sahlty's manga / #Bittersweet(32)

Read till chapter 37 for season 1 then move to mature version for season 2 and 3

one of the more unique plots when it comes to yaoi, even the gender bender element in here is interesting to watch it play out. some angst in the middle and much politics at play but ultimately a happy ending

Thought it was going to be a fun and light read about comic characters becoming sentient of their existence but honestly this story took me on such a ride. FL realises she’s been losing period of time and memory constantly. She meets the Dried Squid Fairy who is also sentient and he tells her more about the world and rules of the comic world she’s living in. From there the FL also finds out she’s just a supporting character of this world. FL becomes determined to live some way of her life her own way and seeks to find her true first love and she does find love in a supporting character that only goes by Number 13. As the story progresses, more characters become sentient and all try to make their own decisions instead of being powered by the storyline the author has crafted for them. FL tries her best to approach the nameless number 13 every time she’s able to and soon ML becomes sentient too, aware of his measly existence and laments over the loneliness of being a nameless extra. ML and FL get closer and fall in love, FL gives ML his own name - Haru, noting that every day she spent with him was all memories they created for themselves. All the sentient characters go through their own hell form unrequited love to suffering from a terminal illness that will soon claim their life like the case for FL. Alas, it comes time and FL’s fate in the story is to die from a failed heart transplant surgery. In her final moments, Haru finds her and she thanks him for everything. According to the Dried Squid Fairy, who is actually another one of the author’s characters which she reuses in different plots, conscious of all his past ‘lives’, once a character is killed off/dies, they wait in the darkness until they are called upon again. So, in the ending, FL dies, returns to wait in the darkness until the Creator calls upon her again. FL and ML finally reunite, carrying the memories of their time together from before, in a new story, new setting, new future.