Superb work of art.
I loved how the angst was not caused by a third person (like the girls or Matsumoto-san, who didn’t use his friendship with Asakura to his own advantage, but decided to help his beloved and eventually became the main reason of the MCs’ emotional re-encounter): society with its prejudices about homosexuals and its obligations for upper middle men, and the MCs’ own fears and struggles managed alone to ruin the harmony of their relationship. The earthquake was extremely symbolic and represented the (momentary) harmful failure of their relationship, due to Asakura’s inability to convey his feelings to Tachibana and not responding to the “carpe diem”way of life. Another important symbol of the story is definitely the two marbles that Tachibana always carries with him, and they represent the unbreakable link between the two lovers. However, just like their container has to break to take out the marbles, in the same way both Asakura and Tachibana need to sacrifice something to gain the freedom which will eventually lead to the fulfilment of their love. Both MCs cut (and thus “break”) ties with their own families, with an important difference: Tachibana, having loved willingly Asakura for a long time, loses his family in fatal circumstances, while Asakura, who eventually realised his feelings but was mostly unaware and afraid of them, was given by fate the chance to choose between his family and the love of his life.
I love the bittersweet ending, even though realising that Tachibana died at only 60 and Asakura survived him made me tear up a little… (coherently to the whole story LMAO).
The historical context happens to perfectly translate current prejudices in a kind of world which was not so temporally far from now.
Tamayura (yuki Ringo)