mental health struggles

characters: skyler & yeonduk

skylar has ADHD and anger issues (and PTSD from a specific traumatic event), yeonduk shows signs of anxiety and PTSD from being bullied. skylar has yeonduk’s support but has to work to win his heart. VERY realistic struggles with ADHD symptoms and a cute ending, albeit rushed.

bullying, severe depression, planned violence towards a child (never carried out), neglect, emotional abuse

characters: tatsumi & shinobu

tatsumi shows signs of autism (struggles with social cues, BIG hobby of collecting, withdraws from others, etc) and shinobu learns to work with his symptoms. interestingly, he realizes that tatsumi fell for him because he was in the right place at the right time and gets jealous. great side characters, great issue and resolution, great post-confession development.

characters: ruri & takashina

ruri has a stutter, which causes severe social anxiety when talking to people. takashina makes a mistake and misunderstands his condition, but is educated by a coworker and seeks forgiveness. great mistake >> apology arc, but the other drama is a bit hard to read. still amazing and gives insight into the reality of speech disabilities in different social environments.

mild bullying (flashbacks)

characters: ashida & shima

ashida has clear issues around commitment and vulnerability, but refreshingly isn’t a jerk about them. shima slowly falls for him and works his way past ashida’s emotional walls in a surprisingly realistic way. only downside is that the last chapter is too short.

sexual activity started w/o consent in ch 1 (consent is given for the rest of the story)

characters: shima & togawa

shima seems to have anxiety and insecurity stemming from his past. togawa is traumatized from losing his family. togawa learns to be gentle and attentive to shima while shima learns to be considerate of togawa without dismissing his feelings. the themes are lowkey but resolved well.

mentions of suicide, mentions of child death, flashbacks to a toxic relationship

characters: mikage & nanahoshi

mikage is timid and a little anxious, but maybe he’s just an introvert and i’m reading too much into it. still, he isn’t used to building relationships and slowly learns to accept nanahoshi’s feelings and return them in kind. extremely soft and packed with info about plants.

characters: gyul & hyunho

gyul socially isolates himself and has trouble accepting hyunho's support/feelings. hyunho is patient and persistent, letting gyul open up naturally. they get together and a large part of the story focuses on their established relationship. realistic and healthy communication!

mild bullying, mild injury, parent leaving

characters: tomoki & hidaka

hidaka is an ESPer who seems to be on the spectrum. a cute supernatural love story that shows tomoki falling for hidaka and hidaka’s dad learning to let him be independent. short and sweet.

characters: izumi & haruto

haruto is probably on the spectrum (bad at social cues, intelligent but unaware of “common sense”, has his own way of doing things, etc). izumi seems a bit rough but is actually just a teddy bear. he adapts to haruto’s quirks and takes care of him well, being mature and not causing needless drama. lots of post-confession development, great side characters, and a cute secondary couple.

mild bullying, attempted assault

characters: yuri & ogasawara

ogasawara is very autistic (bad at social cues, often absorbed in his own little world, clear hyperfixation/special interest, etc). yuri falls in love with him because of his passion. the confession and getting-together scenes are adorable. top tier comedy and a silly but sweet high school romance.