Ooh, I forgot one of my favorite parts. After the bathtub sex, Akito has a dream where he comes face to face with the dream alter-Ryouta, who looks down to take the hand of the younger Acchan. They both turn and walk away, and then both become the children they used to be. I think this is Akito finally letting go of his guilt.
Holy crap this makes SO much more sense now
Sorry... i want to thumb up.
Thanks. I thought it was gonna be like this other story I read where the dude had legimite had multiple personality disorder. Another one collected trash and was a horder due to childhood trauma. And last one was imagining aliens to cope with his childhood rape. I thought this story was going in that direction and gonna go super dark like this other manga with head trauma.
It doesn't explain what happened to Ryouta's parents though? And Ryouta was also looking at the sister with that dark look while Akito was sick in bed. So it wasn't JUST Akito's dreams.
SPOILERS, SORT OF, AND SOME THOUGHTS. This is much deeper than it appears to be, but still cute, sweet, sad, and funny all in one. Maybe should have memory-loss and psychological tags added to this manga. Anyway, my take:
From what I can read of the raws and sort of understand. I can't guarantee the accuracy because I didn't pull out my dictionary, so my apologies.
To start, Ryouta has lost his memory due to an injury when they were kids, and Acchan blames himself. The reason why it seems like Ryouta has a split personality is because those scenes are happening inside of Acchan's mind. He's feeling guilty, and imagines a very different Ryouta, one that blames Acchan for what happened, and punishes with sex. Maybe it's Acchan's love and lust for Ryouta, along with his guilt that's making him imagine things this way? I think it's why Acchan chooses to be uke - his guilt makes him submissive to Ryouta. I'm not sure if they do have sex IRL at this point, hard to tell. At the end of volume 1, while Acchan is sick in bed, there is a scene of Ryouta standing outside of his room. Then, Acchan sees Ryouta standing by his bed, then the blow, job, etc. - but that's Acchan's delusion, and he's calling out "Ryou-chan, Ryou-chan." Hearing him, the real Ryouta enters the room to check on him, and that's when Acchan kisses him and says "do it like always." It appears they masturbate together (beginning of next volume), but no penetration IRL that we know of at that point.
In the next volume, Acchan finds Ryouta in an alley way, appeared to have been beaten up. This is the alley with the wall and the stone blocks where Ryouta was injured as a child, and it reminded Acchan of what happened when they were younger. So next we see the flash backs to their childhood, Acchan's mother's death, why he started cooking, and how he met Ryouta. The accident was when Ryouta was being bullied and Acchan intervened, and was cut under his eye with a knife by one of the bullies. Acchan tells Ryouta to run away with him and during their escape, jumping over a wall, Ryouta falls and hits his head on some stone blocks. So then Ryouta is in a coma. He wakes up 2 years later - he recognized Acchan but wonders why he's so big, and wants to know what he's going to make to eat. He's still his sweet innocent self, but has lost his memory. Acchan on the other hand, is full of guilt. That's why he's always saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" and "I made a promise" but Ryouta always wonders why. His promise was to always protect Ryouta.
Later, Ryouta is badly beaten up by Sora-kun, the long haired bully, but ends up fighting back and punching Sora really hard in the stomach. Ryouta takes the beating in stride and still tries to be friends with him. As a result of that beating, his head starts to hurt, and it appears that he regains some of his memory of what happened when they were kids. After telling Acchan that he remembers, Acchan still feels super guilty and always apologizes, but Ryouta forgives him (of course), tells him it's okay and that he loves him. At one point they bathe together, and end up making love. Ryouta seems innocent about it, surprised by his reaction (and erection) to cute Acchan, and this is what makes me wonder if they've actually had penetration sex before or not. Anyway, gotta wait for translations to figure that out.
Since big-hearted Ryouta has been trying to befriend Sora, Sora starts to have feelings for Ryouta (repeat, starts to), but sees what is going on between Ryouta and Acchan. Sora means "sky" btw, which has some meaning because somewhere in there Ryouta tells him he has a nice name, and points out the beautiful sky. Short part, but sweet. The last page we see Sora spilling a few tears, telling himself, ah, it's too late. He was an asshole, but a short backstory gives you some feelz.
Will there be a story for Sora?