Full summary + thoughts (SPOILERS obv):
Lead is told by customer at his uncle's restaurant that they saw his mom with a young man and suspect that she is cheating and being a sugar mama. Lead is concerned because she seems to be doing shady things and they recently had a falling out. Lead follows her and sees her exchange an envelope with a young man and corners said man to demand him to stop being a gold-digger. The man refuses, because why should he? So lead suggests he will replace his mom and be this man's sugar mama instead. Lead ends up going on a date/not date with the man and enjoys himself and doesn't actually pay for anything, then they run into his mom, the young man is sick so they take him to their home. Lead and his mother have a heart to heart. It turns out lead came out of the closet and his mom was not 100% accepting. They haven't had a proper talk since when lead told her "never mind" and just left mid-coming-out. It turns out she signed up on the sugar mama app to learn more about the LGBTQ+ community from one-on-one interactions. She accepts and encourages our lead and our lead lastly realizes he really likes the young man. Young man continues to see our lead but then one day gets a letter from his mother stating she wants to disown him for being gay. Lead comes over after man cancels date because he's worried and the man confesses about the letter. Lead proposes (basically) and says that they can become family instead and tells the man that he's actually adopted. He goes to tell his mom about his new boyfriend but his mom stops him and says to make it a surprise (even though she knows already). She reminisces about how her son has grown and that she'll back him up and tell the father (who's on a business trip) when the time comes.
Thoughts:
SQUEEEE!!!
I've been seeing more wholesome works tackling the topic of being gay in an unaccepting world and it's fucking great. Honestly, the first chapter got me wary with the whole sugar baby business but wow, I really love the exchange between mother and son and the fact that the author didn't make it all rainbow and sunshine with our second gay character. The fact that he agreed to the "sugar baby" thing to find affection from a mother-figure was really heartbreaking. Of course, the romance's development is very fast given the constraint of the chapter length and I always find myself with doubt when characters confess undying love to each other but still being fresh to whole relationship but nonetheless this was really cute. I'm disappointed that the rest of the lead's family does not find out he is gay. I would've loved to see wholesome, tender-loving care from everyone and welcoming our second lead into their family after knowing about his circumstance, especially the dad!
Aiou Futari