I started thinking "the plot is good and suit my tastes". Even so, I thought it would be a common one, about brotherly love and an initially mean guy who falls for the uke...but no. This is much, much better. This surprised me like hell. Everything about it is good. The characters, their growth, the pace, the development, the outcome...everything!
I didn't like Tatsuyuki at first. He talks like a pedophile and it's creepy ("Nii-san didn't like it"). But then I realized both the semes are my type. Tatsuyuki gets to me in the sense he loves his brother in a twisted (and not because it’s almost incest, but because he wants to see Takashi suffer), obsessive way that got me hooked. He’s as sick as to not realize it himself, thinking it was only because of the extra attention he got.
And Kurose's promiscuity and seduction made me shiver – in a good way. I love sarcastic, amoral characters that are players and jerks.
But it’s more than that. The characters' personalities are so well elaborated! While both Tatsuyuki and Kurose are as real as human beings; making mistakes, falling in love and feelings guilt and pain, Takashi's the one who grows up the most and is perhaps the more mature one, even though he's naive. And, OH MY GOD how Takashi surprised me! I thought when things got hard, he'd be the crying, stuck-up uke, but no!
Since he's been brought down, he goes and gets revenge on his mean semes! I absolutely love it!
And if I've already liked Takashi as an insecure and reluctant uke, I loved him as a cool and amazing one!
This is the kind of mangas I'd like to be longer because it's really interesting. Now, why do those fluffy mangas that have no story and that the characters get together in the first chapter get five volumes? Anyways, it was perfect the way it is and wouldn’t have been so good if they dragged it to make it longer.
The pace is perfect. Their relationship develops the way it should be. Then I had no clue who Takashi'd end up with. And frankly, I didn't care. The story was so beautifully constructed that I would've loved it no matter who he ended up with.
Being presented with Takashi kissing another guy, both Kurose and Tatsuyuki had a choice of what to do...and Kurose was the one who actually got crazy over it.
Then there’s the way Takashi forgave Kurose. At first, I thought it was going a little too fast and that it would take longer for someone to forgive something like that, but I can relate to it, actually. Sometimes, you love someone so much it doesn't really matter what they do, as long as they love you back. I think that's the feeling. And the omake was exactly the "missing part" I needed to settle this matter!
Even the cliché "kill me" is too good. I even love how Kurose smirks lightly when he says it, like he knows he found a way to make Takashi believe him and can't help but feel good about it.
And the issue about saying "I love you"? So beautiful! The words are so thrown around these days that they almost lack value, but in this they really are precious!
The art is absolutely gorgeous, and when it shows them a little older, they are amazingly hotter!! Takashi looks so adult! And the sex scenes…ahhh! I like painful sex scenes like those...the bite and the scratch...very sexy.