HELLO YES I HAVE A LOT.. an embarrassing amount i must say

• they met during a time when kiku was especially lonely and troubled, making him develop feelings for port quite fast. port was always very kind, generous and showed interest in kiku and his culture (you can learn about sengoku japan by reading portuguese sources of that time, and in my experience they tend to talk about them in a very respectful way), he was someone kiku could admire while still seeing each other in equal terms, and someone who gave him a glimpse of hope during a very chaotic and difficult era.

• actually, port was kiku's first love (or kind of... i believe he had a childhood crush on another certain peninsular kingdom, but that's a topic for another time). in any case, he was still his first in many other ways. (after all portugal was the first western country to get in contact with japan).

• port taught him how to smoke, tobacco was first introduced in japan through the portuguese, and the japanese word for tobacco is one of the many japanese words of portuguese origins.

• he also taught him plenty of other stuff including about the world itself - kiku was hopeful about the idea of traveling to all those wonderful places port told him about once the civil wars in his home were over.

• kiku was genuinely interested in catholicism, i believe something about it must have resonated with him in some way - after all, japan had an important amount of believers and the jesuits were allowed to have a church in kyoto (the historical capital and home of the emperor, the descendant of amaterasu, etc etc)

• speaking of which... nagasaki is their child, she was baptized and grew up under the care of the jesuits for a few years. with time she lost some of her traits inherited from port and was instead influenced by the netherlands (ned is not the step father he is the father who stepped up,,)

• still, port took great care of little saki during the time he and kiku were together (as a fun fact, nagasaki was built using both lisbon and kyoto as models). but of course, he wasn't allowed to see her once japan's isolation period started.

• i'm still not sure if kiku actually believed port was gonna hurt him and make him one of his properties something the protestants (especially the dutch) claimed that could happen if japan kept allowing christianity, but i do believe he realized port wasn't gonna give him the loyalty he needed. starting from the fact that the japanese thought the portuguese weren't gonna give up the practice of their religion while in japan, unlike the dutch who complied in everything the japanese asked them to do.

• kiku was very hurt after the break up and it made his trust issues worse. in my interpretation he was young and in love, and port had met him at one of his most vulnerable points... but he understood he had to do it both as a duty to his people and the divinity of his soul.

• they met again after japan opened up the country. portugal was one of the select group of countries to get a treaty with japan alongside the powers of that time. the treaty was written in japanese, portuguese, dutch and english. do whatever you want with that information (?).

i might have missed a few,, sengoku/early edo japan is my favorite era to research so i have read a lot about these two - they really are a very interesting combination and i encourage anyone who likes any of these characters to look up a bit about their relationship!! 🙏