Maybeblue's manga / #Jerk(83)

Pretty Unrequited Love

It keeps getting better and better

For a long time MC has been in an urequited love with his friend who's soon gonna get married. Heartbroken, he enters a gay bar where he's approached by the popular and handsome Kou. After what was supposed to be a one-night-stand, they meet again at MC's office and Kou turns out to be his new superior at work. After some time MC starts to warm up to the caring and pampering (and kinda pushy) Kou, however we soon realize that he isn't as nice of a person as he appears (instead he's a real ass). The plot itself is nothing new and the characters have like two personality traits at best but we get to see a jerk seme suffer for at least 3 chapters while he repents and chases after a quite unwavering uke and it's honestly very satisfying. Sometimes you just wanna read a simple jiwon-from-bj-alex redemption arc and this definitely does the job.

I didn't like this...like, at all . To be fair I never like anything that romanticizes rape, especially if the experience is portrayed as painful and traumatic for the victim, and I think we all agree it's ridiculous that the mc falls in love with the rapist like it's nothing. I've seen this trope play so many times I don't even complain about it anymore, but I feel like this time the author really put an effort to write a frustrating story. Not only the main character never blames the other guy for what he did to him, he also gets treated like shit afterwards by him and has to chase and APOLOGISE to the guy for who knows what reason. The rapist never gets a redemption arc, he doesn't show a single shred of guilt and never even apologises, he does whatever he wants and if the protagonist tries to refuse him he either blackmails him or manipulates him into giving in. When the protagonist does something he doesn't like, even if it's clearly nothing to be mad about (like getting lost in a crowd...wtf you pressed for?!) he punishes him and constantly pushes him to his limits. He never takes care of him, he never shows sympathy, he never compromises, he never tries to change for the better, he never takes the first step when they need to reconcile even if he's literally always in the wrong. This couple never has cute scenes, you only ever see the protagonist being really stressed out, desperate and insecure. I usually enjoy psychological bls, because even if they're twisted they go deeper when exploring the characters motives and personalities, as to make you understand why everyone acts the way they do, and because the characters are heavly flawed you can also see some major character developments. There's nothing like that here. The bad character is super flat, he has no reason to be so toxic and there's no development whatsoever, so he's both bad and uninteresting. The protagonist is your typical weak BL uke, he's insecure, socially awkward and always does whatever the seme wants him to. He doesn't value himself at all and gets desperate the second he's tossed aside. He endures everything the seme does to him, he never voices his opinion. Again, a super flat character, no development, no personality, you just feel sorry for him because he's pathetic and no one even tries to help him understand he deserves so much better. This was a twisted story but not the harada-like, intresting-twisted type of story. Probably the only story I've ever read that made me both bored and mad.