Introduction

Su X Kevin is one of the more rare ships in the HI3 Community. Although Su made his debut in 2020
when Second Key was published, he wasn't very known in the NA, EU, and SEA community until
Elysian Realm was released. So it was mainly the CN Community that had a lot of Kevin X Su
shipping. Up until late 3.8 and 4.0, Dr. MEI was the only person Kevin was ever shipped with and was
considered as probably the only acceptable ship that involved him. Su and Kevin are just best friends
in the main story: both Second Key and Elysian Realm emphasize on it heavily. But this article is
focusing on the canon moments between them that may seem like hints of Su X Kevin to many
people. Speaking of canon moments, let's talk about Second Key: Su's first debut.

A Recap Of Second Key

Su's Introduction

Let's start off with the beginning: Su talked about how he's a Pioneer of the Previous Era and that
he's in charge of Project VALUKA, a task that requires him to perform virtual analysis on other worlds
in order to find solutions to defeat the Honkai. But immediately after that's done, he talks about
Kevin. He revealed that he was the Pioneer that sealed Kevin into the Sea Of Quanta. But before
that, he calls Kevin "[his] friend."

In Chapter 14, Fu Hua talked about Kevin to Kiana. When talking about Kevin being sealed, she
doesn't seem to regret Kevin being sealed despite being an old friend and comrade of his. Yet when
Su talked about sealing Kevin, he regretted it a lot, considered it as a sin he committed, and even
talked about his self imprisonment in the Second Key as "an act of redemption", despite that he
made a decision that was for the better of humanity. Even though Su is Kevin's best friend, this
seems really surprising considering how Kevin was advocating for Project STIGMA, which Su was
completely against.

The Dharmakaya Trial

Moving on from Chapter 1, Su makes Durandal experience his memories, with the only difference as
that some of her loved/close individuals replace people in his memories. Durandal replaces Su, Rita
replaces Kevin, Ragna replaces Chief Physician Fall, and Otto replaces Professor Speirs. The first trial
and memory, Dharmakaya, begins with Durandal (as Su) introducing the time the memory takes
place. Durandal/Su talks about PE's 3rd Eruption incident in Nagazora and mentions Kevin/Rita.
Uhh, Su? It seems like your longing for Kevin is a lot for a friend from high school.

There's a panel in that scene that includes Durandal/Su saying goodbye a picture of Kevin/Rita in a
basketball jersey. Although this scene may not seem noteworthy, please keep in mind that despite
the fact that it's just a picture of Kevin/Rita, Su/Durandal treats it as if it's the real Kevin/Rita. Judging
by how he/she talks to the photo, it almost seems like saying goodbye to the picture when going to
to work was a daily routine. But even if Su had done that because he missed Kevin a lot, talking to a
photo of him isn't exactly the most normal form of longing for a friend and sounds borderline
obsessive.

This is Su's "reason" for joining MOTH.

Totally because you wanted to "give it a shot" and not because you wanted to see your "best friend"
again.

Moving on from that, Su/Durandal talked to Ragna/Fall after talking about his/her MOTH application
to Paul Long. When Su/Durandal told the doctor about applying to MOTH, Ragna/Fall immediately
called it a "shady club." Calling MOTH a "shady club" is considered as an understatement considering
how many of the people there are ruthless, are willing to conduct inhumane experiments on
humans, and don't care about the wellbeing of their patients as much as Su does. To quote Professor
Speirs: "We both know that the MOTH isn't a kindergarten." implies that it's not exactly the best
place in the world. Su would definitely refuse to work with these types of people considering how
he's obsessed with his patients' health and mental states. Yet he chose to apply for MOTH despite
that, why?

Su/Durandal never explicitly tells the reason for joining MOTH, yet it's subtly hidden within one of
Su/Durandal's thoughts. After the talk with Ragna/Fall, Su/Durandal's thoughts immediately focuses
on Kevin/Rita. Su/Durandal was thinking about how he heard about Nagazora survivors were taken
in by MOTH and wonders if Kevin/Rita could be one of them. Although Su has never explicitly said he
applied to MOTH for Kevin, this thought alone seems to imply it's a large factor. When Kevin joined
MOTH, it was because he didn't want to leave Dr. MEI, so Su joining MOTH for Kevin isn't an
implausible idea.
The Sambhogakaya Trial

Fun Fact: Su and Professor Speirs used to go drinking at taverns and bars together.

After Su/Durandal's mission of tracking the 8th Herrscher, Kevin/Rita personally met up with
Su/Durandal. This may seem like a very trivial scene, but Kevin is supposed to be the #1 MOTH
soldier in terms of strength, he probably should be deployed to help Dr. MEI deal with the 8th
Herrscher right now instead of talking to Su. Interestingly enough, Kevin personally told Su that MEI
wanted him to be in charge of Project STIGMA, not anyone else. I won't go into full detail for now
because Elysian Realm shows this same scene, but with more details such as Su's thoughts and
emotions compared to the manga.

Su's Memories

Skipping over to a few years after joining MOTH, Su attempted to cure Dr. MEI's Honkai Radiation
infection, but only managed to delay her death with his medication. During MEI's dying moments, Su
promised that he would look out for Kevin, always stay by his side (we all know how that turned
out), and make sure he doesn't stray from the right path.

Anyone have tissues?

When Kevin comes back, Su immediately apologized for being incapable of curing Dr. MEI, yet Kevin
doesn't even blame him. Now you could interpret this as "Kevin is mature enough to not blame Su",
but this is MEI we're talking about. Kevin is famous for being in love with MEI: he joined a military
organization to stay with her! He even tried to commit suicide after finding out MEI died. So it's
surprising that Kevin doesn't blame Su a little bit or is slightly angry. But it's still a good thing that
Kevin never blamed Su for MEI's death either way.
After the 50,000 year sleep (52,000 to be exact), Su & Kevin woke up in 4000 BC to do their Pioneer
jobs and travel around the world. They stuck together until 517 AD, which is to say they spent 4517
years together without us seeing the details. (Please miHoYo, I want to see files or dialogue about Su
and Kevin's travels while witnessing the rebirth of civilization). But what we do know about their
travels is that they end up influencing religions (Su is a Buddhist and implied to be the Buddha),
myths (Shamash was a "myth"), and legends (the Legend Of King Arthur).

In HI3, legends and myths are usually based on real life events, but they're modified so it's easier to
understand. Some legends and myths created in real life such as people like Merlin, the Lady Of The
Lake, Jingwei, Fuxi, and Nuwa are real people in HI3. Meanwhile in HI3, Merlin is based on Kevin and
the Lady Of The Lake is based on Su (yes, Su gets mistook for a girl, so that means he can be a waifu).
Since the legends are kept the same story wise in HI3 and IRL, we can rely on IRL's legends to analyze
HI3's legends.

In the Vulgate Cycle, the Lady Of The Lake and Merlin were actually lovers (okay, here's where all the
fanservice comes in). Not only that, the Lady Of The Lake also sealed Merlin into a cave/tree, which
sounds pretty familiar on what Su did to Kevin. Considering how the legends said the two were
lovers, that means Kevin and Su would've had to do extremely romantic things frequently. This
means: Su X Kevin had an extremely high chance to be canon during that time period.

Okay, moving on from that. Our next source of Su X Kevin scenes is the Su vs Kevin fight (if you can
really call it a fight, it's more like a one sided slaughter). At the very end, Su decided to use Cosmic
Juggernaut's First Power: Inverted Horizon. So in retaliation, Kevin tried to use Judgement Of
Shamash's 0th Power, Shamash Unleashed, to destroy Cosmic Juggernaut's core. Now when it seems
Su is about to die, Kevin suddenly spared Su by freezing Shamash's 0th power.

Okay, that's actually ridiculous.

Prepare the tissues.

Wow, that's a pretty impressive feat! If you read Second Eruption, a 300% powered "flick" from
Judgement Of Shamash, not the Third, Second, First, or Zeroth Power, was able to melt all snow
from Siberia and destroy a Core Cascade that was going to wipe part of Asia. By the way, that 300%
powered "flick" wasn't enough to destroy Herrscher Cores and Gems, so the amount of destruction
for the 0th Power would be insane. Yet Kevin chose to freeze it with the large risk of cascading to
save Su. Even Su was surprised by this action since he was preparing to sacrifice himself the moment
when Kevin activated the 0th Power.

Kevin says nyet to that.

Wait, he's strong enough to do this?

After Kevin cascaded, Su was about to accept that both Kevin and him would stay in the Sea Of
Quanta. But Kevin being himself does another ridiculous feat: he threw Su out of the Seed of
Sumeru, which was sinking in the Sea Of Quanta. Please keep in mind that Kevin could've jumped
out of the Seed Of Sumeru, yet he chose to give Su a chance and accepted his imprisonment despite
being totally against it a few moments ago.

Perhaps it was to respect the decision that Su made or to give him a chance, but he stayed stuck in
the Sea Of Quanta for 1500 years, which greatly delayed Project STIGMA. Since Second Key doesn't
tell us Kevin's POV, we can't truly know what he's thinking. But the most obvious thing is that Kevin
still cared enough about Su that he wouldn't want him to be trapped in the Sea Of Quanta.

Get out the tissues please.

It's a shame that he realized it too late.

Meanwhile when Su was being thrown out, he realized that Kevin still cared for him and noticed that
the "friend Kevin" never left despite it being thousands of years. Su felt so ashamed that he decided
to do solitary confinement in the Seed Of Sumeru (which is isolated from existence by the way) and
overworked himself without a break (he ends up dying from it), just because he wanted to atone for
what he had done despite it was better for humanity.

The Nirmanakaya Trial

After the Kevin vs Su fight memory faded, the Nirmanakaya Trial started. The memory went on
normally as usual until Durandal makes the shocking choice of supporting Rita. Considering how
both Su and Durandal know the costs of Project STIGMA, Su was utterly shocked to the point where
his guard was let down so low, he got kneed in the chest by Durandal.

When she talked to Su about Kevin, she mentioned how he "lost his footing in the 3rd dream." So,
she asked if Kevin was important to him. Of course Su answered yes and mentioned how Kevin was
his best friend. Again, this may sound trivial, but if not for the fact that Kevin was this important to
him, he wouldn't had let his guard down so easily. Not only that, this also means even Durandal,
known for being dense and oblivious to other people's feelings (cough, Rita, cough), was able to tell
that Su held Kevin close to his heart.

Su's Dying Moments

Even his last leaf is including Kevin and himself spending time together.

This scene always wants to make me cry.

The amount of time Su spends on solitary confinement and overworking lasts for 1498 years because
he died 2 years before Kevin escaped the Sea Of Quanta, which is a ridiculously long time (like over
17 lifespans). Even while dying, Su still cares about Kevin and regards him as his best friend. In fact,
his last thoughts are only about Kevin. While he's dying, he choses to keep one leaf. This leaf
includes Kevin and Su in their high school days spending time together in a classroom alone.
Interestingly enough, this is the only leaf Su wished to keep. He didn't pick a leaf that had Chief
Physician Fall or Professor Speirs, despite being close with both of them and regretting their deaths.
And thus, the Su X Kevin content from Second Key ends here. Unfortunately since this manga was
mainly focused on Durandal and Su, we didn't really get as much Su X Kevin content or emphasis on
the bond of Su and Kevin as we could've gotten. But it's a good introduction to Su and Kevin's bond
and gives out a few details on Su's POV. But Second Key is simply just the appetizer in this case, the
most significant and the largest amount of Su X Kevin content comes from the main course: Elysian
Realm. I personally think Su's feelings for Kevin was one-sided. I also think that perhaps Su did have
a bit of romantic love for Kevin, but perhaps he never came to know that his feelings were romantic.

The reason why I think Kevin didn't love Su romantically, was because he's just too madly in love
with Dr. MEI, that it seems hard to see him loving someone else.

Of course, that's just my take and I don't plan to shut down your opinions. Also, Su isn't really "dead
dead" right? At the end, I remember him "ascending" and meeting something (that is most likely not
the Will Of Honkai, as it states it hasn't met a human in years and seems to know the truth behind
it.) He's probably still playing Go with that God or smth.