I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #baseball(4)

A sombre reunion between Yuzuru and Daisuke, two former lovers who parted when Daisuke decided he wanted to become a professional athlete. It was Yuzuru who left, mysteriously, and now that Daisuke has had to abandon his dreams of playing professional baseball, and is divorcing his wife whose loyalty depended on his status in sports, he is forced to confront the past. The first chapter ends poorly, but the rest of the story improves.

Televised sportscaster, Fukurou, is assigned to cover baseball star and infamous horndog, Shiratori Reiichi, and is shocked to find himself as his lover. As this is in alignment with his feelings, he goes along with it, but there is a deception and broken engagement in Shiratori's past which pulls on him emotionally and he indulges in sex friendships. Will Fukurou ever be able to trust him? The story never gets too down-spirited and there are plenty of amusing moments thanks to rituals like meeting the parents and the usual baseball tropes about homeruns, etc.. As usual, Yamamoto's drawings make the characters seem very young, like boys rather than men, but it's a stylistic quirk, nothing more. A nice, pleasant story about a goodnatured sports reporter.