Cressida's manga / #unrequited love(11)

They sure take their sweet time with this. Nothing feels special because every moment gets mulled over for entire chapters.Pretty boring. The translation is wrong 80% of the time, very confusing especially since every page has over 100 words.

Very rapey throughout the whole story, in classic old bl fashion (this was one of the first bl manga I read) the nostalgia really kicks in with this one.

Basically, the uke spends 15 years of his life suffering thinking his best friend could never like him back. He stays away from him for a long time but finally tries to be his friend again when he needs help with his daughter. He even has a very toxic relationship with a senior just as a way to punish himself. At last, the guy liked him the whole time and even confesses first, everything just works out fine by the end. All that angst was for nothing. When re-reading I would definitely skip the first 2 chapters.

The "regular person unknowingly starts dating a gangster paring" is quite popular, and I love it, especially when it explores the ethics of someone who is very good to you and would never hurt you being a violent person to pretty much anyone else. There is a lot to explore there and well, this story didn't do any of that, they were more interested in the awkwardness of a tough-looking older man interacting with younger people through a game chatroom and events related to the game. And that was fun too, we got to know him better and saw how lonely he truly was and how much better he felt when he was with our main character. I truly enjoyed the beginning and the middle of this story, I found the dynamic between the seme and uke to be quite refreshing, but unfortunately, that joy was about to end. The plot takes a very bad turn when in a fit of jealousy, the seme attempts to rape the uke, killing all the trust we had built in him and ultimately devaluing the development of their entire relationship. It completely ruins the idea that even though he was a mobster, even though he could hurt the uke he would never do so, rendering the dynamic completely obsolete.

Lovely to see an actual socially awkward person talk about how hard it is to express yourself while in a relationship.

I really love this one, simple and sweet. The characters are great and the story is so wholesome.

Slow burn 10/10, genuinely heartwarming. I appreciate how much thought the uke puts into giving his answer after the seme confesses to him, he wants to be sure his feelings are deep before agreeing to date him. The same goes for the seme who is very respectful when it comes to the person he's been in love with for a long time, he never even considers playing immature games(like pretending his dating someone, ignoring him) so that the uke will realize he loves the seme faster, he genuinely doesn't want to pressure the uke into anything.

The seme is a lonely scary guy, but the uke approaches him anyway because he's nosy, seme falls in love extremely fast, and is quite pushy with the uke. It's pretty generic, but it has some cute moments.

I have been back and forth about this story. At first, I hated it then years later I loved it, and now I find myself somewhere in the middle. While I can still appreciate the drama that comes from unrequited love, these days I cannot help but wish for a more balanced dynamic. The idea of someone suffering for years due to unsaid words and unfulfilled wishes is just too painful to me. I know pain highlights joy but sometimes I wish for stories with neutral happiness.