This episode had a very interesting reveal at the end, which backs up my theory on the current Kowloon being a special manifestation of Kowloon based on feng shui.
Before I cover the events of Episode 7, there’s something I need to go over about the previous episode. ecargmura at ArumJournal pointed out that the janitor Yulong greeted had his hair drawn and coloured exactly the same way as Xiaohei, and I’ve reached a conclusion that given Kudo’s connection to Kowloon, it may be based partially on how he saw things from back then before Kowloon was destroyed, so maybe the older male Xiaohei is who Xiaohei actually is in the present day, and Kudo just misgendered Xiaohei all this time without realizing it, which is why there’s a younger girl Xiaohei coexisting as the same time as the male Xiaohei. It wouldn’t be that they’re clones but that the young female Xiaohei is who Kudo always saw Xiaohei as being, which is how a fake and a real version can exist at the same time.
It opened with a flashback of Kudo sharing with Gwen that he wants to propose to Kujirai B since Kowloon is being demolished soon to make it as special for her as possible. Gwen asked him whether he really knew her, which made Kudo doubt for a moment whether he should propose to her, but Gwen clarified he didn’t want to put a damper on his plans.
Back in the present, Kudo catches sight of Gwen close to the site of the explosion, and they meet up in a secluded area with both of them confirming that they’re the real versions of themselves. Gwen also shared that he’s staying around ’cause there’s someone precious to him, and Kudo throws the question Gwen asked him in the past back at him about whether he really knows that person, leading to Gwen saying he’s getting a better sense of what that person is like now, prompting Kudo to say that Gwen is sticking around to make sure he doesn’t end like him, probably in the sense that Kudo lost his fiancée and became jaded. Gwen also shared that he intends to take Kudo away as well, but Kudo has no intention of leaving Kowloon, and the shot of the sunflowers shows that he’s still haunted by Kujirai B’s death and intends to live and die in Kowloon.
We then have Miyuki on a call with Yulong saying he intends to reach Dr. Wong’s clinic, and he doesn’t know whether the second fake version of Dr. Wrong will be there. Miyuki hangs up when Yulong says that he has a bad habit of keeping things to himself with him not sharing with Gwen that he grew up in Kowloon, showing that Kudo was right to throw the question Gwen asked him right back at him since Gwen thought that Miyuki was also an outsider to Kowloon. As Miyuki continues walking, he then feels unwell, attributing it not to heatstroke but to him being too conscious of this special manifestation of Kowloon.
We then get a flashback of Gwen meeting Miyuki for the first time at a bar after the Hebinuma Group demolished the Second Kowloon Walled City, which Miyuki wasn’t happy about, which is why he wanted a drink. Gwen almost immediately hit on him and asked him to accompany him to a better place. As they’re walking outside, Miyuki lays into Gwen, saying that his spiel back at the bar about him being a jack-of-all-trades living hand-to-mouth is insincere and an act meant to avoid people getting jealous about his excellence and that it’s no way to live, which gets Gwen flustered to the point that he admits that he’s kind of broke right now but doesn’t want to lose Miyuki, and that’s why he wants to treat him for a drink for now. Miyuki kissed Gwen during this interaction, revealing his snake tongue, saying that he’s not as well-bred as he thought he is. When they’re in bed together, Gwen reveals he doesn’t care about whether Miyuki is a man or woman, and even though he wouldn’t have initially hit on Miyuki if he had revealed himself to be a woman, he now believes he’d love him even if Miyuki presented as a woman, which takes Miyuki by surprise given he had never met anyone who wasn’t interested in what sex he is. He, much like Reiko and Yaomay are, just want to live his life as his absolute self. We know his father wants him to live one way, but he has his own ideas of how he should live his life.
Back to the present, Miyuki wakes up in Club Flower Garden, a burlesque club run by a Ms. Rose. He asks her whether she knows of a half-Japanese woman named Sihan, who may or may not be his mom, and Ms. Rose answers no. Miyuki then suddenly felt unwell again, maybe ’cause he was conscious about how fake this Kowloon is, and Ms. Rose suggests that he sees Dr. Wong. The lights then go out ’cause of the collapse/explosion from yesterday, and it turns out Reiko had come to investigate since they had a work order here. She then spots Miyuki, and when she mentions his name, Ms. Rose says that you’re not supposed to reveal the names of people you recognize in places like this. Miyuki and Reiko then both indicate they had some business with each other.
Back at Hebinuma Pharmaceutical, Reiko asks Miyuki about Zirconians, which she reveals she heard about from someone who saw something online and that his company was involved. He asks about her memories, and she reasons that she never had them to begin with since she’s a different person, but she nonetheless indicated her desire to be her absolute self, which got a reaction from Miyuki since he feels the same way. She believes there are things only she can choose, and she will become her absolute self, not someone else, leading to Miyuki asking who compares her with someone else, to which she responded Kudo. He then thinks that living with someone who has the same face as somebody you loved is exactly the revenge he has planned for his father, but Kudo accepts the current situation and chooses to be here, which he cannot understand at all. After Reiko notes that she has friends who accept her as her, Miyuki puts it out there that what’s bothering her is that Kudo hasn’t acknowledged, which she believes needs to happen for her to be her absolute self. He then answers that she is neither a Zirconian nor a clone, so they don’t know what to call her, and he comes up with the term “Generic” to describe her based on his knowledge of generic substitutions of brand-name substances.
Yulong then finds Kujirai B’s file at Dr. Wong’s clinic in Hong Kong, and when Dr. Wong catches him in the act saying he wouldn’t cooperate with them, Yulong says that he wanted to use Kujirai B as a reference for the Zirconian project since the current Kowloon has replicated many dead people. Kujirai B apparently had insomnia died from suicide.
We then got a shot of Kudo watching for it to turn 14:00 or 2:00 PM, pulling out his “faat” mahjong good luck trinket, and in mahjong, the 14th tile is crucial to complete a winning hand, and Kudo saying he wishes it was a scam was probably him cursing his good luck that he was able to find the tricket in the rubble of the mess of Sai Hing Tower since it makes him remember Kujirai B that much more even though it’s painful for him given she was the one to say that his name sounded like ‘faat’, which is a sign of good luck in Kowloon.
Reiko then revealed to Yaomay that she intends to move out of her apartment unit with her moving out allowing her to proudly say that she is herself and that she shouldn’t shoulder the burden of Kujirai B’s life. When Yaomay suggests that she throw out everything, Reiko says Kudo should be the one to decide what happens to that apartment unit. At night, Kudo knocks on Reiko’s door and says at midnight that it’ll be the anniversary of Kujirai B’s death. Yaomay is pissed that Reiko changed her mind ’cause of Kudo, but she admits that the anniversary of Kujirai B’s death is a huge thing, and so she’s happy when Reiko says that she wants patterned curtains. Yaomay then says that there’s a fabric store in Hong Kong she has really wanted to go to, and they make plans to do.
Back to Gwen, Miyuki apparently told him not to eat Kowloon’s food, perhaps due to fear that he’d get stuck in Kowloon or something, which gets him the idea to order some fresh food from outside of Kowloon. Just as Reiko is about to step outside of Kowloon for her shopping trip with Yaomay, Gwen stops her saying that she cannot leave Kowloon or she’ll disappear, which is backed up by how the guy who delivered the pizza he had ordered being unable to see him. Consistent with what we saw in Episode 5 with the guy who drove Gwen to Kowloon saying that there was nothing there, the man with the pizza could not see the re-creation of Kowloon or Reiko, and Yaomay herself looked up at the sky when Gwen stopped Reiko and said that something feels wrong, showing that she may have felt Kowloon not wanting Reiko to leave. Gwen then reveals that Kowloon was demolished three years ago, but Yaomay reacts in disbelief while Reiko believes everything Gwen has told them since she’s a logical person.
I believe at this point that my theory about the current Kowloon being a special manifestation of Kowloon based on feng shui could very well be on the right track. While Yulong believed that people need to resonate with something to see this Kowloon, I think it’s moreso the case that the current Kowloon has a laundry list of people, real people or second versions of them, from Kudo’s time in Kowloon living out their lives with their yin and yang counterparts. It makes sense that Reiko can’t be seen by those who can’t see Kowloon if we accept that feng shui exists in this story even though we can’t prove that it exists in real life.