I liked it, I liked it even though I cried all night, thinking about Asakura and Tachibana, their love, their lifes, I've been analyzing this story and endings. This is something that makes an huge impact on reader's mind.
And then you realize that this story - about love between people who due to their surroundings shouldn't love each other - happened in real life so many times, and so many times nobody knows about them till now, so you want to cry again, just for them, because they were humans who loved, felt pain and happiness, but we don't know anything about these moments when they where truly themselfs.
Asakura and Tachibana was lucky enough to have their home.
And how is the ending (as there is two versions of it).
This ending(s) is a masterpiece.
First, both of endings are happy endings, although the "official one" is more bittersweet.
In this ending we don't really know if Asakura and Tachibana has met again after the first one came back to his home to break an engagement, it is not said clearly what happened after that, but we get to know that Tachibana died at the age of 60, but he was single all his life and nobody knows where his last manuscript - which he wrote before he died - disappeared, but then we see a photos shown at the exhibition at his home, and we see Asakura at a photo from premiere of one of his books so we know that they met and it was probably him who took this manuscript.
Then we have an extra and we know now that it was really Asakura who took it, and he did it because it was a story of their love, written just as Tachibana promised it to Asakura, for him to know how much he loves him. And of course, we have a dedication in which Tachibana thanks Asakura for spending his life with him, so we know they were together till Tachibana's death at 60. At the end we have an old Asakura reading the manuscript over and over again, reminding all their moments together and saying that they will see each other soon.
Before I read it I thought that one ending is bad and the other is happy, but they are together in both of them.
In second they are just still together, as they are very old and Tachibana hasn't write this last manuscript yet, because it was something he left for Asakura when he died.
I am happy that we get to know that their spend their life together and that he wasn't young when he died, so they lived with each other for a while. They will reunite again as they conquered their happiness even in this life. I don't understand why Asakura left Tachibana's home after his death, but well, maybe he wasn't officially living there. They had to keep it a secret after all.
You know, this story just ends much later that any ordinary story, when we know that our characters were in each other arms till they died, even if they died as old mans. So sad that not many known about their relationship.
It's kind of similar with "Senjou no bokura", gives the same vibe, of course I cried with it too..