything he can for ryuseitai even though his mental state is A Mess. so the lack of chiaki Actually Trying To Pursue His Happiness (and then tetora's emotional disarray) likely made him feel like a godamn idiot for thinking he succeeded. so :(( even though high and low is all like "no midori you ARE a hero!!! look how comforted tetora is!! how happy he is that you came to his rescue!!", midori himself cannot perceive it whatsoever when even after high and low, chiaki is still shutting them out, and tetora is still in an emotional disarray about other things.

ANYWAY my whole point is that this seems to have dragged midori behind and left him in a limbo as a hero, because he doesn't feel like he's accomplished what he's hoped to do as a hero for many months (notably, repaying chiaki for all the kindness he's given him). all the while ryuseitai actually slowly starts making sense of the situation and getting closer until they unite in supervillain THANKS TO THE SHIT HE TRIED DOING IN COMET SHOW. BUT HE STILL DOESN'T REALIZE IT!! i hope this makes... some sense it's hard to explain FUCK. basically high and low shows midori's at his lowest, and we've yet to see him get picked up from it, foreshadowing that he'll get something eventually in the future!

• the focus on midori and tetora's relationship and making them come to their own unique "equal terms" helps build up towards blackjack and supervillain. in supervillain we see tetora be much more clear about What angers him so much when it comes to midori, but also that they're arguing again this time BUT SO MUCH MORE HEALTHILY AND ON EQUAL GROUNDS! without high and low, it wouldn't make enough sense how/why they'd be that way in supervillain...

• there's probably more. i'd say everything to do with midori is a foreshadow though because the things we learn about him here have yet to be fully addressed

THE MIDOCHIA CRUMBS:

• midori's whole woes in high and low is an indirect nod to midochia. as i've mentioned before, his growth is heavily tied to chiaki (we know this especially because of climax, where he even says at the end "thanks to you, even i've changed a little"), so the fact post-comet show he's like "i never changed :/ i never got anywhere :/" despite ALL THE EFFORTS HE'S PUT INTO CHANGING AND GROWING IN !! ERA IS SO... UGH. and it only makes sense why he feels that way when you remember THAT CHIAKI SHUT RYUSEITAI OUT ENTIRELY POST-COMET SHOW AND PUT ALL THE BLAME ON HIMSELF! literally the direct opposite of what midori was hoping would happen after his comet show decision.

• midori's "i wish we could go back to the yumenosaki days of happiness" vent starts off with him mentioning how chiaki would energetically wake him every morning. uuuu

• when hajime and midori comment on how it feels like they're in a whole different world, midori mentions that if there were a gloomy chiaki and an aggressive kanata, it'd feel like an "alternative world"... (which shows that midori has no clue how gloomy chiaki truly is deep down, huh.)

• kinda #pain to count this but... high and low is the climax point of tetora's observation of midochia's close relationship, and how his low self-esteem made him misunderstand that midori's care towards chiaki was actually him preferring chiaki as the leader all along... pain. but it's so good because it really shows how important midochia's relationship is in ryuseitai. i talk about this in a thread here if you want to read more

ANYWAY THIS WAS SOO LONG I'M SO SORRY i love what this story tells us about midori and i can't WAIT for us to see it in fruition in future content