any recommendations for works with interesting take on death? I don't care if it's romance...

i dont have any recs, sorry. Buuuut could i get the name of the one you where talking about??

quite the ordinary halloween

this a great story that deals with grief
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/my_broken_mariko/

This one is so good!!!
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/happy_birthday_1/ (it's bl but not the main focus of the plot)

Book of the Dead
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/book_of_the_dead/
It's mostly horror based around people who have 'left life' for their own reasons, and how they have to navigate the afterlife for people who took that way out. (It goes into back stories).
There are lots of grief, regrets, and guilt and all that. But it's not the loved ones of the deceased that experience it, it's the dead themselves. It's still ongoing though so who knows what we may see in future chapters.
But so far it has been pretty good building up the plot and setting.

huh this has smut??

oh I remember this one, after reading it I spent a week thinking about it

Shiyakusho (Death City Hall)

https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/composing_spring_in_this_room_where_cherry_blossoms_bloom/ (GL)
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/the_story_of_a_person_who_grew_a_flower/ (GL; high schooler x teacher, but the feelings are unreciprocated; hanahaki disease)

Sleeping Dead by Asada Nemui
One Room Angel by Harada

https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/i_will_die_soon/
He has to experience death 13 times in 13 different body's because he "belittled" death by controlling when he dies (suicide)

I think it's more like implied than anything ? There are some scenes in the beginning that are pretty suggestive, but I feel like it was fade to black.
I honestly don't remember as it wasn't the focus at all. But it was definitely in the earlier chapters.

Maybe it means there will be smut? But I'm not sure, considering where the story is atp.