beta
and I bet that's the main reason why people are moved into giving this a high rating, coz my gosh the plot is so freaking angsty and dramatic, quite boring tbh. I get the translator's notes too, I also found it hard to finish this work and lost interest midway; good thing it's short.
Basically the seme is just a horny sadboi tattoo artist who fell in love with the uke coz he's pretty, and then the uke is this implied boytoy (also a sadboi) for a known artist who's just pathetically codependent from start to finish. I guess they wanted the sensei (artist in the story) to be the villain here but there's not enough backstory or interaction to justify it, so when he slapped the uke and asked him to leave immediately it felt lukewarm, like where's the internal struggle for the uke? why should he be attached to the sensei in the first place? is it because he (sensei) was the first to appreciate him? the first one to shower him with admiration? after all, he was his muse. It would make sense if the uke is not conventionally attractive for that appeal to work tho, coz if everyone already thinks he's pretty what's more to another nice treatment and compliment, you get me? if however it was simply because he was picked up by the old fart and was raised to be the beautiful "creation" that he is now, then his attachment for him should be stronger than his attachment to the seme whom he just met a few times and now has developed feelings simply coz 'his touch is different', ya kidding me? he's just handsome and ya'll both horny, that's all there is to it.
The supposed sweet moments also come off as cringey and the characters were just essentially flaunting their beauty like a pretty vase that's all hollow inside, which to be fair, do have its merit coz the artist really is talented when it comes to drawing pretty characters, author-san just lacked skill in character and plot development.