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Two teenage boys barely knowing each other. One day one learns the other is selling his body to get ...
This story is something that leaves a kind of bitter taste in my mouth because it's so, so close to being good—great, even—but there's one thing that rather dramatically weighs it down.
Having accidentally bumped into Shiraki—a popular, seemingly rich classmate of his—bloodied and running away from who he later finds out is one of Shiraki's "clients," Kuro impulsively decides to run away with him in order to shield him from the dangerous life he was living. They'd be getting a fresh start together, with promises of seeing the sunrise together and a better future. But after running into the police, their whirlwind romance is brought to an end after three days. They end up losing contact and going their separate ways once brought back home.
That is until years later, when they end up reuniting by chance. And when they reunite, their feelings—both known and unknown—end up rising back to the surface.
I personally felt like the post-time skip was rather stronger than the first half of the story when they were running away together. While the first half of the story had this romanticized filter painted over it, which I loved, I felt the emotions once they reunited were more interesting to me, and felt more understanding and digestible as a reader.
After they end up going their separate ways, Kuro gradually forgets about Shiraki and the three days they shared. That is until he walks into a bar and sees Shiraki is a bartender, and everything comes rushing back to him. And when the memories of everything come back, so does a new feeling form—guilt. Guilt over the fact that he didn't fight for him, that he let that distance grow between them until they were strangers again, that there was so much he could have done to help that he just didn't do. He could have said something, did something. He could have stayed. But he didn't. And that eats at him, it washes over him and is something he ends up dealing with in a way that makes him have to do it head-on.
Shiraki was also an incredibly good character. He was a character that was inherently sad; everything about him was shadowed by a depression. He was a prostitute who was sold off by his mother, forced into it because they were poor. And there was one scene I don't think I'll ever forget where Kuro says he smiles a lot, and Shiraki apologizes and says it's just out of habit now, because his clients would treat him better if he had a smile. So he had just gotten used to constantly smiling. And small things like that build his character, he is a man built of bittersweetness and sorrow. And I really fucking love characters like that. He's something that feels almost Shakespearean in how his character is almost a tragedy.
However, I did say there was one major thing keeping this story down . . . And sadly, it is the act of them actually running away together. I just didn't buy it. I felt there was no reason for them to run away together because I didn't feel like there was any instant connection between them, there was nothing there that'd warrant Kuro taking Shiraki's hand and just abandoning everything to keep him safe. It's so intensely romantic in theory, yet in execution, it just felt rash and silly. I usually don't like instalove but I think a story like this needs that instant moment where time slows down the first time they look at each other and you can just see that there's something pulling these two men together. Because in this story, there's just nothing, and when your whole story hinges on this, there being nothing is bad. Like, really bad.
The lack of connection is also why I like post-time skip more than the time they ran away, because the lack of connection does fall almost entirely on Kuro. He's the main character during the first three chapters, so the lack of connection only really impacts him. After finding out Shiraki is being whored out by his mother, you can easily understand why he'd take Kuro's hand and be swept away, and you easily understand why he fell in love and stayed in love for all these years after. You don't have that with Kuro, though.
To end on a positive, I will say that I thought the art was pretty great, and the writing itself—the prose—was quite beautiful.
Giving it 2 stars but it's more like 2.5