Smollkuma's manga / #neighbours(2)

When coworker sees Atsushi walking through the crowd with Ibuki and Hiiro, look at how much Ibuki has grown. The coworker has also aged, but not Atsushi (or Hiiro, obviously) which is why the coworker did not believe it could be him. More story showing how their relationship evolved would have been awesome but I’m good with this ending.

Satou, a straight businessman with a kindergarten-aged son, falls for Takahashi, his gay neighbour, who loves children. Takahashi has endured censure and abuse, and Satou and his cute son had to deal with abandonment by his ex-wife, so they both bring their baggage to the relationship, and this manga shows how they deal with it and master their instincts. Satou is a little more authoritarian than I like in men, and I almost dropped the story at one point where he crosses the line, even if his first concern is for his son. The story is so fearsomely earnest and tries so hard to be wholesome and sweet almost into maudlin territory, it's difficult to stay offended for long. A lot of Kitazawa Kyou's stories tend to dance on the edge of that place where the autocratic seme almost overwhelms the compliant and good-hearted uke, so this is clearly a power dynamic preference of the mangaka's. It isn't mine, though, but this time, Kyou doesn't let the story go too far.