i want to find the perfect way to describe all the things this made me feel.
i'd be lying if i said that i don't cry easily for the sake of making this seem more impactful. so i guess the best way to put it is that i haven't felt that same type of pain since arcane. and if you've seen arcane, then you should know what i mean by that.
and if you don't, well.
i want you to know a few things:
spoilers from here on out. wouldn't recommend proceeding if you haven't read it yet.
upon reading the first few chapters, i was hesitant.
it felt wrong, seeing midori kiss maki like that, only to have her invite maki to her wedding soon after. i thought, "this woman must be insane, cheating on her husband like that; kissing someone else and then inviting that someone to her wedding. you're breaking two hearts, here!"
i don't like cheating plots. i despise ntr. i hate anything that frames dishonesty as "romantic" with a burning passion.
but i had a gut feeling. i had a feeling that it would be more than that - better than that.
i was right.
when we (including maki) first meet tazune, we get a glimpse of who he truly is.
tazune is...to put it simply, a dick.
tazune doesn't see women as women.
tazune sees them as pawns.
Girls are cute, right?
They're weak, and cry a lot,
and they're easy.
tazune is the type of guy you wouldn't even want to catch a glimpse of. unloyal, abusive, manipulative.
his behavior - the dishonesty, manipulation, abuse, lack of loyalty - all of it is, somewhat, him trying to get back at the girls who'd lied to him when he was younger. he's your average misogynist.
maki sees through him the moment he speaks about midori. the lack of respect, the belittlement; he spoke as if it wasn't his own fiancee - as if he didn't love her at all.
maki's anger only grows from then on.
your introduction to momo makimura is quite simple.
a childhood lover who still hasn't moved on.
midori had broken up with her out of the blue, saying that they needed to stop fooling around.
at first, it's going to infuriate you. "fooling around?!?" you'll think. "was what they had nothing to her?!?"
but at some point, i understood.
midori was young. and the young are not one bit more immune to painful mindsets than the elder are. what midori said came from a place of uncertainty and internalized homophobia. the idea of women loving other women being "fooling around" wasn't a mindset she'd decided to have all on her own. those ideas were planted into her mind by outside elements - like her family, perhaps, or the people she was friends with.
while the manga doesn't actually show much of that part of midori's backstory, i think that one thing you should do as the reader is understand.
but of course, when midori comes waltzing back into maki's life, speaking as if everything that had happened between them back then was nothing but young and dumb fun, you're bound to raise a brow.
It's that bad habit of mine.
midori copes by laughing things off. she laughs because she's afraid of showing how she really feels. because if she does, she might lose everyone she has left, and midori...
she'd rather lie her tongue off than ever be alone again.
for maki, fear is an old friend. it enters her room without knocking, drapes its arm over her shoulder, and greets her with a smile on its face, as if to say, "did you miss me?"
maki is many things. but above all else, she's afraid. afraid of midori walking away from her again; afraid of her heart breaking again; afraid of not being good enough for people to stay.
her cowardice comes from that fear. she never says what she wants to say because she's afraid of what'll come next.
and then there's midori.
her fear of loneliness influenced her so much to the point where she tossed herself into an abusive relationship and convinced herself that it was fine; that it was normal; that it was okay.
because everything was fine as long as she had someone, right?
wrong.
at some point, midori begins to break. the cracks that tazune had made worsened enough for everything that was left inside to spill, and it's then that she realizes it: this isn't what she wants. she can't just settle for anyone.
especially not when maki's just waiting for her like the light at the end of a tunnel.
both of them, though both deathly afraid of speaking for themselves out of fear of being left behind, finally fight for themselves.
for each other.
though this was one of the most painful reads i've had this month, i can also say that this was wonderfully comforting. it was a nice sight to see all these characters that felt so human. so real. so flawed. and those flaws are written so well that you don't hate them for it at all but instead understand and love them all the more.
i really don't regret reading this, and i hope that you won't, either.
i've said far too much now, but i think i'd be breaking my own heart if i didn't say at least a few words about komari.
the moment she hesitates after being asked if she wants a boyfriend, and then lies and says that of course she does - i think that's when she became a favorite character.
i understood her. the way she acted all confident on that phone call with maki only to fearfully lie about herself in front of her friends was something i understood. i know what it feels like to be that afraid, and to cover it up with this false confidence i've spent years perfecting.
to put it simply, that was just a very long way to say: i love you komari <3
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