Overall cute story, super cute ML, hot art, hot sex, but it felt a bit dragged out in the wrong places (some dialogues as well as flashbacks felt annoying, a bit irrelevant or interruptive, they could've been shorter and still shown us important pieces of information and character backgrounds, and we could've instead seen more character development in the present) and somewhat unfinished. To give it the benefit of the doubt, maybe that's the purpose of it - to show the beginning stages of love, just when it's freshly blooming (like how most love stories are shown in media tbh) and the moment they break out of the friendship zone they've both felt pushed towards for different reasons. The beginning, however, was honestly chaotic, especially considering the MC was someone who drew clear boundaries (later on, we learn he's been harboring feelings, too, but it's still out of character for him) yet just alcohol was enough to have full on sex with the ML and uh masturbate with a dildo in the same room as him. If he wanted to be secretive about it, he could've done it in the bathroom. I don't think he intended to tempt the ML in any way, given the MC was afraid of losing the friendship and probably from experiencing homophobia given his experience as a kid. Overall, weird decisions. People are messy and all, but it would've been nice to have consistent characterizations and behaviors given the personalities and fears of the characters.
What I do appreciate is how the MC being almost fatherly in his concerns and nagging at times makes sense given the story showed us he was parentified early on and was seen as the unproblematic, hard working kid, which leads to growing up too soon. The fact he could only show affection through concern and worry as a sign of his childhood being taken away from him a bit too early, him struggling with expressing his own feelings being another byproduct of that (like trying to keep it cool and collected like what's expected of an adult). The ML though - he's an absolute gem. So passionate, so yearning, so earnest, so loveable and relatable at times (like how he was so desperate to hide his pain while not realizing that's worrying the MC). Taking these personality traits into consideration, both bring the best out of each other and have this black cat × golden retriever dynamic. In that way, the story really delivered.
I'd say the part that felt most touching about their dynamic is how worried the MC was for the ML's passion, how the MC wanted to see him happy and successful in his pursuit of professional basketball, and the way it hurt him so deeply to witness that dream fall apart for the ML. That gave their relationship more depth, and it saved the story for me. It's a very solid 3.5/5 for me.
Overall cute story, super cute ML, hot art, hot sex, but it felt a bit dragged out in the wrong places (some dialogues as well as flashbacks felt annoying, a bit irrelevant or interruptive, they could've been shorter and still shown us important pieces of information and character backgrounds, and we could've instead seen more character development in the present) and somewhat unfinished. To give it the benefit of the doubt, maybe that's the purpose of it - to show the beginning stages of love, just when it's freshly blooming (like how most love stories are shown in media tbh) and the moment they break out of the friendship zone they've both felt pushed towards for different reasons. The beginning, however, was honestly chaotic, especially considering the MC was someone who drew clear boundaries (later on, we learn he's been harboring feelings, too, but it's still out of character for him) yet just alcohol was enough to have full on sex with the ML and uh masturbate with a dildo in the same room as him. If he wanted to be secretive about it, he could've done it in the bathroom. I don't think he intended to tempt the ML in any way, given the MC was afraid of losing the friendship and probably from experiencing homophobia given his experience as a kid. Overall, weird decisions. People are messy and all, but it would've been nice to have consistent characterizations and behaviors given the personalities and fears of the characters.
What I do appreciate is how the MC being almost fatherly in his concerns and nagging at times makes sense given the story showed us he was parentified early on and was seen as the unproblematic, hard working kid, which leads to growing up too soon. The fact he could only show affection through concern and worry as a sign of his childhood being taken away from him a bit too early, him struggling with expressing his own feelings being another byproduct of that (like trying to keep it cool and collected like what's expected of an adult). The ML though - he's an absolute gem. So passionate, so yearning, so earnest, so loveable and relatable at times (like how he was so desperate to hide his pain while not realizing that's worrying the MC). Taking these personality traits into consideration, both bring the best out of each other and have this black cat × golden retriever dynamic. In that way, the story really delivered.
I'd say the part that felt most touching about their dynamic is how worried the MC was for the ML's passion, how the MC wanted to see him happy and successful in his pursuit of professional basketball, and the way it hurt him so deeply to witness that dream fall apart for the ML. That gave their relationship more depth, and it saved the story for me. It's a very solid 3.5/5 for me.